Senior Project Reflection
When I started my senior project this year, I wasn't particularly excited about the topic. I had recently discovered that I did not actually want to pursue a career in the sciences or in health care, but I knew that I would still need to do a project uniting these two for my senior project. I had no clue what I was going to do, and I was worried that I would not be able to complete a successful project. So, I started looking up ideas for science fair projects online. McKenzie and I found a couple of ideas online, but we finally narrowed it down to two ideas: the Cross-Race Effect and finding an algorithm to solve a Rubix cube. We were both far more interested in psychological science rather than math. Looking back, I almost wish that we had chosen the Rubix cube project instead just because it may have been more challenging and ultimately more rewarding than our actual project. I was still incredibly stressed out by our project because I was not sure what I was doing at the beginning. A lot of the time, I ended up making the project harder than it had to be.
Looking back on the project, I wish that I had spent a little more time developing the quiz, but with so much else going on in my life, my project was put on the back burner a lot of the time. If I were giving juniors advice on senior projects, the number one thing I would tell them is to carve out time in the schedule every week to get something done on the project, whether that time is half an hour or three hours. Any little bit will help. I spent my time working in short bursts on the project, and I was always stressed out about it. I never felt like I was getting anything accomplished. Additionally, another piece of advice I would give is to get as much done as possible over winter break. I think that this was the best decision I made for my project. Since I did my data collection before the break, I was able to use all of my free time over the break analyzing the results. Another great thing about doing the science fair as my project was it had to be done three months before senior exhibition, so I wasn't stressed out the week before exhibition like many of my peers. This deadline was also a drawback at times because it meant that I didn't have as much time as my peers to work on putting the project together. In the end, it was worth it, because I got it done a full week before the science fair, easily.
At the science fair, McKenzie and I realized that our project was what we called a "baby project", since the other projects were a lot more advanced than ours. A lot of the people there had done the science fair for every year of their high school career, and some had even been to the state science fair before. Generally, we did well on our examination of our project, although we did not do well enough to place in our group. Our group was the largest group, though, and we had around 20 people that we were competing against. It was a little tiring explaining our project over and over, and there were some questions asked that we couldn't answer, but we were able to formulate intelligent responses to most questions. We got more of an idea of what projects the board was looking for, and if we ever decided to expand on our experiment, we got several ideas from interviewers as to where we could take our project next.
Overall, I was proud of my project. I did science fair projects every single year when I was in elementary school, but none of them were as complex or impressive as my project this year. Even though it was not as impressive as some of the other projects at the fair, it was still something that I can look back on and be proud of. Science does not come as easily to me as it does to some of the other people in the science focus program, so I am still proud of how well I did, all things considered. I plan to study political science in college, but it's good to be well-rounded.
Looking back on the project, I wish that I had spent a little more time developing the quiz, but with so much else going on in my life, my project was put on the back burner a lot of the time. If I were giving juniors advice on senior projects, the number one thing I would tell them is to carve out time in the schedule every week to get something done on the project, whether that time is half an hour or three hours. Any little bit will help. I spent my time working in short bursts on the project, and I was always stressed out about it. I never felt like I was getting anything accomplished. Additionally, another piece of advice I would give is to get as much done as possible over winter break. I think that this was the best decision I made for my project. Since I did my data collection before the break, I was able to use all of my free time over the break analyzing the results. Another great thing about doing the science fair as my project was it had to be done three months before senior exhibition, so I wasn't stressed out the week before exhibition like many of my peers. This deadline was also a drawback at times because it meant that I didn't have as much time as my peers to work on putting the project together. In the end, it was worth it, because I got it done a full week before the science fair, easily.
At the science fair, McKenzie and I realized that our project was what we called a "baby project", since the other projects were a lot more advanced than ours. A lot of the people there had done the science fair for every year of their high school career, and some had even been to the state science fair before. Generally, we did well on our examination of our project, although we did not do well enough to place in our group. Our group was the largest group, though, and we had around 20 people that we were competing against. It was a little tiring explaining our project over and over, and there were some questions asked that we couldn't answer, but we were able to formulate intelligent responses to most questions. We got more of an idea of what projects the board was looking for, and if we ever decided to expand on our experiment, we got several ideas from interviewers as to where we could take our project next.
Overall, I was proud of my project. I did science fair projects every single year when I was in elementary school, but none of them were as complex or impressive as my project this year. Even though it was not as impressive as some of the other projects at the fair, it was still something that I can look back on and be proud of. Science does not come as easily to me as it does to some of the other people in the science focus program, so I am still proud of how well I did, all things considered. I plan to study political science in college, but it's good to be well-rounded.