Capstone Journal Final

DATE: January 10th, 2023

“The Capstone is a unique and demanding challenge. In completing it, what did
you learn about your subject? Your skill set? Yourself?”
When I was younger, I used to dream of being a content creator, every child my
generation has had that thought at some point. In the past, I have made countless
videos for my “YouTube career” that was never consistent. This is an era in my life
that while not “bad” by any means, is an era I want to move on from. Besides
that, point, I have definitely had my fair share of “experience” in the content
creator pool. I did not realize this when I was younger, but this was no way at all
easy, let alone something I could ever depend my life on personally. Even though I
did my project on something I love—music—I still found myself worrying and
stressing myself out over one video. Of course, my life as a high school student is
quite different compared to a content creator that does this for a living, but at the
end of the day, we all have thing going on in our lives, and that the works is still all
the same. While I did not necessary “learn” anything about myself per se, I
realized many things I was previously aware about myself, such as once I stumble
once, if I do not pick myself back up as soon as possible, it will all spiral from
there, and Capstone has really shone its light there. Now that I’m at the end of
the line with the Capstone, I look back and look at all the fumbles I’ve made, all
the missed opportunities I should have taken, and the many, many times where I
was yelling at past myself like as if I was watching sports and the team, I was
rooting for did a stupid move that cost the game. There were many, MANY times
through this Capstone journey, and honestly this entire semester where I just
wish things would have gone a lot more differently. However, that is in the past,
and I am here at the finish.

“How is your project relevant to you, the school or the community-at-large?”

My project is truly relevant to me because it relates to the two things, I love the
most: music and creation. Like I said earlier, I have always been interested in in
this line of entertainment since I was a kid and doing it for real for once was a
remarkably interesting and enlightening experience. Other than I, whether or not
this project will be relevant to the school, or the community, or to literally anyone
is purely up to the individual. There are endless amounts of content out there,
and not everyone will be akin to it. Simply put—everyone has their own tastes in
entertainment, and it is completely valid if they find my project not interesting or
even downright boring. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and interests,
and it is not a race or tournament to get people to like my project. Content
creation is not about getting the most views or publicity, but content creation as a
whole is to get all kinds of content out there, in hopes that eventually, it finds
someone that will genuinely appreciate it. As much as I do not believe it, there is
most definitely someone out there that would enjoy the project I made.

“How did you demonstrate the six Core Competencies throughout this
project? (See attached Core Competency sheet)”
My Project definitely covered both Critical & Creative thinking, as well as
communication. My project covered the critical thinking competency because this
project required a lot of research, both on topics I know a lot about and ones I
don’t have much experience with at all. The hardest part of this however, was to
actually learn it and understand why it is the way it is. I believe I showed this
through the final product of my Capstone. My project also demonstrated the
creative thinking aspect of it because there are so many different creative
liberties to take account for. Format, script writing, video editing, making the
video enjoyable/engaging to watch, etc. There were so many moments where I
was just not happy with what I had, so I started once again from scratch, but I
pulled through to something I can say I’m proud of. Lastly this also demonstrated
communication because of the way I’m presenting—a one-on-one conversation
through a video, posted on one of the biggest social platforms out there. My hope
is that it will reach as many people as it needs to.

“What impact if any did your Capstone project have?”

As I previously mentioned, my hopes are that this has impacted anyone that is not
interested in the topic I chose for the video. Now, I am not expecting a huge
group of people to be impacted by this, as I doubt there is a lot of people
interested by the mix of both music AND psychology, but I know there is someone
out there who appreciates this mix just as much as I do. Hey, and if it does not
reach that person, there is also the hope that it will reach someone who does not
even KNOW they are interested in this kind of stuff, and my hope is that it will
impact them to pursue their interests in this and do as they please with the
newfound interest.
“Thinking about the whole process and your finished product, what are you
most proud of?”
I think the thing I am proud of the most is the script. It is HARD to make a good
script for a video. Most may not understand it, but script writing is one of—if not,
the hardest parts when making these types of videos. While “writing a script” isn’t
hard by itself, the factors that come into creating a “good script” makes it ten
times harder. Specifically in this type of informational-esqe video, you have to
balance research, humor, data points, morals, etc. Just so many things to account
for, and LOTS and LOTS of rewriting. I can bet you there must have been twenty
different ways my script went before I landed with what I have now, but hay:
there’s no such thing as a “perfect script”. There will always be people that will
not find it informative enough or funny enough, and that’s okay.

“What was a difficulty you encountered and how did you solve the problem?”
There were SO many things going on this year in my personal life, it almost
seemed like the entire universe was against me. Overreacting aside, I think the
biggest difficulty that I faced was right from the very start, where life surprised
attacked me and I never fully recovered from it. Without going into too much
detail as for personal reasons, something that happened in my life caused me to
lose all motivation in schooling, pulling me back about less than month or so of
schoolwork and content, this obviously includes Capstone as well. Combine this
with my previous bad habit of putting off work until the last minute, my study
habits and I spiraled out of control. It was only around mid November when I
finally got up and picked up what was left, but by then the damage had already
been done. Since then, I have been working hard to fix what was broken, and in a
way, I succeeded because I am here right now typing out my final reflection, but I
never really recovered from that academic wise. But even through the trials and
tribulations, I managed to create something I am proud of to the best of my
abilities and succeed.

“What is one thing about your finished project you wish you could change?
Why?”
I have so many things about this project that I wish I could change if I had more
time, but if I had to choose one, it would have to be the content. Right from when
I first heard about Capstone, I knew I wanted to make a video, but I did not know
exactly what to do as per the content. So, for the first few months of Careers, I
shuffled back and forth between ideas for videos. While I only presented about
three ideas to my Capstone teacher, I had around ten other ideas I whole-
heartedly wanted to go through with. Even hours into finishing the Capstone—
days before the interview even, I kept thinking of better and better ideas for a
video. I will be honest here and say that the topic I chose of Music + Psychology
was completely out of a whim here. It was, if anything, a panic decision. This was
because I was well into the semester without a clear and concise topic, and when
I finally found one and it did not work out, I chose this one because I thought it
was a good representation of my interests—music, and deep dives into the
psyche of people. While I AM proud of my capstone, I will admit: if I had the
option to do any other topic, I would take it in a heartbeat, no questions asked.

“What advice would you give to a student who will be completing their
Capstone Project next year?”
My biggest advice to anyone who begins the Capstone is this: when choosing
what to do, pick one you are genuinely passionate about, one that you know
1000% that you are capable of doing. I cannot emphasize myself enough here,
even if you know exactly what you want to do, things always don’t go to plan, and
you will realize things just don’t work, and you either have to fix it, or move on.
You can only ever fix so much before it becomes unfixable, but it goes the other
way too. Don’t be like me and switch from one topic to the other just because a
little error shows up and you don’t want to even attempt at fixing it. I understand
Capstone can be very thrilling—you’re basically given anything to do, and if you
know exactly what to do, then good for you. But Capstone can and WILL get
overwhelming, I get it. Just pick something within your current capabilities and
stick with it all the way through. However, it is up to YOUR judgment whether or
not to drop the idea, be wise about this and good luck.

“What source from your research helped you the most? (or least?)”
Surprisingly, most of my research came from YouTube out of all places. This was
kind of nice to me considering there’s actually people on the platform with
interests similarly close to mine, and that they actually made videos for people to
watch, some being high quality in editing and research as well. I was honestly
expecting most of my research to come from random websites that have too
many words to comprehend but I only ever used 3 or 4 websites, for minor
information at best too!

“What is one thing about your approach to your project that you wish you could
change? Why?”
The one big thing I wish I approached differently to my project, and honestly my
life in general is my work habits. As I had said before in a previous question, I tend
to have the bad habit of putting work aside until the last possible moment, and
with this kind of project, this was definitely NOT an option. It was quite the
challenge to force the habit away, but even with many hiccups down the road, I
somehow pushed through to where I am now. All I had to do is to keep moving
forward, that’s all we can ever really do though, huh?