Madden

Final Capstone Reflection.

The capstone is a unique and demanding challenge. In completing it, what did you learn about your
subject? Your skill set? Yourself?

I learned much about my subject, from audio editing, to podcasting tips, to mental health knowledge
that is backed by science. These are just sprigs of what I learned throughout the project and the process
of completion. I learned that I am a good researcher, when I dedicate time to analyzing information I
have skimmed through. Not only that but I learned that I have the ability to edit audio at a decent level,
after watching countless tutorials I finally decided to give it a shot and edit the audio we had recorded,
this process wasn’t easy and was one of the most time-consuming portions of the capstone process.
What I learned about myself is that I am able to dedicate time to a task and that I am working harder
than I think, I produced a podcast that is backed by real life facts whilst still being entertaining to our
audience.

How is the project relevant to you, the school or the community at large?

This project is relevant to me as recently I have seeked entertainment by watching podcasts.

However, this is not the only piece of relevancy the project has to offer to me, my desired profession is
to become a psychiatrist, having a podcast with the main theme surrounding mental health ties into the
profession, as I will have to interact with patients, and ensure they are ok. This project is relevant to the
community as the information we disclose is important to us, as individuals we must remind ourselves,
that our first priority is our health, but in society this is lost with many of us being physically or mentally
sick, or podcast is a reminder of how important it is to have a healthy mind to ensure that we are at our
best. Our project is relevant to the school, as the experiences Trent and I experience on a daily basis are
similar to those who attend school with us.

How did you demonstrate the six core competencies throughout the project?

I demonstrated the core competency of communication by engaging with my partner Trenton,

as well as my ability to acquire, interpret and present our findings. Trent and I during the podcast
recording reflected on our personal experiences and accomplishments as well. The core competency of
creative thinking was present in our abilities to generate new ideas for interview questions and specific
topics for our episodes. Developing ideas were also demonstrated as our generated ideas were
produced into episodes and interview questions. The core competency of critical thinking was present
throughout our project, as I was able to analyze and critique my audio clips just from sound waves in the
form of Hz. Aswell as I was able to ask questions about the topic and further explore certain
components, like how to add faded music into the podcast or how to make it so there is less static
present in our recorded audio. The ability to develop and design our logo, episode scripts and in general
the podcast led to a solid product. The core competency of positive personal and cultural identity was
present in our capstone project. For example, between Trenton and I we demonstrated a good
relationship on the podcast. As well as our demonstration of personal values, strengths and abilities are
also present throughout the podcast. Another core competency present in the making of our capstone
was personal awareness, and responsibility. It took a lot of self-determination to make a lot of the
scripts, as well as to edit the audio and remove any filler. However, I also demonstrated well-being as I
knew when to take breaks from work. Social responsibility was the final core competency present in our
capstone project. Trent and I discussed present day problems in our episodes and went over it in a
peaceful way. Aswell as we built relationships between ourselves and our guests.

What impact if any did your Capstone have?

I hope for our capstone, to have an impact on students at our school. We repeatedly talk about
our personal experiences throughout life as teenagers, and how these positively and negatively affect
us. Ultimately the impact our capstone leaves behind, is that life is hard, but it’s only going to get
harder, but no one is in this alone and the best way to live is to be open with one each other, hoping to
break the stigma surrounding our mental health’s. We hope that our capstone does actually help
someone, but not only that educating them on why they’re experiencing this and teaching them coping
mechanisms so they can furthermore feel free from the mental chains.

Thinking about the whole process and your finished product, what are you most proud of.

After finishing my capstone, I am most proud of my ability to edit audio and how decent it had become
from the start. In the first few episodes it’s somewhat noticeable that I wasn’t very strong, however near
the end I started being able to edit the audio by removing certain buzzes, filler words and able to cross
fade the music over top of our voices. There were many other things to be proud of, such as reiterating
all of our information gathered into a ten plus minute podcast and the creation of our logo, or even the
process of uploading our episodes to spotify. However, the hardest part was audio editing, and it was
also my proudest part.

What is a difficulty you encountered and how did you solve the problem?

A difficult problem I encountered along the way was the ability to get started. It took a lot to really get
the project going, from learning podcasting basics to audio editing. The first episode, which is the
shortest, took us the longest to make due to the challenges and inexperience. After getting over these
challenges though, the process onward was much smoother. To begin we had to come up with an
appeasing script format that flowed smoothly and wasn’t too choppy. This format was then used
throughout our remaining episodes with little tweaks here and there, but ultimately it stayed the same.
Another situation that added to the difficulty of launching, was how we didn’t know how to upload our
recordings to Spotify. After many videos and written tutorials, I figured out that I could screen record
our conversation over discord, and change the screen capture settings to the lowest setting possible,
and raise the audio capture setting to the highest possible value. This allowed our video file to be
smaller due to the terrible video quality, thus making it easier to upload this video to a third party
converter, from a video file to an mp3 file. The mp3 file was then inserted into audacity where I could
edit the captured audio waves and add things such as music or remove filler audio. Ultimately the
launch from zero episodes to one was the hardest, as there was a lot to learn, with the subjects which I
was learning about were all vastly different.

One thing I wish I could change about my finished project?

One thing I wish I could change about my capstone, is the overall theme of our podcast. I found
that near the end of production some of our episodes, although they were of better quality, had a lower
quality of information. Not that our theme was bad, but near the end it was harder to generate ideas.
However, I don’t know what I would substitute our theme with though.

What advice would you give a student who will be completing their Capstone Project next year.

The advice I would give to a student who is completing their capstone project next year is to not
overestimate how big the project is. Yes, you are given 3 months and expected to have spent 70 hours
(about 3 days) on it, but don’t over exhaust yourself over the process. A big thing that I would suggest is
don’t make your capstone into a ton of different mini projects and specifically focus on one key
component. Initially Trenton and I were going to include video podcasts, but video editing, formatting
and producing a clean sleek product of video footage was a whole different capstone in itself, so we
scrapped that idea and focused on the audio formatting and editing process instead. Another piece of
advice I would give is to start your research process right away, you don’t necessarily have to start the
development process until probably a month before, but having the key needed amount of research will
help you complete a quality podcast.

What source from your research helped you the most?

A source from my research that helped me achieve completion of our final product was, easily, the
editing tutorial from Buzz Sprout's YouTube page. It taught me a brief way to edit and from there on I
was able to self-teach myself anything beyond the basics. This source led to the success of our podcast’s
as I was able to formerly edit our audio clips.

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw9nkEHQ5B8

One thing from your approach to your project do you wish you could change?

An approach on my capstone I wish I had changed, was the approach of finding an alternate way to
record. Instead of having all our speech on the same audio file, I wish we figured out a way to each have
different audio files, as it would be much easier to edit the filler out, without it sounding choppy.