Capstone

The time has come. It’s the week every senior anxiously anticipates. It is officially capstone presentation week. After weeks of learning about Marathon Petroleum, brainstorming ideas, gathering research and putting it all together in a lookbook, I can confidently say I will feel very relieved after our presentation is over on Thursday. While this project has been time consuming and a little stressful, it has also taught me so much and made me feel more confident about going into the industry after I graduate. As I look back on the past couple of months, there are a few lessons I want to share about what I have learned while working on this project.

The first lesson I learned was that sometimes the simplest ideas are the best ideas. When we were originally brainstorming ideas, we were coming up with what seemed like obvious ideas and ideas that were way outside of the box. We wanted to go with the ideas that were more complex to wow our client, however after a little bit of research and thinking through the tactics, we realized that complex doesn’t always mean better.

The other lesson I want to share is the importance of stepping up to help a team member. A couple weeks ago one of my team members was in a car accident, thankfully she is okay, however the week after the accident she stayed home to recover. During that week, the rest of the group continued to work on the project, however made sure to fill her in on anything she missed while she was resting. We could have let her get behind, but instead everyone stepped up to make sure her part was moving along too. While there are many more lessons I could share, I hope the two encourage you the next time you have a group project.