[dpeck]

It's great to see my school doing this, but looking at it doesn't seem very different from the senior design/capstone projects that many of the technical majors have already. I assume the big difference is not taking other classes along with this program and you don't have a customer lined up before starting?

For perspective my senior design project was a semester long "class" that met once every week or two for milestone updates from the groups, and occasional lectures/instruction from industry folks. My groups project was 4 of us designing and implementing a group management system for social orgs. Basic stuff like shared calendars, sub groups, email<->forum integration, permissions/views for officers and such. Obviously not the most ambitious project, but the kind of thing that a few college kids could feasibly do in a semester on top of a full course load.

[jdchizzle]

Hey dpeck, glad to hear your views on Startup Semester. Just to put our side in perspective as well - Startup Semester was the result of two undergrads at Georgia Tech who were frustrated at the silos of "schools" that never work together and a culture that seems to look forward to "getting out". We spent all of the last 3 months putting this program together for less than $50 with the goal that we ourselves would be able to learn from it and simultaneously benefit the community.

To answer your concern more directly, our long-term mission is to create a physical entrepreneurial hub on campus that all majors are welcome to participate in. The purpose is to connect the entrepreneurs of all the schools at Georgia Tech - Industrial Design, Computing, Engineering, Business etc.. - to really build great products and businesses backed by an effective cross-functional team. In our experience, we've never encountered a senior design team with business students, designers, and engineers working together. We may be wrong, but it definitely seems like students are agreeing. At the very least, we're hoping this program could help us, and perhaps a few other misfits like us. :)

[dpeck]

Great to see happening, didn't want to seem like I was downing on it.

The cross major/school stuff would be great, especially getting the CoC kids out of their bubble. The senior/grad level Video Game Design (that still around? it was a ball buster, but a great class) was supposed to include CoC and kids from SCAD and arch/industrial design schools but I'm not sure how many actually had that happen. My team recruited a my comp engineer buddy who was serviable with photoshop.

Agreed on the "getting out" culture, needs to change, but I'm not sure Tech would be Tech without it. My favorite times were always early in semesters and after finals where over, plenty of time to work on some projects with friends without the feeling of "talking shop" that happens during the intense workloads of mid to end of classes.