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Senior Project
All ISAT majors have to complete what is known as a senior project before they can graduate. It is the source for a lot of stress for many senior ISAT majors. However, it also is an opportunity to use all the stuff you learn in all the ISAT classes in a real world scenario. Some people work with companies and some come up with their own ideas for the project, but overall it is a good first step into what life might be like after college.
The reason I mention the senior project is because although I am not quite a senior yet, my senior project has already been started. We started having meetings for our project during spring semester of our junior year. There are three people in my senior project group including myself. You get to choose who you want to work with which is great. I always hate when teachers pick groups for you. I get to work with two of my friends which definitely makes things easier.
Our project involves trying to figure out the best way to give people access to information concerning water in the Shenandoah Valley. There is a great need for this because there is no one place for people to go who need to find, for instance, a person they could contact about water conservation. I feel like I am doing a horrible job of explaining this, but hopefully you get the gist. At first, our job was going to be to use a database already in existance and improve it and then make a website or user interface for it.
The first step though, before you can create a user-interface is to find out from the users what they want. This is probably the hardest part of the process because it is very time consuming. We did this by creating focus groups and making surveys. Actually I really had nothing to do with this part of the process because that is what a member of my group is doing this summer for her internship. So when we all regroup in the fall, she will be able to tell us exactly what we need to do to.
Alright, sorry if I was boring you with all that! I just wanted to tell you a little bit about my senior project because I'm sure you will be hearing about it a lot during my senior year since it will probably be a major headache for me during my senior year! haha. Actually though, if you choose a topic for your senior project that you are really interested in, then the project can be something that doesn't seem like work at all, but something you look forward to doing.
Posted by Ashley on June 27, 2005 09:29 AM | Link | Email Ashley
