While Northfield Mount Hermon offers no shortage of rigorous, thought-provoking academic options in the classroom, the NMH senior capstone program puts students in the driver’s seat of their education. The self-directed class offers seniors and postgraduates the freedom and responsibility of designing and implementing their own course of study for an entire semester.
Seniors are invited to present a project outline at the beginning of each semester, detailing a deep dive into a topic of their choice. Central to the capstone program is its emphasis on community engagement: each project must produce some sort of tangible element or idea meant to enrich the NMH community. Students in the capstone program are also required to reflect on their project in writing throughout the semester, including after their final presentation and panel discussion.
The capstone project is 100% student-driven: While faculty advisors help point students towards resources and offer time-management skills, students define the scale and focus of their research, choose a faculty advisor and faculty grading panel, and create a rubric for the panel to evaluate their final results.
This unique model offers students a chance to further explore topics they are passionate about, while honing their time-management and presentation skills as they work towards a finished project.
Academic Dean Lori Veilleux described the capstone program as "the pinnacle of the NMH academic experience." NMH faculty typically reviews around 50 capstone proposals each year, she noted, a testament to the program's popularity among students.
"Students challenge themselves in the pursuit of academic excellence," said Veilleux. "Most of their work is independent, but at the end of the semester, they have something remarkable to share with the broader NMH community."
Last fall, six seniors delved into a host of intriguing capstone topics, ranging from scientific analysis and visual arts demonstrations to technical theater design and oral history projects. Despite the variety of topics, each student’s final presentation underscored their individual journey and evolution of self-discovery through the capstone process.
Brooke Hindinger
Hindinger explored Chinese history through visual art in her capstone project. She utilized the techniques and materials available to Chinese artists in her selected time periods to produce five original pieces, which she displayed during her capstone presentation.
This included learning how to grind her own inks, paint on traditional Chinese silks, and interpret the symbolism used in different eras of Chinese art.
“It was an awesome test in independence and research skills,” said Hindinger. “I learned how to learn. This project has opened my eyes to centuries of history and ... culture to be explored, and I’m so excited to keep going.”
Christie Wang
Wang put her own spin on a classic literary subject for her capstone project, exploring and recentering the experiences of female characters in an original epic poem, modeled on Homer’s “Iliad” but told from the perspective of Helen and Briseis and written in dactylic hexameter, which she then translated from English to Latin.
Wang read excerpts from her epic during her capstone presentation and described how the project evolved as she conducted research and began the writing process.
“I like the idea of epic poetry because of its oral roots and the way it shifted, so there was an equal focus on presentation and content,” she said. “I wanted to display the constraints on women in antiquity and then show how they dealt with it – where they submit to it and where they work around those constraints.”
Alvin Wang
Wang expanded on his passion for technical theater, building on his four years’ worth of experience in the NMH theater department to produce scenic models and light plots, which he demonstrated live during his capstone presentation.
“This capstone meant a lot to me,” Wang said. “This project, along with my developments this whole year, has set my concentrations to stage management, lighting design, and scenic technology and gave me opportunities to develop my soft skills, such as developments on leading a team and organizing time distribution throughout the production cycle.”
Ariana Peterson-Ismail
Peterson-Ismail looked to the stars for her capstone project but ended up learning just as much about herself in the process. Drawing on her passion for astronomy, Ariana set out to test the concepts behind Hubble’s Law, which states that a galaxy’s velocity is directly proportional to its distance.
Peterson-Ismail’s capstone project taught her about the importance of trial and error in scientific studies and boosted her confidence in her abilities to see an ambitious project through to its end.
“Sometimes, it is hard to accept the ugly parts of failure as necessary; throughout my time at NMH, I've shied away from scientific pursuits because of my fear of failure,” she said. “Working through each mistake and shortcoming helped me become familiar with failure and realize its importance in scientific inquiries and general academic pursuits.
“Now that I have experience creating academic scaffolding and realistic standards, I’m excited to apply what I’ve learned to other areas I’m passionate about,” she added.
Claire Takeuchi
Takeuchi put her love of chemistry on display in her capstone presentation, sharing research and a live demonstration from her months-long look into the synthesis conditions of silver nitrate nanoparticles when combined with salt and a series of stabilizers.
“I think the science capstone is pretty unique, because it’s so unpredictable,” said Takeuchi. “It taught me a lot in being able to adapt and change my plans.”
The capstone allowed her to continue her studies in chemistry with a project of her own design and gave her a taste of what to expect in a professional lab setting.
“I’d already taken all the available chemistry courses at NMH, so this was sort of the last thing I could do in chemistry, and I'm really glad I got to do it,” said Takeuchi. “It's such a unique experience – it was so much fun, and I think it really prepared me for conducting scientific research going forward.”
Soren Anderson-Flynn
For his capstone project, Anderson-Flynn used his passion for storytelling and journalistic skills to compile a series of interviews with NMH staff members on their time and experiences in the community. He utilized those discussions to explore the history of the school, its workjob program, and the relationships among staff, faculty, and students on campus.
Consistent with the spirit of his project, his capstone presentation featured a live Q&A with two of his interviewees, custodian Tim Cronin and advancement data specialist Merri Winn.
“It's been a great experience, really overwhelming, but it's been super satisfying to do all of my own original research and end up with a final product that was truly created by me,” Anderson-Flynn said. “Today’s staff ... sustain NMH in a thousand obvious ways and a million more subtle ones. Their predecessors may have founded Northfield Mount Hermon, but they are reviving, reforging, and refounding the school every day.”