Capstone Experience

Guidelines for Foreign Language Majors
Department of Foreign Languages
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

What is the Capstone Experience?

The Capstone Experience is a required project for majors which is designed to draw together the knowledge and skills you have accumulated during your undergraduate career at UW-Eau Claire.

How Does It Work?

The Capstone Experience is usually initiated and conceptualized in the sophomore year, before your study abroad experience. While abroad, you will go into the field to gather data and other pertinent materials for your project. Back home you will organize these materials into a meaningful body of information and report in writing about your conclusions. If you are not able to take part in a study abroad program, your advisor will assist you in developing a Capstone project to be carrier out in the United States. It is strongly recommended that, the Capstone Experience be concluded by the end of the semester preceding graduation. If you are planning to graduate in the summer, you will have to complete your Capstone Experience by the end of the preceding spring semester.

C. Defining Your Capstone Project

• Determine how your academic/professional interests may lend themselves to a meaningful Capstone project.
• Discuss your idea(s) for the Capstone project with your advisor in Foreign Languages.
• Prepare an outline of your project indicating your goals and/or research questions and the methodology you are planning to use to gather relevant data.
• Hand in a copy of this outline to your advisor.

D. Field Work

• As soon as possible in this stage, assess the feasibility of your project. Are you going to be able to accomplish the goals of your proposed project? Is the methodology appropriate to gather the data you will need? Will you need to make adjustments to your preliminary plan? NOTE: It is understood that during the completion process, your research may change direction. This may be perfectly acceptable, but it is imperative that you stay in regular contact with your advisor in order to discuss any changes or adjustments to the original plan that you submitted.
• Gather the data you need.
• Organize the information you gathered.

E. Report

Upon completion of your field work, you will be asked to hand in a report on your findings. This report should be between three and four pages and written in the language of your major. It should include the following information:

• Research goal(s) or question(s) that you tried to answer in your project.
• Relevance of the topic (why a project on this particular topic?)
• Method(s) used to gather the information that would answer your research question(s).
• Findings.
• Conclusion.
• Bibliography.

This report will be read by your advisor and at least one other member of the language section. After they have read it, they will contact you to let you know if changes are needed or if the project is ready for presentation.

F. Presentation

The final stage of the Capstone Experience is a fifteen-minute presentation of your project to faculty and students. There will be a “Capstone Presentation Day” every semester, to be determined by each language section of the department

After you have completed this final stage of the Capstone Experience, your advisor will notify you and the Registrar’s office whether you have fulfilled the requirement

You will earn neither credits not a letter grade for the Capstone Project. The project is evaluated on a “satisfactory/unsatisfactory” basis. If you receive an “unsatisfactory”, you will not be able to graduate until you make the necessary changes to your project as recommended by the Foreign Languages faculty.

Students with a double major may make a capstone experience serve both departments providing that the capstone is directly relevant to the Foreign Languages major and that the final project is presented to the department in the language of the major.

Please remember that the Capstone Experience (including the presentation and final approval by the Foreign Languages faculty) has to be completed before graduation requirements are fulfilled.

G. Recommendations

Please remember that it is your responsibility to get the project started and to work on it. It is also your responsibility to communicate regularly with your advisor and to work in close consultation with him/her. DO NOT LEAVE THIS PROJECT FOR THE LAST MINUTE, SINCE IT MAY LEAD TO AN UNNESCESSARY DELAY IN YOUR GRADUATION PLANS.