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Week 8 TA Check-In

In Week 8 (between February 27th and March 3rd), your entire group is required to meet with your assigned TA for 20 minutes. The Staff page contains a list of the domains assigned to each TA.

To sign up for a check-in, go to to this sheet. Make sure to sign up as a group, and only for your TA!
Like the showcase, which is mandatory and in-person only, your Week 8 check-in with your TA is also mandatory and in-person only. If one of your group members must meet remotely, you must email both your TA and Suraj in advance of your check-in detailing the situation.

Presentation

The primary goal of the Week 8 check-in is to gauge your preparedness to talk about your project at the in-person capstone showcase on March 15th.

Firstly, you must come prepared with the latest version of your poster; it should be further along than the poster checkpoint you submitted on February 19th. Bring a laptop on which you can display your latest version.

In addition, you must come prepared to talk about your project. As the Conversations section of Lesson 4 states, at the poster session, you must be prepared to have conversations with attendees who come from a range of backgrounds (from DSC 10 students to industry partners and faculty). To gauge your readiness, your TA will repeatedly select a random student in your group and ask them a question, such that the questions build off of one another.

  • The first question your TA will ask your group is, “So, what’s your project about?” Your response should effectively be a two-minute elevator pitch summarizing your project and its impact. One group member will be randomly selected to give this elevator pitch; as such, everyone should be prepared to.
  • Then, your TA will repeatedly ask randomly-selected group members to answer followup questions. Each member in your group will be asked at least one question, and each member in your group must speak.

To reiterate, all group members are expected to be present in-person, and all are expected to speak. If you do not appear at your check-in and don’t schedule a followup, you will lose half of your 10% checkpoint grade.

Website

In addition to working through your presentation and poster, your TA will also give you feedback on your website, whose checkpoint is due on February 26th. You are expected to keep refining your website even after the checkpoint.