For some members of the Class of 2016, capstone proposals are due in a couple of weeks on April 1, and questions about topics and approaches abound. The Gazelle talked to five seniors from different disciplines about the projects they are currently working on and their advice on capstones.
Zahida Rahmentulla, Arab Crossroads

Rahmentulla is working on a joint capstone in Arab Crossroads and Literature. The project has evolved into an anthropology project about a Shia Muslim community, the Isma’ilis, who are most famously known through references in pop culture like the video game like Assassin’s Creed. During the summer between her junior and senior year, she conducted several interviews with members of the religious community in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Vancouver and London and found that the way the story of the Assassins is told, both orally and through religious textbooks, has evolved over the last hundred years,

“Start early and start small,” Rahmentulla advised. “I think a lot of people start with big questions and very ambitious projects … You don’t have to keep it on a small scale but I think if you start with a small, very practical and very feasible question, then you can grow from that. But make sure you start with something manageable.”

She also noted the importance of academic advisors when it comes to writing a capstone.

“Who your advisors are is very important," she added. "If you enjoy seeing them every week and know that they can give you feedback that really pushes you and motivates you to work … then your capstone will go by very quickly. Pick someone that you know you will be in good hands with.”
Mirjana Stevanović, Mathematics and Biology major

Stevanović is conducting mathematical research on arrowhead matrices. The first part of her capstone establishes general results about these matrices, such as normality criteria and permutation similarities, and the second part is a more specific study of the numerical range of the matrices.

“When I started off, I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to achieve or where I wanted to take it, but then I started working on problems and then things started popping up,” she said. “You have an idea of what approach would theoretically work, of course, but you don’t know if that will take you to a result that is nice or elegant or useful to other people. It’s trial and error.”

As such, she said that choosing a mentor is one of the vital first steps in the capstone process.

“I’m not saying that you should be spoon fed — far from that — but it’s good to have someone who really understands that you are intellectually capable and smart, but you still [are] very inexperienced and need to learn a lot of things,” said Stevanović. ”You need someone who can guide you while still giving you space to work it out on your own.”
Mohit Mandal, Social Research and Public Policy

Mandal is conducting an ethnography of the university's security guards in the basement break room on Saadiyat campus. He spends time with the guards in the break room, chatting with them and learning about their lives and aspirations. Occasionally he has meals with the guards.

“I was always interested in this hidden side of Abu Dhabi, which is basically the stories of all of these workers that we interact with on a day-to-day basis but [who] we only see in their professional roles,” said Mandal.

“The break room is interesting as a case study because it is the one place on campus where the security guards are not in their professional roles anymore," he added. "They’re on their breaks, they’re having their dinner, they’re relaxing. So that was where my interest came from: to uncover the hidden stories.”

He pointed out that the capstone is a long project and so requires a lot of time management and consistent working.

“Keep doing incremental work, little by little over a long period of time, because it builds up really quickly,” he said. “If you write 500 words each week, by the end of ten weeks you have 5000 words. As long as you don’t leave it all to the end, it can just be condensed efforts over long periods of time – and then you have your capstone.”
Lauren Horst, Literature

Horst is writing her capstone on The Rape of Shavi by Nigerian British author Buchi Emecheta.

“It’s becoming a lot more comparative now ... than I originally intended, but I’ve realized that you can’t understand this novel without understating Emecheta's other novels. And you can’t understand Emecheta's other novels, I think, without understanding this one,” explained Horst.

She said that taking time off from her capstone — two weeks during the winter break and three weeks for J-term — helped her to step back from her work and figure out where she was going with it.

“[Taking time off] was the best decision ever,” she said. “I came back to it and … started writing the capstone that I really wanted to write.”

She emphasized the importance of choosing a topic that one is particularly passionate about.

“My biggest advice is to pick something that you like because, if you don’t, it’s going to be awful," she said.
Anirudh Sood, Economics

Sood conducted research on individual and group donations to help Moke, a 7-year-old child from Democratic Republic of Congo suffering from a dermatological condition. He was looking specifically to see if people contribute more money towards helping an identified victim, presented with an image, name and age, than an unidentified victim. The money that was raised from student donations was given to Moke after the experiment.

“It’s a capstone for social good, that’s how I put it,” said Sood.

He ran thirteen sessions of the experiment and mentioned how time-intensive his research turned out to be. He suggests that students be very invested in the topics they choose.

“Don’t just end up doing something ... because your professor gives it to you," he said. "Make sure you know what you signed up for and choose your mentor wisely.”