NJIT Capstone Program
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The Capstone Program is a combination of senior-level courses offered to students at the New Jersey Institute of Technology under NJIT’s College of Computing Sciences, which offers the Computer Science, Information Systems, and Information Technology majors. The course can also be taken as an elective by students from other disciplines at the school, such as Management, Engineering, or Architecture.
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[edit] History
The NJIT Capstone Program was founded in the Fall 2002 semester, by Professor Osama Eljabiri, as a way to instill students with valuable real-world work experience, to which they may not yet have been exposed. Professor Eljabiri's plan for the Capstone Program involved the submission of IT, IS, or CS-related projects by local corporate sponsors from the Newark, NJ area. To assist with the program's coordination, Professor Eljabiri put together an advisory board made up of past students, sponsors, and other colleagues (not necessarily from NJIT).
The Professor's goal was to run the program as a "virtual corporation"[1]. At the beginning of the semester, students would form teams of 3-4 people, and select one member to be the Project Manager. Students who wanted to become Project Manager first had to submit an application. Once the application was received, the student would have to attend an interview by either Professor Eljabiri or a member of the advisory board (much like a real-world job). Upon approval of a group's Project Manager, that group could select a project to work on for the duration of the semester. Projects were made available on a first-come, first-serve basis.
As a national endorsement for the sucecss of the capstone program and its impact on stduents education, Carnegie Foundation Named Osama Eljabiri NJ Professor of the Year for the year 2007. Read press release at http://www.njit.edu/publicinfo/press_releases/release_1095.php
[edit] Expansion
Since its inception, the Capstone Program has continuously expanded, both in its scope and its student base. After a few successful semesters as an undergraduate course, the Capstone Program was offered to graduate students in the CS, IS, and IT disciplines. It then expanded down. The Professor developed a related program for high school students under the name "Real World Connections". The high school program is composed of three sections:
The "Real World Connections" program was developed to help younger students get a head start in the science and technology field, and is run by the Professor and members of the college-level capstone course. Students from the graduate and undergraduate classes serve as mentors and advisors for the high school program.
The Fall semester of 2007 saw the program expand yet again, this time reaching out to students at the junior high school level.
In addition to expanding its student base, Professor Eljabiri has consistently added to the types of projects that students can choose for their semester's work[2]:
[edit] Sponsors
Following is a brief list of the many stakeholders that have participated in the Capstone Program over the years (in no particular order):
- BanDeMar Networks, LLC.
- Newark Beth-Israel Medical Center
- Meridian Health Systems
- CitiGroup
- CBS News
- Morpholytics, LLC.
- Creative Technology Partners, Inc.
- SAFE Communications, Inc.
- IMS Health
- Evident Software
- Edentify, Inc.
- Department of the U.S. Army
- Lyndhurst Police Emergency Squad
- Johnson & Johnson
- NJ Transit
- Pfizer, Inc.
- Signature Plus Jewelry, LLC.
- NJ Office of Homeland Security
- Distribution Solutions, Inc.
- Garden State Apartments / Jersey Apartments, LLC.
