Enhance Your Career through Participation in the Capstone Symposium

Enhance Your Career

The Capstone Symposium provides HPU students with an opportunity to showcase their best academic work as they prepare for the college-to-career transition.  It is important that participating students recognize how to leverage this experience for future career opportunities.  Capstone experiences include but are not limited to achievement portfolio, senior project, thesis, practicum, internship, professional paper, field experience, co-op experience, clinical assignment. 

Below are suggested tips from the Career Development Center for how students can maximize their participation in the Capstone Symposium to enhance their marketability with potential employers:

  • Presenting your capstone experience to a captive audience is great practice before doing so at your next job interview.
  • Articulating what interested you about your capstone experience can help you refine your job search; thus, targeting positions/organizations that align with your career goals.
  • Reflecting on how your capstone presentation relates discipline-specific learning outcomes to real world applications empowers you to write a more impressive resumé for potential employers. 
  • Responding to audience questions during the Symposium enables you to decipher points of interests that you can highlight during future interviews with employers.
  • Earning one of the Symposium prizes demonstrates the quality of work you produce.
  • Listing your capstone presentation on your resumé increases your marketability.

With your department's recommendation, your capstone paper can be submitted to Hawai'i Pacific University's Graduate Professional Paper Collection.  See instructions for submission here.