Senior Projects

Senior Projects Program

The Senior Project Program represents a decades-long staple at Laguna. The Class of 2021 navigated through the challenges presented by COVID-19 to successfully undertake a wide range of projects.

Senior projects have been a meaningful and long-standing tradition at Laguna for decades and are a distinctive feature of the curriculum.

Project presentations, which take place over two days, are a capstone event for seniors.

After finishing their AP exams, seniors undertake a three-week internship in the real world where they explore a profession, conduct research, embark upon a creative project or serve in a voluntary capacity.

There are several benefits to the program. Seniors can discover that a field which they were planning to major in at college no longer interests them, thus saving them course time and tuition dollars.

Several seniors are offered summer jobs following their projects while also making connections to professionals who may provide recommendations for them in college.

In past years, students have completed projects at Santa Barbara Magazine, Dreamworks Studios, Cottage Hospital, conducting research at UCLA and UCSB and countless projects.

Last year, due to the pandemic, seniors adapted their projects and completed and presented their projects virtually. Many projects focused on helping the local community.

Seniors are required to work with an on-campus advisor who is a member of the faculty or staff and an off-campus job-related advisor and must work a minimum of 60 hours for their project.

Upon completing their project, seniors write a four-to-five-minute speech and meet with either Trish McHale or Rose Steeber to rehearse and polish their presentations.

A senior project committee led by Trish McHale that includes Melissa Alkire, Rose Steeber, Katie Pointer, and Blake Dorfman monitor and grade seniors on each step of the process, including timeliness in meeting deadlines, meeting all objectives, speech delivery and the senior reflection essay.

A Senior Project Award for the best project is announced at commencement.

Taylor Smith What is your senior project?

“I’m having members of the Santa Barbara community express art in their own way. I am creating boxes filled with art supplies, which they will use to create an art piece. I will have 10 members, from 7-year-olds to 30-year-olds. At the end, I will create a project showing passion through art.”

What inspired you to choose this idea?

“I was inspired because I think art is valuable in our community and isn’t something that necessarily requires skill and practice, but an expressed idea.”

Robbie Brown

What is your senior project?

“I’m going to work for a hyper-car dealership, Suppervettura, in the United Kingdom.

I’m hoping to learn not only how to run a business, but also how to network and how the industry works.”

What inspired you to choose this idea?

“I wanted to do this project because I find cars and the car market interesting and would like to learn more. I also wanted the opportunity to travel and network outside of Santa Barbara and this was a great opportunity”

Andreas Jackson

What is your senior project?

“For my senior project, I will be working with MyDigitialMoney, an online investment guide.

I will be learning the art of marketing and editing investment tutorial videos.”

What inspired you to choose this idea?

“My goal is to learn more about investing and video editing. I have always been interested in finances, video editing, and marketing, so this project is the perfect combination of my interests.”

WORDS by ALEX BATES PHOTOS by HANNA MASRI