Have you been working on your honors thesis?

 

As a senior History/English major, the to-do list on my calendar is filled with markings all pertaining to my largest project as an undergrad at Clark:  The Honors Thesis.

By the end of the year, hopefully I will have completed an 80-100 page paper about a topic that I thoroughly researched and later defended orally to a panel of judges.  Hopefully.

The honors thesis constantly looms over my head.  Even once I’ve completed the homework for my other classes and I’m hoping to relax for a bit, that nagging question of “Have you been working on your honors thesis?” always enters my head.

The great thing about the honors thesis though is that a lot of other seniors are working on one too.  Solidarity.  And professors are great about giving tips about just how to get this project done.  Some ideas?

·         Find your laundry room!  One senior made a comment about how she took up studying in her laundry room over the summer.  A quiet place where no one would interrupt her while she worked on it; a place to be productive.  Find your laundry room, literally or metaphorically.

·         Set small goals! Don’t work for more than 45 minutes in one sitting.  Set a timer for about half an hour and work on one thing only. Then take a five minute break before going back into it.

·         Keep track of your sources!  For smaller papers, it’s easy to go back into the document after you write and put in the annotations.  For larger papers, annotate as you go and try to keep all your sources organized.

·         Write often!  Write whenever you get a chance to, even if it is during a 10 minute period before class.  It could be something constructive, in the sense that you actually contribute information to your paper.  Or it could be a stress-relieving exercise like, “I hate this thesis, this was the worst decision of my life, what the hell was I thinking….”  Get in the habit of writing often. 

·         Write often…even when you are stuck! One professor mentioned that when she got stuck, she used to write a fake email to a friend explaining where she was stuck in her paper and why she was having trouble writing it…by the end of the email, she’d find that it gave her ideas on how to write and she was no longer stuck!

·         Be paranoid! Pretend that everyone is out to get you and destroy your thesis…therefore make copies and back up all your files constantly.  Save multiple copies and store them in safe locations.

As frightening as it seems though, everyone was quick to emphasize over and over again that writing a thesis can be done….it’s not impossible!  Generations of students have done it before, and it will continue to be done by others after you finish your paper as well.  As long as you stay on top of things (actively thinking, reading, writing about your topic), and don’t let it “sit on the shelf” for too long, things should eventually come together.  It can be done. 

….and make sure you have someone on standby that you can hyperventilate to when you get overwhelmed.