Completed Journal Entries 1-5

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Completed Journal Entries #1-5

Journal Entry #1

With the start of the second half of the capstone project, I’m excited to be working with

my same group as we have a pretty good understanding of how we work together.

I believe that the best way to organize groups would be to start with assigning

responsibilities to each group member. From my personal experience, our team has run better

by identifying a group leader, as well as someone in charge of organizing meetings. The leader

of the group leads the group by organizing our direction, as well as meeting with the professor

or different occasions to ask questions about the project or discuss feedback. The main function

of the person organizing our group meetings is just that… speak to everyone in the group and

arrange a time that works with everyone to meet.

For this project, I was not leader or one who arranged meetings, but I do believe I have

been a vital contribution to this group by always pushing our group to get on top of deadlines

and get the work done. My contributions with connections that I have made over the years

have also contributed a lot to our project.

The capstone project is a very serious undertaking. I have worked in groups for as long

as I can remember, and I am familiar with long-term projects as every year in high school I

worked with a group to create a year-long project. I believe that the capstone project is great as

it allows us to do research with a decent amount of time.

I hope that this project allows me to experience working with a group on the same

academic level as me to come up with a university-level product. I hope that our project is able

to be learned from and motivate those that will come after me to create a great product.
The covid-19 pandemic, I believe, will pose the biggest challenge for us. It can be

difficult to collaborate on a task if the group cannot be together to discuss the different aspects.

However, I am more than confident we can still achieve a great result. On the bright side,

meeting through zoom definitely allows more flexibility in the times that we can meet.

Communication is key in any group environment, but I think it will be vitally important

to our capstone project. Our group needs to be able to communicate well, to the point where

we almost know what each other is thinking. We have to be on the same page. We also need to

be open to each other’s input on our work to improve it to the best it can possibly be.

Throughout the previous semester, we all got to know each other pretty well and I am very

confident in my group’s abilities.


Journal Entry #2

I wanted to preface this journal entry by saying that the majority of our team was

affected by the winter storm, so not much work was done in the days prior to speaking to

professor on Friday.

This week, the project is really starting to take a new shape. We have decided on the

vision for our project, as well as established various tactics for how our interviews with industry

professionals will go.

The Friday meeting with professor gave us a considerable amount of direction, and we

also managed to get many important questions/concerns addressed.

My contributions for this week included meeting with my group, as well as meeting with

professor on the next steps for our project. We were regrettably unable to meet with Evan due

to his busy schedule, but we were happy to be able to meet with the professor to discuss our

project. In addition, I was very content with my team this week for their quick and timely

responses, as well as their timeliness and readiness when it came to meeting with professor on

Friday.

I am very excited about the direction we are taking our project, and as especially looking

forward to interviewing industry professionals to ask about their experience, as well as attain

some information on their compensation/benefits. I believe our project will be heavily based on

the data that we can attain through interviewing/surveying different groups of people.

I have begun to formulate the outline for out interviews that we will be doing, and I will

be sharing that with my group as soon as it is completed, but I do believe that everyone in the

group has been working on lining up and scheduling interviews with professionals.
Our vision for the upcoming week is to begin and hopefully finalize our interviews, as

well as send out an online survey to student workers to gain their perspective as well.
Journal Entry #3

At this point in our project, I am very satisfied with our project so far. The actual data

collection is my favorite part, as we are getting to survey people and get their understanding as

to which benefits are important to them. I have been very surprised by some of our responses,

as it shows how people in different situations think so much differently from one another.

We definitely hope to expand on more of our project with the weeks to come,

specifically formulate clearer recommendations for our final project since at the moment they

are not where we would like them to be. Formulating great recommendations takes a lot of

time and thought, but I am confident me and my group can come up with some great

recommendations for any employer reading our report.

I have had some great contributions since last writing my previous reflection. I have

contributed to the surveys, as well as worked on writing various sections of our report. It seems

as though everything is coming along nicely. It has been very good to hear feedback from

professor on various aspects of our project as well.


Journal Entry #4

The capstone project is slowly creeping toward being complete. I believe our team is

really good at working together at this point, and I am happy that we never face any issues

when it comes to being on top of our deliverables and meetings. Everyone in the group is

reliable and very easy to communicate with. At the time of writing this, we have just finished

wrapping up the rough draft of our report. We spend the past few hours reviewing all of the

notes that we had from meeting with professor, as well as the recent feedback that we had

received about our previous report. We have about two weeks until our final project is done,

and we seem to be on track. We are hopeful to hear professors’ thoughts this upcoming Friday

4/16 to discuss our rough draft and ask for feedback. On this final draft I was able to take some

of Professor’s feedback and redo/rewrite certain parts. I was especially happy to reformat our

charts to make them more appealing and easier to read. Our group leaders have been taking

our project in a really good direction, and I’m happy with what we have to show for our rough

draft. I have also been working closely with my teammate, Sean Close, to really develop our

data we have gathered and analyze it using graphic visuals.


Journal Entry #5

It has been so gratifying to learn so much about my topic. Throughout two semesters

my team was able to analyze the benefits that are important to employees of different age

groups. The most impactful insight for me was definitely the research that we conducted in the

forms of surveys and questionnaires. We were able to gather so much concrete data by asking

our peers and people in industry to complete these surveys, especially the way in which

different age groups prioritize different benefits. In the previous semester, we learned a lot

about just a few individuals in interview me and my team conducted, but by sending out

surveys, we were able to gather data on far more people.

For the most part, our project ran smoothly. Our team encountered a few hiccups along

the way, especially on the recommendations portion of the project. We were able to overcome

this situation quickly by speaking with our advisor Evan Vestal, as well as by coming together as

a team to tackle this obstacle. We were able to solidify our recommendations by finally hearing

feedback from professor, who told us we had come up with something really great (which was

fantastic to hear).

This experience has taught me a lot about leadership, teamwork, and commitment. To

start with leadership, it has taught me that sometimes everyone must be a leader, and to not

rely on one person. Throughout our project, we have all taken on leadership roles in the various

sections of our report, as well as to conduct research. Our actual team leader facilitated the

assignment of these responsibilities, but we all took leadership roles in our respective sections.

I have loved working with my group, I feel as though our communication just got better over

time and were at the point now where we always run through a rehearsal, a draft, or anything
of that nature without any hiccups, while still remaining efficient. This year-long project has

showed that me and my team are committed to getting the job done and using each other to

get it done quickly.

If I were to have changed anything, it would only have been to conduct more research.

We took quite a bit of time to collect our data, and we wish we could have gathered more,

however, it is very time consuming and we felt as though we had bothered our peers and

people industry enough at this point. We wish we could’ve had a larger pool to gather data

from, as the bigger the sample size, the more accurate the results become.

Although I am not accepting a job offer after graduation (I am starting my own business)

I do believe that this experience will help me in my future endeavors. Teamwork is a

fundamental part of any business, and this experience has definitely developed my leadership

skills.

Throughout using zoom for meetings, google docs to manage our reports/presentations,

and other technology to do our work, we have developed great skills to manage a project such

as this one virtually. This project during a pandemic-situation would not have been possible 10

years ago, and I am grateful for the technologies that exist today to facilitate work from any

location or distance.

My team and I had an unwritten rule that we would not waste any time conversating

until the work was done. We would spend time working on our project, and once it was done

wed ask about how everyone was doing in school, etc. We managed our time really well by

staying on topic while working on our project. Personally, I did the same while working on this

project, I tried my best to always remain focused. Additionally, I always planned and made time
to work on this project every week, never letting more than a couple days go in between me

working on this.

It has been an absolutely phenomenal experience for me working with my team. I have

learned so much and am extremely excited to continue my journey after graduation.

I thank my team for their help/guidance throughout and I wish the best for them in their future

endeavors as well.

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