/survival-guide-to-your-capstone

A Guide to Thriving/Conquoring/Succeeding With/About/Throughout Your Capstone

TOC

  1. Requirements Flexed Over Time (whhyyyyyyyy)
  2. Requirements can vary/are ambitious
  3. Instructor support is limited (to be generous)
  4. git clone jeremy
  5. Expect to not have significant guidance
  6. re-think your MVP to "turns on."
  7. For hardware: baseline (getting things together and turned on) will take longer than you'd expect.
  8. Outline your "dones" (have deliverables along the way) / implement in waves
  9. Some things are out our control (interviews, etc)
  10. maybe swap exploration/interview weeks so interviews are not during actual capstone time
  11. Know/explore the goal/outcomes of your project
  12. Checkins should be treated like "bumper lanes"
  13. Go into checkins with a plan on what to discuss
  14. Think about your capstone in the weeks leading up to it. Write down a few ideas.
  15. Some place to itemize TA skills/specialties.
  16. Look for contacts/potential teachers outside Ada circles to fill knowledge gaps.
  17. Research your assumptions!
  18. Give yourself time to learn something new, if that's the goal; manage scope based on that.
  19. Troubleshooting new stacks/languages will be slower.
  20. Do a structured tutorial to help internalize new things.
  21. It's ok to not learn a whole new stack. Deep dives are also valuable.
  22. Can requirements be ordered from most-to-least important?
  23. Know where you want to focus your time (front-end? back-end?)
  24. Some would have enjoyed working in pairs/groups.
  25. Do we need more solo projects before capstones?
  26. Do a personal-check-in after solo projects
  27. Estimating is really, really hard!
  28. _How to take care of yourself when overwhelmed?
  29. Make very few concrete plans during capstone; expect to be tired when you're not working.
  30. Rely on your classmates. Work/eat/dance together.
  31. Guest lectures were a struggle to pay attention/absorb; added to stress (something else to learn).
  32. context switches should be minimized
  33. How to estimate research and learning time?
  34. What would there be help with (or done as a class) versus what would we have to do alone?