Welcome from the Director

Dear Verrazano students-- Welcome or Welcome back!

I'm settling into my second year as the Director of Honors, and I have seen dazzling accomplishments by the students in Verrazano. Let's remind ourselves just how great we are!

In 2019,  we celebrated the graduation of 50 seniors. Our graduates are headed to PhD and Masters programs in the US and abroad, and they have been been placed in jobs such as computer/software engineers, teachers, and medical professionals. Not to be outdone, our continuing students have been busy all summer. Several were studying abroad in countries such as Italy, Rwanda, Denmark, and Morocco. And 3 Verrazano students were in Puerto Rico as volunteers with CUNY Service Corps to help the island’s rebuilding efforts.

This fall, there are 72 incoming Freshmen and 48 students transferring into the Verrazano school. These 120 students will be the largest class in recent history. This means, I have quite a lot to people to meet! In order to get to know all of you better, I will be holding “Lounge Hours” twice per semester where we will discuss topics that are central to you.  The first topic is “The Capstone Project" -- September 24, 2:30-3:30
If you have any other burning questions, let us know. We'll try to put it on the Lounge Agenda.

I have one last request. We are making the transition from just email communications to social media. In order for this to work, you’ve got to follow Verrazano. So click on our Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook pages. We’ll need help managing the accounts, so if you’re looking for some volunteer social media intern experience, let us know. Help us tell all of these great Verrazano stories!

Looking forward to another wonderful year,

Gerry


 


 

The capstone as a rewarding journey

Melissa Finnegan, Verrazano Class of 2019, earned a Bachelor of Science in Psychology.


As a freshman in college it may be hard for one to know what you want to major in, what career path you want to go down, or even decide what you expect to accomplish during your college career. Fortunately, I was lucky to know what I wanted my end goal to be and what my future career was going to be. I have always been interested in the sciences. I have always been so passionate about helping others and pursuing a career in physical therapy. Throughout my college years I have had the opportunity to meet many wonderful individuals, gain exceptional experiences and have the ability to network with others. In the blink of an eye, every semester seemed to fly by. By the beginning of my junior year all I could hear my other peers brainstorming about was their capstone project and what is was going to be about. Even though we still had a whole year to complete the project, it is very important to think ahead and plan out what you wanted to do.

Melissa presenting at CSI's Undergraduate Research Conference

I started brainstorming what I was going to do during the beginning of my spring semester in junior year. I wanted to participate in undergraduate research with a professor but I also wanted to gain the experience of working in an independent study. During the fall and spring semester of my senior year I have been working in an independent study, which assisted me in the preliminary stages of my capstone project. When working on a thesis and doing research, it is imperative that you select a topic that is not only important but also interesting to you. I was able to intertwine my passion for physical therapy and interest in doing research with subjects. Having this idea, I was able to begin my capstone.
I conducted my research with the elderly and analyzed their functionality through a series of questions as well as creating an online survey. My experience with working on my capstone was of course stressful at times but it was also rewarding to see all my hard work come together and pay off. My research involves relative information to my career path so I will able to apply this knowledge to my future endeavors.  Now having completed my capstone, I am honored to have finished. This project has taught me a lot and has proven to me my ability to produce educational and informative research.

Math major studies the economic geography of the World Cup (only in Verrazano!)

Brianna Di Stefano, Verrazano Class of 2019, earned a degree in Mathematics and a minor in Geography.


Completing this capstone project has given me the opportunity to study and learn about a topic that I was able to choose.  Being able to choose the topic I wished to study and research is a rare occurrence throughout school.  Although in the beginning of the capstone process, the task seems daunting and requires extra work, once you find your topic and start diving into the paper, it becomes easier.  Trying to pick a topic was simple yet difficult simultaneously.  I have always loved soccer, so I knew I wanted to incorporate soccer into my paper because I was able to choose my own topic, but it took some time to figure out how to write a scholarly paper involving soccer.  Since my minor is geography, my mentor for this paper, Professor Kabachnik, who is the Associate Professor of Geography at CSI, helped me narrow down my topic and outline for the paper after discussing several potential ideas to use and paths to take for this project.  

Having Professor Kabachnik as my mentor for this project was extremely helpful because he is knowledgeable in the background for my paper, since it required geographical aspects of social and economical evaluations on a developing country.  Once he helped me select my topic and lay out the outline, I was organized and set up to complete all of the parts of my paper that were necessary for my research.  Throughout the writing of my paper, I read several articles and took note of important and interesting facts and ideas relating to my topic.  By collecting and sorting through an abundance of information, I was able to produce a scholarly paper with relevant and interesting information about the images and realities of South Africa hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup.


If I continued to pursue research relating to my paper, it would involve studying more mega events in addition to the 2010 FIFA World Cup.  My paper focused predominately on the South African World Cup, with a few facts about other World Cups.  Because South Africa is a developing country, studying the images and realities of other developing countries will further progress and evolve the research about the impacts of mega events.  My paper involved research about the image desired by the government of South Africa, the image imagined by the local residents, and the image depicted by Western media as well as the realities of the mega event, which include the present use of the stadiums that were built or renovated, and how South Africa is perceived globally.  My paper uses festivalisation as one of the main concepts because festivalisation uses mega events of public events to develop a country’s infrastructure and economy.  Using all these ideas and applying them to other developing countries who have hosted or will host a World Cup will help understand the true impacts of hosting a mega event, and whether it is beneficial for developing nations to spend billions of dollars to host a mega event.