Sponsoring the Masters Capstone Project

Welcome!

Thank you for your interest in Carnegie Mellon’s Masters in Human-Computer Interaction (MHCI) capstone project. Our sponsoring companies greatly benefit from the innovative work produced by our students, which is a particular help to those companies without strong, in-house usability teams. They see this as an opportunity to have 2.5 person years of usability expertise. Other sponsors use this project as a recruiting tool, offering industry positions to the top producers on their project team.

The Sponsor Relationship

We ask the sponsoring company to collaborate closely with their student team in order to achieve the “real-life” goal for the students. This includes three face-to-face meetings throughout the semesters, where sponsors join their student team in Pittsburgh. The first meeting is in January and serves to get to know one another and to mutually set the project scope. The second is in late April or early May to hear the mid-report presentation. Finally, the third takes place in early August to hear the usability report and see the prototype in action. All the while, we ask that the sponsors are available for weekly meetings with their student team, guiding them to success, just as a manager may do for a team in industry. Of course, while we expect sponsors to offer feedback regarding the student team’s ideas and to answer questions, we do not expect or desire the sponsor to assist the student team in any actual design or development of the capstone project work.

Learn More

• For an in-depth look at the MHCI capstone project, which includes details on the student teams, faculty, schedule, IP and more, click here.
• For a list of past capstone projects, click here.
• To learn more about sponsoring a capstone project, please contact Jenna Date, Associate Teaching Faculty.

We look forward to hearing more about your projects as well as working together in the future!