2025-03-02 · assessment · capstone · mentorship

Capstone reviews: what mentors actually mark up

By Elena Marquez

Capstones are graded on traceability, not flash. Mentors ask whether another engineer could execute your rollback card without calling you. If the answer is no, the draft returns with inline questions, not red ink for style.

We mark missing signals explicitly: "Where is the ingress health check result?" beats "Needs work". Specificity respects learner time.

Second, we score how well observability artifacts line up with the timeline. Mismatched timestamps get flagged even if the narrative sounds confident.

Finally, we reward honest scope notes. Saying "I did not test this on arm nodes" earns more trust than silent omission. The rubric rewards humility paired with rigor.