Millikan High School is home to the five pathways, COMPASS, MBA, PEACE, QUEST, and SEGA, each offering a unique opportunity for students. All of these pathways provide a capstone or experience for their seniors that acts as a culmination of all the things students learn while in their pathway. So what exactly are the senior capstones and projects?
MBA
MBA’s capstone is, “A course where each class period comes together to build and operate their own fictitious business,” says Ms. Valdez, MBA’s senior capstone teacher.
Running like a real-life firm, every student in this class submits a realistic resume, applies for a job within the business, and gets paid in virtual dollars to complete their job’s task. There are even different departments such as accounting, graphic design, human resources, sales, and marketing, as well as competitions each class can take part in.
Kalani Burke, MBA senior, said, “Working in this class is basically setting us up to have team building [skills], work with a department, and then have individual tasks you have to work on to help succeed with the company.”
Ms. Valdez shared that many students who’ve come back to her once they’ve graduated talk about how their time in the class greatly related to their real-life experiences within the business environment.
QUEST
QUEST capstone is the QUEST Senior Project: “a student driven, research and community focused project where students identify a community in need, an issue within that community, and then they create and implement a solution for that problem or issue,” states Ms. Tubbs, QUEST Pathway Lead and capstone teacher.
“We really think of this project or course as bridging the gap between the academics we need for college, but then also the life skills that we need,” says Ms. Tubbs. Students gain these skills through speaking to community members, approaching businesses, sending emails, and more in order to set up their projects and solutions.
Throughout the year, these accomplishments are tracked through a portfolio that documents their project, including all the hours spent on their project, money raised, and items donated to organizations.
QUEST senior Sofia Arzola said, “Taking this class was a really nice way for me to get deeper within my community and feel like I’m actually making an impact and actually doing something important.”
SEGA
SEGA’s capstone project is split into two parts: an individual project where students can research whatever interests them and a group project where students design a game or app that aligns with a curriculum presented to them.
The individual project takes students through the engineering design process while allowing students to focus on their interests. During this project students get feedback from professionals and can revise their work from there. Students place their work in their ePortfolio which they began in 9th grade and finish during this class.
This year, the group capstone project is in partnership with the Women’s Shelter of Long Beach. The Women’s Shelter presented the class with the curriculum “Building healthy relationships” and each group worked on designing and developing a game or app that taught this curriculum to others. Within this group project, students learn the values of teamwork and come together to create one design.
“With the SEGA [project] it’s a lot of learning how to program, learning how to organize projects, and it’s teaching you for college,” stated SEGA senior Xavier Padilla. “They don’t hold your hand through college, they just give you a set of deadlines and they expect you to do all the work by the deadlines. So I think with Mrs. Becker’s format for the class, she’s having us do that.”
“The fun part [of this capstone] is that you experience the different jobs within video game production… so you understand why you learned about game design, game development, animation, marketing, production and how games and simulations can help other people,” says Mrs. Becker, SEGA Pathway Lead and capstone teacher. “[Students] see the broader appeal of what they can do with their talents.” Taking this senior project allows students to put together all the skills and lessons they learned throughout their time in SEGA into one cohesive experience.
PEACE
The PEACE capstone is a class that brings together all the things students learn in their time with PEACE.
Originally there was a specific PEACE project, but other classes such as Government and Economics have developed projects that included aspects of the PEACE project. In order to avoid repetition among senior classes, PEACE does not have a designated project like the other pathways’ capstones.
“[Government & Justice in America] is meant to serve as the culminating experience of PEACE,” says Mrs. Cruz, PEACE Pathway Lead and capstone teacher. “Senior year is meant to say, all of those strategies and all those skills and all of the content that you’ve learned throughout your years in PEACE, how do we apply that moving forward to be a participatory member of society.”
PEACE senior Sadie Brown says, “You really get to take all of those skills that you’ve learned throughout these past few years and put them all together to get a deeper understanding of some new subject matter that’s slightly more practical or adult-like.”
Brown also shared that, “I feel like all of these senior courses really go well together and are very applicable to one another.”
COMPASS
COMPASS is a pathway that consists of so many different kinds of arts disciplines and opportunities that there is no singular capstone class seniors can take part in.
“Seniors end up within their arts classes and have a larger culminating project that they do within that class,” states Ms. Gardea, COMPASS Pathway Lead and the teacher of many art classes. “They get to, within that class, choose how they are going to represent what they’ve learned in their arts focus.”
This means that a student who is a musician in COMPASS will have a very different culminating experience year than a student who is in fashion.
When asked for an example of a culminating event, Ms. Gardea shared that in March the orchestra had a senior performance night. “It’s like senior night, almost like an open mike, where they get to express themselves through that performance.”
Another example is how, “nearly all of our art shows are a culminating piece.” Students in classes such as AP Studio Art get to showcase and present their work.
All of these pathways give students unique opportunities and the senior capstone that correlates with them allows students to explore their interests while learning good lessons.
Kate Goldsworthy • May 22, 2024 at 9:55 am
As the end of the year rolls around the Millikan Senior Projects are the most important thing on many people’s minds. Richter does an excellent job of explaining the various pathways and their different projects. Being a student in Quest, I am very aware of the Quest Senior Project and this article has helped me to be more prepared for my project that I will start next year. Additionally, I appreciate how Richter explains each of the different pathway’s projects. I never knew what any of the other pathways completed as their senior project and it was interesting to get a better understanding of that. It would have been interesting to hear specific details about what certain people’s projects were to get a more clear understanding of the differences among the pathways. Still, I applaud Richter for her excellent ability to make students at Millikan understand one another better. With the various pathways at Millikan it seems that there is a divide amongst the students. However, this article has helped to highlight that there is a unifying factor among all Millikan students: their Senior Project.
Isla Haffner • May 21, 2024 at 11:28 am
Within this informative article, Richter describes the capstone course for each pathway, going in depth with every aspect of the senior classes of all five pathways. I found this article very interesting, as I was unaware of the other pathway’s capstone courses. This was very educational and an excellent preparation for juniors who will be taking the classes next year. However, this is still important for underclassmen to read, as it will prepare them for the future classes that will finish off their time at Millikan. Since I was a freshmen, I knew that QUEST had a capstone course: QSP. However, I had never even heard of the other capstone classes through all my time at Millikan. I’d even asked some of my friends in other pathways what their capstone classes were, but they didn’t even know. At the time I’d just assumed they didn’t have one, and QUEST was the only pathway with one. This article informed me, and perhaps many other students, of all the capstone courses.
Anna Truong • May 21, 2024 at 11:19 am
On May 7, 2024, Allyson Richter wrote an article titled “What’s Your Senior Project?”. Allyson Richter writes an article about the five different pathways that Millikan offers as well as the capstone that seniors of that pathway would have to complete. Richter creates small summaries of each capstone project, she starts off with the MBA capstone. “‘A course where each class period comes together to build and operate their own fictitious business,’” (Richter). Then Richter moves onto QUEST, “‘a student driven, research and community focused project where students identify in need, an issue within that community, and then they create and implement a solution for that problem or issue,’” (Richter). One thing about this article that is done well is that Richter quickly, but describes each pathway capstone in detail. She describes what the seniors are tasked to do, and how it impacts them. Richter brings in the details of the projects by asking the teachers of the capstone project. She also adds in perspectives of students in that class and how they are impacted by that class. One student perspective was, “Working in this class is basically setting us up to have team building [skills], work with a department, and then have individual tasks you have to work on to help succeed with the company’” (Richter). Overall, the article that Allyson Richter wrote explained how each of the pathway capstones worked, and what the students think of them.
Simone Jackson • May 21, 2024 at 10:07 am
This informative article starts with introducing the concept at Millikan high school that requires seniors of all pathways to complete a class or project that serves as their capstone requirement. The article first introduces the MBA pathway and the course that they have chosen to be their capstone requirement. MBA is a pathway centered on business and the course teaches students how to build and design their own fictitious business. The class even has students submit realistics resumes, apply for jobs within the business, and the students get paid in virtual dollars. The author then goes on to describe the QUEST senior projects that are designed to have the students help with a specific issue in their own community. Students in this class gain necessary workplace skills like sending emails and speaking to community members. The SEGA pathway has students complete two separate projects.The individual project that students complete is research on a topic they are interested in and a group project where students design a game or an app. The PEACE pathway does not have a designated senior project anymore and has students take a class about government and justice instead. Finally, the COMPASS pathway also does not have a designated class, as it is an art pathway with many types of artful expression that students develop. The pathway instead has students take an art class that is continuous with the art form that they have focused on throughout their high school career. This was a very well-written piece that helps thoroughly describe the pathways at Millikan and what they choose for their seniors to do.
Sincerely,
Simone Jackson
Vickie Lam • May 21, 2024 at 9:49 am
I’m a Junior in Quest and I will be honest, I have never heard about other pathways Senior Projects until halfway through last year. It was a surprise because not a lot of people talked about other pathways projects. Nor do I have a lot of friends in different pathways. I would like to know more about these pathways projects in more depth. For example, for PEACE, if they don’t have a designated project like other pathways, how do students show their growth in skills? I also see that in the COMPASS section, the information is a little off, as a music student, the senior performance night is in late May to early June. We prepare for the upcoming events we have a little later in the year in March. Overall, this was a beneficial article. It’s informative and neat. The organization of the article made it easy to read and understand each pathway’s Senior Project. Thank you for the article, it showed the diverse projects in Millikan.
Sincerely,
Vickie L.
Morgan Zimmerman • May 21, 2024 at 9:36 am
On May 7, 2024, Allyson Richter wrote an article titled “What’s Your Senior Project?”. This informational article is very well written, with clear and separate sections for each pathway and their required projects. I like how Richter organized this article with headings, as it allows the reader to easily follow and pick out a certain section they want to read. I also like how the author included student quotes from each pathway as they give great insight on real life opinions and commentary that are applicable to incoming seniors. The addition of teacher quotes was also very helpful, and gave creative descriptions of the projects that are easier to understand for the reader. The specific example of SEGA’s partnership with the Women’s Shelter of Long Beach is also a great addition as it gives an example of what future projects might entail.
Richter efficiently answered the question she presented in a clear and consistent manner, but there is some room for improvement. While the paragraphs had great descriptions and explanations, they were a little lengthy. The only criticism I have is to try and create more concise sections so that it can be a little bit of a faster read. Otherwise, this article has great information written in a very scholarly way.
Chloe Stevens • May 21, 2024 at 9:35 am
Being someone in QUEST, I’ve only known about the QUEST Senior Project, so learning about the other capstone projects was really interesting. I like how the article touches on all of the pathways and goes into detail about all the different projects that seniors do according to the pathway. I found the SEGA and MBA projects really interesting, so I’m glad I could learn about them from this article since the bubble of QUEST makes people mostly unaware of what other pathways do. It’s also interesting how different yet similar the capstone projects are. Also, the format of the article was really nice for understanding the projects. I really enjoyed how the article is laid out by pathway, clearly separating the sections. That format made it really easy to understand and jump around to check out particular pathways. Overall, I really enjoyed this article and felt like it did a good job at being informative about the different capstone projects at the school.
Stevie S • May 21, 2024 at 9:14 am
On May 7, Allyson Richter wrote an article titled “What’s Your Senior Project?”. In this article, Richter talks about the different senior projects that all the Millikan pathways offer as a senior. As a Quest student, I was unaware that all of the pathways did senior projects, I was under the impression that senior projects were only available to Quest students. I found this article very informative, it was very interesting to learn about the different projects. This article could be important and useful to new students, it could give them an understanding of what’s to come in their pathway. I also strongly liked the spacing and format of the article. Richter made this article very easy to read. The spacing between each pathway made it easier to read and understand the article. Using direct quotes from the pathway teachers was also nice, personally it helped me understand the needs and important parts of the project coming directly from the person in charge. Overall I found this article to be very interesting and important!
Phoebe Michalczak • May 20, 2024 at 1:20 pm
For the past three years I’ve been at this school, I’ve had no idea that the pathways other than QUEST have a senior project so it was interesting to read about what the other pathways do in this article. I think the commentary from the teachers and students, who teach the senior capstone classes and actually take them, is a good addition because it gives readers a better idea of what each senior project is actually like. I think this article could be very helpful in informing potential future students who are unsure what pathway they want to be in and want a better idea of what their school career might be like if they join a specific pathway. It is also very interesting to see how the different areas of focus within each pathway culminate into a senior project and how different each pathway’s senior projects are.
Overall, this article is very informative and well written and provides interesting input on the capstone’s for each of the pathways at Millikan.
Erica Torres • May 20, 2024 at 1:19 pm
On May 7, 2024, Allyson Richter wrote an article titled “What’s Your Senior Project?”. This article was focused on Millikan’s pathways and their different programs for the senior students. Each pathway has its own form of a senior project where there are different creations or research for each pathway. It explained each pathway that has a project related to connecting the students to the information they learned in their courses. For example MBA is centered on business, so their project is on the students simulating a business by getting a job and completing tasks to get virtual money. This makes the students make connections to real life situations, and prepare students to enter the real word with some knowledge of challenges they will face.
I enjoyed this article very much and enjoy the easy to read format. Richter made it easy to understand by separating the article by the pathways to make it easy for readers to follow. The use of quotes was also helpful by using teachers who are in charge of the projects to explain the concepts of what the students should get from them. Along with quotes from students who are doing or have done their projects. This helps the readers to get multiple perspectives from both the staff and the students.
Daniel • May 20, 2024 at 11:28 am
On May 7, 2024, Tere Quezadas wrote an article titled “What’s your senior project?”. This article was very well written since It is very informative on the topic of what is required for each pathway capstone project. Almost being a senior who is going to be required to do the Quest senior project I found this article very useful because it informed me of the requirements I am going to need to meet and what is is that I have to accomplish with doing my Quest senior project. I like that upon reading this article it got me thinking about different things that I can do for my quest senior project! I also enjoyed reading about how requiring seniors to do a capstone project can be beneficial for their future by giving them real-world experience through the completion of the project. Amazing article! and Great coverage and writing Allyson Richter!
Samantha A. • May 20, 2024 at 9:47 am
This article discusses all of Millikan’s pathways and what students of those pathways work on as their senior project. This article was very informative and interesting, as you usually don’t hear what other pathways are working on besides your own. It’s interesting to see how the key elements of the pathways are pieced together as a final project, and how each pathway’s final project differs.
This article could also be useful for incoming freshmen who are choosing their pathways to better understand the work they will be doing, as well as the elements of each pathway better. Millikan’s pathways are in certain ways fairly different and unique in comparison to each other, and it’s cool to be able to compare all those differences to each other with other students. This was a great and well written article, and was very informative. 🙂
Kylie • May 20, 2024 at 9:40 am
I enjoyed this article as I was not previously aware that all pathways had a senior project. I have been aware of the QUEST Senior Project but was not aware of all the others and found it very interesting to learn about. I really love how the senior projects for all the different pathways offer a unique opportunity to students. Each project incorporates all the things students have learned in their pathway as well as introducing them to skills they will need for their future.
I find it very interesting that SEGA’s capstone project has two parts. The first part gives students creative freedom to research whatever interests them and add all their work to an ePortfolio which they began in 9th grade. I really like the aspect of partnering with a program or service group as they did this year with the Women’s Shelter of Long Beach. It allows students to directly connect with community groups resulting in them directly affecting the community. This article gave me very good insight into my community of Millikan which I thoroughly enjoyed. I hope to read more articles such as this one!
Mya Ogden • May 20, 2024 at 9:30 am
On May 7 2024, Allyson Richter wrote an article titled “What’s Your Senior Project?”. This article speaks about each pathway’s ending project for senior year. Overall this article was very informative and delved into a topic that I wasn’t fully aware of. I didn’t know until I read this article that all pathways have a senior project. Although I often hear of the Quest Senior Project and what that entails, I was not quite aware of all the other pathways capstone. This article does a great job describing in great detail about speaking on a subject that many such as myself were not too familiar with. This article was very informative and easy to read such as the format. The way the article was formatted allowed it to be easy to read and also engaging. The format made the article very organized and structured which allowed the point to be easier to come across. Overall the article was very informative and organized which allowed me to get a better understanding of senior projects Millikan has to offer.
Maggie Wells • May 20, 2024 at 9:20 am
In this article, readers get to see what certain pathways do to complete their senior capstone. This piece is not only interesting, but helpful as well. Incoming freshmen can read this to help them decide what pathway they want to enroll in, and other underclassmen can read this to learn what they’ll be doing their senior year. Richter was able to get interviews from every pathway lead, and some students who are currently working on their capstones. By having interviews, the readers can get a better look on the purpose and goals of the capstone courses from the teachers point of view. This article also helps me, as a QUEST student, get a better understanding for what I’ll be doing next year, and gives me the chance to start brainstorming. Richter wrote an article which entertains readers, and also educates them on what’s to come for their senior capstone project.