Our presentation was scheduled for April 27, 2022, and we were asked to reschedule the presentation by Professor Sakr to May 2, 2022, because we had not taken his (and the extended team’s) feedback on the presentation. We have taken the time to reflect on our experience in this final presentation, and here is our reflection when we look back at this experience. We had internally agreed to provide course deliverables to the team two days in advance of the official deadline to get feedback and incorporate it into the deliverable. Still, we did not do that for the final presentation. We had a discussion with Professor Sakr after the first presentation to discuss the mistakes made. The mistakes we made are listed here:

1. We did not provide enough time to get feedback from the team and Professor Sakr.
2. The PPT we had was verbose, and we needed to spend more time on it
3. We didn’t spend enough time making slides as we did our research

We have learned much from this experience and want to share some of our learnings. Firstly, we learned that it is not enough to simply code and make progress on the actual project. It is equally important to have the accomplishments properly documented and shared in the form of eloquent presentations. We had succeeded in doing the work that was needed but lagged behind in terms of the expectations from the final presentation of the 11-634 Capstone Planning Seminar. In the days that followed the rescheduling, we only spent time refining our PowerPoint and presentation preparedness because the work being talked about had been done during the semester and wasn’t the problem.

Secondly, we learned that it is imperative to get feedback from your advisor and the larger team before the deliverable is due for a course like the 11-634 Capstone Planning Seminar. This means adherence to a strict internal schedule wherein we should share a deliverable like a final PowerPoint with the team in advance to get their feedback and incorporate it. We also learned that it is okay to share in-progress work for internal team deadlines because that can help us get feedback in time if we are facing issues.

Based on these learnings, we have decided to incorporate some changes into the work dynamic of our capstone project. Moving forward, we do not want to face such an event as it was emotionally and mentally draining, and here are some of the changes we are going to bring about in the following semester. Firstly, we will strive to be more proactive in seeking feedback and treat it as our responsibility to not only meet course deadlines but also to get team feedback. We will mark our calendars two days in advance of each deliverable to get feedback. Secondly, we will set aside time from our schedule to not only do the work needed for the capstone in terms of implementation and code but also in terms of creating course deliverables like documents and presentations for showing off those accomplishments.

Following the days of the rescheduling, we merely spent time getting feedback on the PowerPoint and improving the presentation overall. We delivered a great presentation in the second attempt (as gathered from the team and Professor Sakr after it was delivered) and communicated our accomplishments over the past semester well. This is a big learning experience because it has made us better scientists and professionals. We can be extremely talented in our fields and do the work properly, but a good scientist must spend a responsible amount of time effectively communicating this work, and that is our main takeaway from this experience.