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“I think that it benefits people who are already an organized person, like myself.” Fowler said. that there are guidelines for sources them. Fowler further said that while she feels the structure of Capstone is open and encourages student creativity, the predetermined page count of the literature review and devised research paper may restrict students’ research.

“We were told that the literature review and the devised research paper together are going to be around 20 pages,” she said. “I think that having a page count in the back of your head when you think about what you’re researching makes you think, ‘I have to research a certain way.’”

Senior Meredith Hanosek, who completed her Capstone last semester on the psychology of serial killers, said that this major research aspect would help her in the future.

“It forced you to learn how to write long papers and use multiple sources and cite correctly, and cite interviews, which is something I’ve never done before,” she said.

Hanosek said that students should be given more one-on-one feedback and individualized support to navigate the Capstone process.

“I personally never got any feedback that I could see,” she said. “I just received a grade and had to ask why I got it.”

Fowler said she thinks an option to Capstone focusing on service projects would benefit many students, but she emphasizes that the decision should be a choice left to students.

“Personally, I like Capstone because it’s solely research-based and I think service projects are really beneficial for one’s learning,” she said. “I think people can learn a lot from doing service in their community, because they feel like they’re contributing to something, but I personally like the research aspect of it because I want to go into a career that involves a lot of research so I think that it really depends on the person.”

Fowler said that she views Capstone as a graduation requirement as “interesting” because “it’s some huge project that you do, just in senior year and it’s like if you don’t pass it, then you have to redo it…so I think it’s interesting that it’s a graduation requirement because not everyone wants to do that sort of class; not everyone wants to perform that sort of research and do a presentation that’s formed around a TED Talk.”

She also said that she thinks the Pass/Fail aspect of the course is unique.

“I [think] it’s interesting that it’s a Pass/Fail course, considering that it’s a graduation requirement, because you only need like a two out of four to pass the class, so I think that is interesting. [It] alters maybe how people do in the class, because you know, some people feel less motivated to actually do decent research and have a good presentation,” Fowler said.

Looking Ahead

The future of Capstone, while seemingly crucial to the UAHS curriculum, is open to change. The state of Ohio is considering graduation seals as an alternate pathway for students who are more interested in directly pursuing a career instead of attending college.

There is no timeline in place as to when graduation seals will be officially implemented and made available to students. However, Martin is confident that the Capstone project will continue to evolve in a way that is more applicable to all students.

“I think the state is trying to support [these] alternative pathways, [and] the seals students can gain from doing career exploration,” he said. “[I’d] like to see the Capstone project evolve in that way, and I think it will. We’ve had discussions about students who are not necessarily academically oriented [who] can still have the rich and valuable Capstone experience.”

Another possibility for future development in how Capstone works is finding community connections to help students in their Capstones.

“ I would like to find more liaisons in the community,” Varner said, such that a student interested in a certain topic might have a go-to contact to help them complete research or at least get started.

Ultimately, this kind of handson learning is what makes Capstone special, Varner said, alongside cultivating passion for studying a topic among students.

“ There’s a strange shift that happens in a school when kids move away from doing an assignment, and move into studying something, really wanting to learn it,” Varner said. “And Capstone provides that opportunity.”