CS Capstone
Where the CS Capstone gets real.
The CS Capstone with Open Source SLU puts students on production software teams building for actual organizations. Students ship code that people use and walk away with a portfolio that speaks for itself. Three tracks let each student aim their capstone at the kind of work that excites them most.
Three Tracks
Client-Driven Product Development: Build an open source software product that solves the needs of a "first customer." Work directly with a partner organization to understand their problem, design a solution, and ship working software.
Entrepreneurship: Create a market-fit solution and work closely with SLU Launch to explore viability, user validation, and go-to-market strategy alongside technical development. Requires prior planning (see below).
Research: Work directly with CS faculty to advance the state of the art and drive towards academic publication. Apply software engineering practices to research problems and contribute to the scholarly record. Requires prior planning (see below).
The Entrepreneurship and Research tracks require an approved plan of action from program leadership. Ideally this plan is in place before the end of the previous semester. It must be approved no later than the start of the BOLT workshop. Contact oss@slu.edu to begin the planning process.
What You'll Build
- Real Software Products: Applications, tools, and platforms that solve actual problems
- Open Source Contributions: Code that lives on, gets maintained, and impacts users beyond the classroom
- Professional Portfolio: GitHub repositories, documentation, and deployed applications you can showcase to employers
- Technical Skills: Modern frameworks, development practices, and collaboration tools used in industry
Your Team Experience
This isn't another awkward group project. You'll work in small, focused teams within a structured program that mirrors industry practices and sets teams up for success.
- Clear Roles and Accountability: Defined responsibilities and structured collaboration processes
- Professional Mentorship: Experienced graduate student Tech Leads provide code review, guidance, and hands-on learning
- Industry-Standard Workflows: Sprint planning, milestone tracking, stakeholder communication, version control, and testing practices
- Conflict Resolution: Built-in processes to address challenges before they derail progress
- Professional Development: Technical best practices alongside soft skills development and teamwork
Skills You'll Develop
Technical Skills:
- Modern programming languages and frameworks
- Database design and management
- API development and integration
- Testing and quality assurance
- Deployment and DevOps practices
Professional Skills:
- Collaborative software development
- Client communication and requirements gathering
- Project planning and time management
- Code documentation and knowledge transfer
- Problem-solving in real-world constraints
Paid Developer Bench
All capstone students automatically join our bench of software developers, creating ongoing opportunities for paid work beyond course requirements.
Available opportunities include short-term development projects with partner organizations, ongoing maintenance and feature development for existing products, and new project work matched to developing skills and interests. Scheduling is flexible and works around academic commitments.
Students are matched to paid opportunities based on availability, relevant experience from capstone and other coursework, and demonstrated performance. Strong performance in capstone directly translates to better and more frequent paid opportunities. Bench membership continues throughout remaining studies.
Enrollment
The CS Capstone with Open Source SLU is part of the required CS Capstone course. Projects span full-stack development, AI, robotics, VR, and more.
See Capstone Dates and Timeline for the semester schedule and registration windows.
Questions? Contact us at oss@slu.edu.