Here we are, already half way through the second week of class. Getting back into the swing of things was a little harder than I expected, especially after coming down with the flu and missing my last “first day” of classes (since its senior year) as well as an interview I had set up for my first Friday back in California. Needless to say, school and the internship search process got put on hold for a while. Luckily I am healthy again and am getting back into a regular routine.

I wanted to spend this post talking about thesis. So, what is the topic of my thesis? Well, that’s something that I haven’t quite figured out yet, although that is not to say that I don’t have ideas, because trust me- I have plenty. Whatever my thesis topic will be, it will involve hours of observations and interviews. The Sociology department at Pomona (where I am carrying out my major) requires that students have a minimum of 20 hours of research. According to Gilda Ochoa, associate professor of Sociology at Pomona and one of my thesis readers/advisors, this can either be through observations or interviews (or both).

Although thesis is going to be incredibly time consuming, I think that I will gain a variety of skills that will be applicable to a future career in journalism or publishing. The most obvious transferable skill is writing. Clearly most magazine articles do not take the same style or form of writing as a thesis, but it is still writing. No matter what my topic is, I will have to convey the results and observations I find in a way that is coherent and thought provoking to my readers. Like any good article, it should grab my attention and make the reader want to know more.

Another applicable skill that thesis will help with is learning how to conduct intensive research. The literature review that I will have to do will involve reading lots of books and reports on what has been written about my topic. Reviewing this information is something similar to what I would have to do if I were to write an in-depth article for a newspaper or magazine, but instead of going through Sociology texts I would be reading through past news reports on a particular topic. In addition to conducting intensive research, conducting an interview will be another very valuable skill that will help me later on in journalism, as many articles or stories are based off of interviews or get their information from interviews. Although I have conducted interviews before, I think having to conduct up to 10 hours of interviews will really help me refine my skills as an interviewer.

Talking about how thesis will help my career later on in life reminds me of something I have heard from Valinda multiple times (and is something that I subsequently have to repeat to my Father when he asks me what I am going to do with a Sociology major after I graduate college), and that is that your major does NOT have to determine your career. Many people who hear I am interested in journalism or publishing often ask me why I didn’t major in English or Creative Writing. Well, the truth is that my Sociology major has already prepared me very well for a future career in Journalism in many ways. For example, in the field of Sociology, studies on issues such as class, race and gender are carried out through qualitative methods (observing and trying to understand human behavior and attitudes). Obviously this is a skill that can easily be used in journalism, as any good storyteller or reporter is a good observer. Being able to observe situations and draw conclusions from them will help me become a good investigative reporter, so to speak. A reporter not only observes situations, but also can make clear and concise statements about what they have seen (see how that relates, Dad?). I could go on with many more examples, but I will refrain from trying to defend my major choice. I know that my major will help me later on in life in multiple ways.