Students share  e-literature capstones and final projects at Computer Science Fair. (Olivia Ryna’18/Media)

As the end of the school year approaches, Upper School students are more stressed than ever. Although there is only a few weeks of school left, final exams are the looming obstacle standing in the way of summer break. 

Fortunately, most of us only have to take two or three final exams, since our English and history classes do not have finals. Instead, there are capstones, which are long-term projects, spanning a minimum of a few weeks or most of the final quarter. Other classes, such as computer science involve final projects as well.

Capstones are beneficial for many reasons. Without the traditional time constraints of a final exam, these long-term based projects are often less stressful for us. Instead of writing an essay that is rushed and may not display students’ skills, a longer term project allows us to spend more time working and revising with our teachers to create the best possible final product. With a greater amount of time allotted to these assessments, we can display all that we learned throughout the year. These projects also help us develop the necessary skills needed to balance long term projects. 

Capstones also allow us to express our creative abilities. In the Advanced English 10 course, Ms. Stout assigned her students an electronic literature or “e-lit” as part of their capstone. This type of literature makes use of computers to feature music, animation, reader interaction, and more. Rather than just a typical essay, students were free to choose their own topics and use different online tools to create their projects. 

Nevertheless, exams are still important. They prepare us for college, where timed tests are a regular occurrence. Not only do they train us in a test-taking environment, but they also help them develop strong study skills.  

The benefits of capstones, however, outweigh those of exams. 

This isn’t to say that all exams should be abolished. On the contrary, they are, in fact, most useful for college preparation and standardized testing. 

Instead, since we already practice test conditions throughout the school year with tests along with taking semester exams, it seems logical to use capstones as a final assessment.

Having experience with both types of assessments gives us both a less stressful experience that allows for us to explore our creative side and a chance to learn how to take time-constraining tests.