My capstone was to create 3 short stories revolving around different philosophical ideas. I spent time each week learning more about the different philosophical ideas that I wanted to base my stories around, as well as coming up with the actual story ideas, so that these ideas would be integral to the stories, but at the same time make entertaining stories. I had originally planned on making one big story, but I wanted to cover a few different ideas, so I switched to 3 stories instead of 1. This allowed me to cover more ground as well as bring a few different stories to life.

Throughout this process, I learned how to plan out a story effectively and manage my time between planning, writing, and editing. Planning is sometimes difficult to do because you want to start writing and making progress, but I found it is very helpful to know generally where the story is going to go. I also learned about many different philosophical ideas which are not only interesting, but can be applied to many important areas of life such as politics and even just day to day actions.

If you want to read my stories click the link below

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mt0BVPg8jUQenUh17saX320lPAH1A_gT3oXjoalzGGg/edit?usp=sharing

For my senior project, I wanted to explore the possibility of venturing into a hair doing business. Hair for me had always held more than a superficial significance which I partially credit to my culture and upbringing as a black woman. And while I don’t view hair in the same manner as I used to, I still think that it can be empowering (if you give it that power), and generally and usually the feeling of getting your hair done to your liking is an almost euphoric feeling that I would love to be able to give to people. The project was aimed at me seeing whether or not I could be “successful” in attempting to start a hair business of my own as doing hair had always been something I was good at but I was too scared to begin it due to fears of possible failure. Combined with fears fo possible failure, the pandemic hit and it was harder for me to envision how running a small business such as that would operate properly. My project explored whether or not I could run a temporary hair business for about 3 months. I asked a few friends and family as well as a few random people in school whether they would want to get their hair done for free to sort of be my project models as well as broadcasting that I would be doing free hairstyles for the first 15 people who filled out a survey link that I had put in my Instagram biography section. This exploration did help me in my decision to begin doing hair whilst in college and that instead of working a more traditional job while pursuing my educational prowess, I’ll be utilizing my hair doing skill instead.

For my capstone, I created a mini-course centered around bringing awareness about climate change. Climate change is an overlooked topic that I thought everyone should be concerned about, especially the 9th grade class because they are the youngest generation in our school. I thought that art was a great way to capture someone’s attention. Therefore, I had the freshmen design rockets, which is our school’s mascot, completely out of recyclables. Each rocket they designed pertained to a different aspect of climate change. I split them up and allowed them to get to work. For the display, I will be hanging the rockets from the ceiling to give the effect that the rockets are flying through the sky as well as have people become more concerned about climate change issues. My next group of freshmen that I had was given the task to come up with ways they contribute to climate change. I created a Padlet and allowed them to put weekly challenges for them to slowly become self-aware about their effect on the environment. Their next project I had with them was to design a poster board that sheds light on the ways people contribute to climate change. They were inspired from their Padlet task and got to work making a giant poster that could be a self reflection. For the display, I will be hanging up the boards and connecting them like puzzle pieces. In the end I hope that the freshmen are more encouraged to be environmentally aware and continue to use creativity to speak out about a cause.