TATIANA GANCEDO—MAGWD FALL 2023
Welcome to my Capstone Progress Blog. A space to organize my thoughts and process. Follow my journey towards completing the final capstone project at Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD).
December 5, 2023
From week 1 to week 14, the core of the project stayed intact. As the weeks passed by, many conversations transformed the idea to its final form. I don’t think the project would have ended up where it is today without the professor, five peers, two potential users, and the design expert. Nine perspectives in total plus the nine locals that participated in my survey. A collaborative project that I think can still benefit from sharing with more local experts.
I had a feeling that reaching out to the chosen subject matter expert was going to be a challenge due to his busy schedule of doing weekly Miami tours. He is known as the encyclopedia of Miami and sounded like the best person to connect with. But, there are other organizations that have similar knowledge to him that can contribute to this project. It was very difficult finding a contact page to connect with them online. In the future, I think the best way is to show up in person to their frequent tours and start a conversation. I could use a little more networking in my career.
My capstone went through many refinements. The first being the scope of the project I proposed had many deliverables along with the main app prototype. I wasn’t sure how much work was considered enough to satisfy the course so I looked back at what other students had done in previous years. I was happy to find out that I could cut a lot of the proposed deliverables since the app had developed into something deeper than I first intended.
I was surprised of how much I kept refining my hook and problem statement. I was tackling a big and serious problem. Something that I’m not used to talking out loud about. I would say it was the first time that I publicly expressed how I feel about my city. So that was a big accomplishment for me. There is so much more that could be said with this project and I know I’m not supposed to cover it all. I’m happy to take a piece of that problem and make it into something hopeful for the future of the city I was born and currently live in.
November 26, 2023
Capstone page is done! Presentations start this Wednesday and end on Thursday. Can’t wait to see everyone present <3
November 19, 2023
I’ve been refining and practicing the final presentation since last week. I’ve gotten better at speaking about it and feel more at ease. All that is left is to finish the capstone page and present the final presentation!
November 12, 2023
I did some major visual updating to the capstone page today. This week I worked on the story of the final presentation in order to come up with the right visuals for the capstone page. It amazes me how much I keep tweaking the story of my capstone 12 weeks into the project. The more I go through it, the more I refine it to be easier to explain. With these updates, I need to go back and update my bibliography page to reflect the newly added information that’s on the presentation.
For week 13, I’ll be focusing on practicing the verbal part of the final presentation. I spoke for 15 minutes for the first draft. I’m hoping to narrow it down this coming week.
November 4, 2023