This year’s first round of capstone presentations have recently come to an end, encountering many adjustments due to the ongoing COVID pandemic. The class guidelines remained relatively the same, with students picking a topic of their choice before writing either a paper, or creating a product with a manual that follows their essential question. Even though this main part of the class remained unchanged, students had to often make compromises in regards to mentoring and their presentations. In previous years, mentoring allowed a student to learn under the guidance of a professional on their topic. This would often involve going to the mentor’s place of occupation and completing hands-on research together. With the current pandemic, this became difficult, limiting students in how they completed their fieldwork. For those students who had found a mentor this year, the only way of constant communication was through emails and virtual meetings, resulting in many setbacks regarding the class’ overall goals.
Virtual presentations are another section of the class students must adjust to this year. Presentations in the past allowed students to invite mentors, family, and teachers to watch their presentation. However, this year these individuals were not allowed to come and only classmates were present for the talk. Presentations are a time for students to share all of their hard work and show off their success, however COVID has ruined this experience.
Capstone is a class notorious for its bountiful work and academic obstacles. Because of COVID-19, these challenges have only grown in intensity. Nonetheless, the seniors in the first semester capstone class demonstrated amazing perseverance, resulting in their overall success for this course.