Capstone: LIB 495, theory only or need implementation

[StudentOLife]

Looking into topics for my paper but can't find many examples of STEM papers with implementation (I've seen some graphs of people doing observation). I'm on a Math/CS stream and like to ideally theorize without implementing code as I won't have the time. Is that possible? 

Something like this but a longer version.

[LevelUP]

Looking into topics for my paper but can't find many examples of STEM papers with implementation (I've seen some graphs of people doing observation). I'm on a Math/CS stream and like to ideally theorize without implementing code as I won't have the time. Is that possible? 

Something like this but a longer version.

Some of the issues you are going to run into

#1 You might be talking above someone's head.
#2 Can you find scholarly research links on this?

I would use the KISS method in coming up with a topic.

Example of what you could do

The decline of math proficiency in America and how technology and new teaching methods can help students learn math better.

I'm pretty sure this would be easy to research. You could look at how people learn in other countries and all the types of technology. Duolingo just came out with a math feature.

Example of what one of my classmates did for a paper

Illiteracy being a social justice issue, and that a holistic approach was the only solution to overcome the problem.

When we talk about illiteracy, that could be many things, such as reading, writing, history, math, and other things. The topic can become very large and hard to manage.

Wrap Up

Whatever you write, make sure it passes the "So What" or "Who Cares" test.

"So, arguing that drinking and driving is dangerous—while you could find a ton of evidence to support your view—would be pretty worthless nowadays.  Who would want to read something they already knew?  You wouldn’t be persuading them of anything and all your work would be pretty meaningless.

https://learnbps.bismarckschools.org/mod...erid=37452

[studyingfortests]

Looking into topics for my paper but can't find many examples of STEM papers with implementation (I've seen some graphs of people doing observation). I'm on a Math/CS stream and like to ideally theorize without implementing code as I won't have the time. Is that possible? 

Something like this but a longer version.

Keep in mind that you're talking a course in the liberal arts department that's a liberal arts capstone. As far as I understand, the capstone is not supposed to be a STEM-based capstone; the professors are all liberal arts profs and as far as I know, many have English or some sort of writing-heavy backgrounds in the liberal arts.

I don't think there's any particular restriction on what you can do a capstone on, but you might get more help and better feedback if you write on a topic more in the domain of liberal arts.

[sarahmac]

I do stats professionally as a research scientist based in academia. My work *uses* maths and computer science, but is not *about* maths or computer science. Given this is, as others have mentioned, a liberal arts capstone and many of the advisors are in the i.e. English department I would keep that in mind.

For example, you could use a publicly accessible dataset like the PISA data to do some very basic estimation showing whether some countries are doing better than others in the math domain, and focus the rest of the paper on a qualitative discussion of education access. The written part, lit review, and how well you justify your arguments are the parts the liberal arts professor grading your work would care about.

You could also use open access American community survey data to show STEM majors have higher expected earnings, i.e. a simply slope intercept. Based on that, you could make an argument about social justice and access to quality STEM education as a vehicle for social mobility. Again, the focus of the paper would be the liberal arts-based discussion dimension.

In both cases, if the professor was not supportive of you using the data to conduct a simple regression yourself, these are statistics that already exist in some capacity in other research articles.

No need to actually use either of these examples, simply a demonstration that you can make a paper STEM related without it needing to be about a STEM problem (since this is not a STEM capstone).

[rachel83az]

For what it's worth, I believe the capstone doesn't have to be about whatever your major is. It'd probably be easier for most people to do so, but feel free to let your imagination run wild. If a comp sci student wants to write a treatise on something like 18th century sheep farming, that would be fine. Provided you find enough sources, etc.

[StudentOLife]

Thanks so much for the feedback.  Sounds like the general advice is to not go too deep into Artificial Intelligence type paper which I was hoping to do? Specifically visuals generation from text, like Open AI's Dall-e 2 paper.

How about... something along the lines of, if general intelligence from a computer is possible, some of the ways it can be done and propose ways I think should be explored?

[bjcheung77]

Your capstone can be anything you want. Find something you are really interested in, such as Data Analytics or Engineering, another subject such as Environmental Science, whatever that you would want to research, review, write and answer questions to. As again, any subject matter that may or may not relate to your major will work...

[davewill]

Looking into topics for my paper but can't find many examples of STEM papers with implementation (I've seen some graphs of people doing observation). I'm on a Math/CS stream and like to ideally theorize without implementing code as I won't have the time. Is that possible? 

Something like this but a longer version.

I see no reason whatsoever why you would need to implement anything. As long as the paper is structured according to the rubric, contains good research questions, properly cited research and a conclusion, it should do fine. My paper was on Car Infotainment Human Interface Design and distracted driving. I certainly did not implement any actual HMI prototypes.

[LevelUP]

You will need to remember to hold on to your papers if you do a capstone on AI.

[Pats20]

Thanks so much for the feedback.  Sounds like the general advice is to not go too deep into Artificial Intelligence type paper which I was hoping to do? Specifically visuals generation from text, like Open AI's Dall-e 2 paper.

How about... something along the lines of, if general intelligence from a computer is possible, some of the ways it can be done and propose ways I think should be explored?

what did you decide to  do your capstone on ?  Who’s your mentor ? How’s it going ?