Capstone, Summary and Conclusion

If anything, Capstone has been the ultimate learning and culmination experience. I came into the class unsure of how things would go. What project would I work on? How could I showcase my my abilities? Where would I go after my senior project was finally over? I can tell you that it was not without great effort, friendship, hard work, and rediscovering what it actually meant to be a Comm major, that I was able to create this Wordpress site for my final project. So many things happened and changed me. I am now pretty proficient in Wordpress and have now a understanding of how to use Adobe Illustrator, both of which I had no idea how to use before I started. I challenged and expanded my Photoshop skills, and I also learned so much about how the web functions not only as a hub of information but as a media tool that can have so many potentials.

My Capstone project

The project also expanded itself into more things than I ever thought, I created Shepherd University Career Services a functioning Twitter account that can be set for automatic tweets. I rediscovered video and photos for their site that added a sense of vibrancy, fun, and dynamic to their site.  I enabled them connections with useful software like Vimeo and Slideshare that allows them to create and distribute dynamic, multimedia content easily and efficiently via their website. I also integrated their site with Google apps such as calendar and docs to make it friendly to use. 

I also became more design savvy. I don't really have the best eye for design, but pushing myself through comparative analysis with so many other websites and researching their designs and their strategies, I am much more appreciative to see how design works fluidly and integrates well to contribute to the overall function of the site.

I understand now the importance of functional web navigation and how important it is to efficiently deliver content to the viewers in the fastest most intuitive way, I learned how using Wordpress's means for classification, such as  categories, tags, custom menus resolve to be not only helpful for storing content in an organized way, but are easy enough for non-developers to manage.

I am now passionate about the Career Services Center at Shepherd and everything that they can offer and do for students. It is such an important part of any students college career to stop in and participate in Career Services' events. Students do not realize at how powerful a resource they have here right on campus. Best of all, all the services that are offered are completely free.

I also learned that content management systems are one of the most intriguing and best resources to have for developing blogs and websites, even the free versions, such as what I used. I have a new confidence and a new love for developing websites.