About My Capstone

My capstone project is the undergraduate seminar I facilitated this spring quarter. The course was titled “Kids, School, and COVID-19: K-12 Education in the Time of a Pandemic”. The idea behind the course was to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the United States’ K-12 students and public education system. The class took an intersectional approach to examining how various aspects of student wellness were, and continue to be, affected by: school closures and reopenings, virtual schooling, and changes to federal and state policy + funding over the past two years.

To prepare for the seminar, I met weekly with my faculty mentor, Professor Anna Markowitz, during fall, winter, and spring quarters of my senior year. She provided me with invaluable insight, and went above and beyond in dedicating her time to ensuring that my course was the best it could be. The course, Education 88S, had a full enrollment of 20 passionate students. We covered theories and concepts deeply rooted in the discipline of Sociology, and touched on historical and contemporary issues plaguing the United States’ public education system today, in the midst of an ongoing pandemic.

This capstone project (course) was a wonderful finale to my time at UCLA. Through it, I was able to reflect on all I had learned in my major and minor, and apply that knowledge to the unprecedented pandemic that dramatically altered my undergraduate college experience. I certainly learned more from my students than they did from me, and I had the chance to develop my own pedagogical practice. Now, upon graduating from UCLA, I look forward to applying to teacher credential and master’s programs, in the hopes of becoming a K-12 educator myself. This capstone project provided me with the perfect opportunity to begin teaching in a formal classroom setting and I would strongly recommend applying to UCLA Honors’ Undergraduate Student Initiated Education (USIE) program to any other students with an interest in teaching.