Steven's capstone presentation

I think we've done a pretty good job of recognizing the educational successes of our children by getting to their graduation ceremonies. Needless to say, education is highly valued in our family.  One sign of that is the fact that all of our children and their spouses have a college degree.  In addition, four of them have a masters degree and one has a PhD.  Carolyn and I also have masters degrees.  But while we've attended graduation ceremonies, we haven't often been able to see the real work involved in obtaining those degrees.  We've seldom even seen grade records or transcripts.

So it was with distinct pride that Carolyn and I drove to Santa Cruz recently to take part in our son Steven's Capstone Presentation which is a significant part of his Masters Degree requirements.  For Steven the Capstone Project is roughly equivalent to a Masters Thesis or Literature Survey others in our family have had to do.  And, as with a thesis, part of the effort is to make a final oral presentation to faculty, advisers, and peers.  And in this case - family.

Steven put hours and hours into his research and even more time into a professional presentation that demonstrated his command of the subject.  A subject which was related to but not quite the same as what he has spent so much of his life working with in the past 5 or 6 years - chemicals and sponges.  Specifically, he traced the route of a naturally occurring biochemical with cancer controlling properties to a related, marketable synthetic economically viable drug.  He even gave the presentation a clever subtitle of "From Sea to Pharma-Sea".

I know just enough chemistry (it was my undergrad minor) to appreciate Steven's presentation without being a threat.  I understood his description of the analysis of the original chemical and the synthesis of various parts to determine which parts of the chemical had the most promise of being cost effectively synthesized.

Steven had designed a PowerPoint presentation which focuses on the main historical path while allowing for detours when one of his peers would ask a pertinent question.  He also had authoritative answers when the questions were less pertinent.

I could tell there was little fluff and a lot of solid research in this presentation but it was also fun to see his advisers and peers recognize the same.  There is no question that Steven has earned his masters degree.

For another, completely unbiased review of Steven's presentation by his wife Lisa, click HERE.