Senior Project

Senior Project: Your Launchpad to the Real World

A multi-term capstone experience that transforms knowledge into real-world impact

The Senior Project Experience

Under the guidance of Teaching Professor Jeffrey Salvage, CCI’s Senior Project marks the culmination of a rigorous, multi-term academic journey. More than just a class, it’s a comprehensive experience that challenges students to apply their academic knowledge to real-world problems.

Students work in collaborative teams to plan, budget, design, implement, evaluate, and document a significant computing or informatics product—mirroring the full software development lifecycle.

Extending Experiential Education

The Senior Project extends Drexel’s hallmark experiential learning to a potential 27 months, complementing co-op experiences with sustained interaction, oversight, and mentoring from CCI’s industry partners. This structure ensures students are not only building technical skills but also learning to deliver under real-world constraints.

Unlike many peer institutions, Drexel CCI’s Senior Project builds directly on the co-op model—creating one of the most comprehensive experiential learning pipelines in higher education. Professor Salvage’s conversations with faculty at other universities confirm: few offer anything comparable in scope, mentorship, or industry integration.

Personalized Growth Paths

“When I ask students what they want to get out of senior project, some students want to work in specific domains: ‘This is the last time I’ll ever be able to write a game’; other students say, ‘I want to learn a new technology.’ Other students want to develop their leadership skills,” said Salvage.

“The beauty of the way we have senior project set up is: Whatever’s important to you, you can guide and you can lead your career moving forward.”

Real Stakeholders, Real Impact

External stakeholders, including industry partners and nonprofit organizations, initiate many projects, providing real-world requirements and benefiting directly from the final applications. These partnerships ensure students are solving authentic problems with tangible outcomes. In addition, participants can use the senior project to demonstrate their job-readiness, professionalism, and skill set, which can lead to job offers to continue work on the project or even its implementation for the sponsoring company upon graduation.

Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Teams often span multiple disciplines, drawing students from across Drexel’s academic landscape—including the College of Engineering and the Digital Media Program in the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design. This diversity fosters innovation and mirrors the collaborative nature of today’s tech industry.

Whether you're exploring a new technology, building a game, or leading a team, the Senior Project is your opportunity to shape your future.

Visit the Senior Project Portfolio