Capstone Project : cs@union

Computer Science Capstone Project

If you are a Computer Science major at Union, then during one of the terms of your senior year, you will enroll in a section of CSC-488: Computer Science Capstone Project, where you'll work on your senior project. You'll be in a section of 4 to 8 students, each working on projects related the same general topic chosen by the professor supervising your section. Your instructor might organize the section as a single group project, as individual projects, or as a combination of the two.

In addition to satisfying a CS major requirement, CSC-488 also satisfies the Union College Senior Writing requirement.

Outcomes

By the end of the term, you should be able to:

What You'll Do

Enroll[1]

During the Spring term of your Junior year:

  • During the pre-approval period, review the available CSC-488 sections for your senior year.
  • By the pre-approval deadline, fill out the CSC Senior Project Pre-Approval Form to indicate any constraints and preferences you have for the available sections.
  • In Week 8, the CS department chair will notify you which section you will enroll in.
  • You will automatically be enrolled in the appropriate section in Week 8 of the preceding term.

Investigate

Under the direction and supervision of your project advisor, you will:

  • Read scholarly literature relevant to the research question;
  • Design, in detail, any experiments or other activities you need to answer the research question;
  • Implement any software or hardware, if any, needed to carry out those experiments;
  • Perform the experiments or other activities you planned to answer the research question;
  • Analyze the results of those experiments; and
  • Evaluate whether you have answered the research question.

Communicate

You will document all of the your work by:

  • Giving an elevator pitch laying out the proposed project (week 4);
  • Participating in the project showcase where you will share the results of your work with the department (week 9-10); and
  • Writing a thesis report fully motivating the project, describing the methods used to address the research question, and explaining and analyzing the results (by end of finals week).

Timeline Summary

Junior Year Spring Term

Week 5
Available CSC-488 sections announced.
Week 6 (pre-approval deadline)
Pre-Approval Forms due.
Week 8
Students notified of their section.

CSC-488 term

Week 4
Elevator pitches.
Week 9/10
Project Showcase.
End of finals week
Thesis reports due.

Resources

Literature review

Finding related work
Reading related work

Union Offices

Writing

Writing your report(s)
Creating your poster

Rubrics

Templates