Capstone?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have completed may capstone project. Well, we have to put a few finishing touches to the final report to turn in to the client next week, but the work is done and the presentation was made this afternoon. Oh man, what a feeling.

For those of you who haven't asked me the unfortunate question "So what is your capstone about?" let me just briefly tell you about it. Just in case you are interested. you might not be, which is totally fine. But, just so you know, this is the culmination of my graduate school career, akin to a thesis defense. So, at least pretend to care and make congratulatory comments (please??).

Instead of a normal thesis, Wagner requires students to do a capstone project-- this is a project completed by a team of students that have been commissioned by various organizations. Basically, we act as consultants. This was one of the major reasons i chose to attend NYU, because i really liked the sound of this real-world culminating project. I haven't loved it all the way through, because it has required a lot of work and effort and frustration, but today, i'm glad that I've done it. I worked on a project for Women in Need, which is a family homeless shelter, to evaluate the implementation of their HIV prevention, domestic violence, and education and employment services in two of their larger shelters. Their vision is to not only get people into housing, but address the underlying causes of homelessness. This is an admirable mission, and we took a look to see is the programs they offered were really happening in the shelters as planned. We created (well, my team mate Florence mostly) logic models for each of the services and analyzed them for gaps in the implementation.

Oh man, i can already SEE your eyes closing. Um... I don't really have funny stories to regale you with, because really, it's been a long process and I'm just really proud of myself. If you want to know more, come to our end of the year capstone event on May 5th. RSVP here.