For my capstone, I partnered with fellow senior Kade Cao to create a website, called College Compass, to help juniors and seniors with the college application and decision process. The website contains information about FAFSA and deadlines, resources like Xello, college myths, workshops, networking, advice and experiences from alumni, and much more. I also created a youtube channel for the post-secondary office that can be used by future CALs as another platform to share information with the SLA community.
While going through the college process myself, I realized how stressful and confusing it was. Though SLA provides numerous resources for students, it can be hard for everyone to be seen and for one person to handle all of the college needs of seniors and juniors. My goal for this project was to create a product that could be edited as things changed over time, but mainly provided additional support and information for students. I also wanted it to open students’ minds about what to consider and what other options are available to them. My portion of the capstone was to interview SLA alumni about their college application experience and how they’ve adjusted. In order to host productive and useful interviews I needed to do a lot of research about questions to ask, the differences in kinds of schools, and also research other post-secondary options. I ran into some trouble while trying to get in touch with alumni because many of them didn’t use their personal emails. However, I overcame this by finding alternative ways of getting in touch with them. One thing that I wish I did differently was include information about trade schools. I wasn’t able to get in touch with any alum who chose that path, but I included information about other options like schools abroad and gap years.
Through this project I gained a lot of helpful information for the transition to college that I’m about to make and also advice that I wish I had heard before going through the college process. I also gained a lot more confidence in my own voice and talking to people that I either don’t know or don’t know very well.

College Compass Website Link: https://vssyen.wixsite.com/college-compass

My annotated bibliography:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q5FvSNyC-pRjcVgDd3shvHbQl9ek0AE0XgKI4Wswoos/edit?usp=sharing