MCS 499: Going out with a bang

I have come to an end of my final semester of my senior year as undergraduate college student. The final stepping stone was submitting my research capstone project for MCS 499, a course where I learned numerous academic and research skills that I never would have even guessed I’d learn. Starting off the semester, I inwardly groaned at the tediousness of having to post weekly articles. As the semester went on however, I came to be extremely grateful for them. I am grateful to my professor for the hands-on work and opportunity, and the chance to really see how I can apply myself and my thoughts.

In class we focused on a number of methods, such as class reading discussions and workshops that helped us apply the readings and theories to real knowledge and understanding. When we were told in the beginning that our class would be submitting individual 5,000 word research papers and we would be creating our own topics (out of thin air, mind you), we all sat there with our jaws dropped. Now that the close of the semester is here and this paper was the final project I submit, I found myself way past the 5,000 word mark and unable to stop. I was hooked! Professor Peake took academic aspirations and instead of turning them into unrealistic, dreaded, requirements, he used the entire semester to train our minds to think above and beyond what we thought we were capable of.

I learned how to analyze theoretical readings and apply them to my own knowledge in ways that created complete and total understanding. I learned what it means to write an ethnographic vignette, how to focus on a topic that people may never have thought about and create it and apply research in a way that can be reached and applied to society. It has been one of my hardest (yet favorite) courses, because it actually required me to challenge myself and what I already knew. It took the knowledge I already had and only expanded on it, creating a sense of academic pride in myself that the past 4 years had honestly begun to slowly eat away at. Tonight, I hit submit on this final milestone and I couldn’t be any happier or more grateful for this semester and the academic opportunities that this course presented for me.