Undergraduate Senior Capstone (CSC 400)
The CSC 400: CS Project Seminar course is the capstone experience for the major and is taken during the last semester of a student's senior year. This course requires students to develop a software solution to a real-world problem. It is a chance for students to showcase all that they learned in Southern's computer science curriculum combined with what students have learned on their own.
Fall 2025 Offering:
This course requires students to work in teams (no larger than 3 students).
To register for the course, students must receive department approval from the instructor who is teaching the course. Once a student receives permission to register, he/she will be notified by the department and then can register for the course on Banner Student. It is critically important that students do NOT wait until a few days before the start of the semester because it is possible that students will not have their proposal approved in time when classes start.
CSC 400 is offered every Fall and Spring semester and is often offered in the Summer Session (May - Aug) as well.
CSC 400 is a writing-intensive course and is approved as a W course while also fulfilling the Tier 3 requirement of the LEP program.
Summer 2025 Offering:
Dr. Hossain will be offering CSC 400 - 01W over the summer from May 27 - Aug 18.
Given the nature of the course, class time is dedicated to meetings with teams throughout the summer on an almost weekly basis (time arranged). All meetings are online. CSC 400 supports 3 types of projects:
- Client-sponsored: This is a team-based project where you will be building a software solution for a client. You will need to interact with the client to define the project requirements and obtain feedback on the implementation.
- Research: This can be individual or team-based. You are expected to have at least an initial idea on a research topic that you’d like to tackle. The deliverables are typically a research paper and an implementation to test your idea (but can also be a tool). If you’d like to work on a research project and you don’t have a topic, be sure to contact Dr. Antonios.
- Passion project: You’d need to have a viable and original project idea with a clear focus and deliverable. This can be individual or team-based.
If you already have a good idea of what you’d like to work on, please contact Dr. Hossain.