Capstone has been a great learning experience for me. While it may not have necessarily taught me a lot of specific skills it definitely developed a wide array of them greatly. From this class I became very comfortable talking to people, cold calling or emailing them, and developing a project to actually make lasting change.  It also greatly improved my graphic design capabilities as part of the project was advertising through educational flyers posted across the city and developing an informational website filled with videos and links to inform citizens of Syracuse about lead. However, perhaps the most important things I learned from this class can be boiled down into 3 things. One is to not give up in the face of adversity. While working on this project there were many pitfalls and setbacks due to communication issues, time constraints and other problems that constantly challenged my project. however, by working through these challenges and adapting  I was able to develop a project that could truly benefit the population of Syracuse. The second thing I learned was that contacts are key to make change and to truly learn about an issue. While research can be helpful when learning about a topic it is also important that you actually talk to local professionals as that will truly allow you to grasp the problem and figure out how to solve it. The third thing I learned was to always pursue meaningful change in your community. Throughout my project I found instances where if just one person truly tried to improve other people's lives everyone in society would benefit. Because of these issues that I have seen I have made a promise to myself wherein I will always try to benefit whatever community I am apart of so that everyone's lives can improve. I will be sure to take all of these important lessons with me in the future and hope that wherever I go I try to make meaningful changes to solve issues that have detrimentally impacted my community.  In conclusion, Capstone developed my skills in communication and graphic design, and, perhaps most importantly, taught me how to make meaningful change in my community which will help me in my future life.

Capstone has also been a great environment for me to grow and develop. During my time in Capstone I've become much more outgoing and extroverted. While I usually don't feel comfortable in front of large crowds or when talking to strangers, Capstone enabled me to get out of my comfort zone and feel more comfortable in these scenarios. Capstone has also just made me want to help more people. I find myself less apathetic, less uncaring, and more invested in the wellbeing of not only my family and friends, but total strangers who could benefit from my help. Because of this, Capstone has made me want to get increasingly involved in my community and help inspire beneficial change to improve lives. Because of Capstone I feel a need to help others whenever I can. I have found that since Capstone I have also become more active in my community, volunteering more at work and joining more after school clubs. This is because Capstone made me realize that hard work will always result in something. It may not be the thing you expect, or the thing you want to have happen but it will cause something to occur. And, oftentimes, something, anything is better than nothing. Finally, Capstone has helped me with is my confidence. I have grown much more confident in not only myself but my ideas as I know that, with the proper follow through, I can inspire long lasting meaningful change .

Looking back on how my project developed I wish I would've done a few things differently. To start I wish I through of my encapsulation packages sooner and immediately contacted Joseph Tifft to allow my project more time to grow with the proper guidance. The second thing I wish I would've done was substitute my pursuit of grants with crowd funding sources as finding a grant that agreed to fund my project and a fiscal sponsor for my project occupied about three months of my time. On top of that the grant I applied to was horrible at reaching out and failed to alert me when they restricted what their funding would cover until I was ready to finally start distributing the encapsulation packages. If I had instead focussed on raising funding from the public I would have had much less restrictions on where I could distribute the packages and increased the awareness the public had of my project which would have helped alert many community members on this project which could improve their lives. Finally, I would have spent less time pursuing contacts which never got back to me or consistently let me down by requiring multiple emails from me to achieve a response and failing to work with me to inspire change. This would have saved months of time on this project and might've enabled me to develop a stronger project that impacted more lives. Despite these time sinks I truly feel as though I might've actually accomplished something meaningful. Through my hours of hard work and research and the extensive net of contacts I've met with I might inspire real lasting change which is something I am extremely proud of.