My lovely friend Sanskriti proudly posing with her finished and bound thesis.

As fall semester draws to a close, seniors writing a fall thesis finish their last edits, get their 30-, 60- or 90-pagers bound, and post photos with their finished work on Facebook  while everyone writing a spring or two semester thesis looks on enviously. All of this has me thinking about what thesis is and why it’s important for us as undergraduates. Plenty of schools don’t require seniors to write theses—in fact, many of my friends at Pomona don’t have to write them simply because there are too many students in their major for the professors to read all their theses.

The crew at CMC’s Fountain Party for fall semester. Congratulations!

Last week was CMC’s Fountain Party, held both fall and spring semester on the day all CMC thesis-writers submit them to their readers. On the way to my 1:15 class, I stopped by the fountains outside the Hub to say hi to lucky CMC friends. They were seriously celebrating with extremely loud music, bathing suits, water guns, and the like. Someone tried to dump a trash can filled with water on my head and I had to run away, but it was incredibly heartwarming to see people celebrating such a huge accomplishment. Of course, it also reminded me that I’m not even close to finishing my mine.

Since looking at Scripps as a prospective student I’ve been aware that I’d be writing a thesis as a senior. It’s built up each year as senior friends go through the grueling process and we see them zombie-ing around campus after days of no sleep. I remember particularly last year, when looking in at different rooms in Browning and Dorsey in preparation for room draw, seniors excusing the state of utter chaos in their rooms with a single word: “Sorry– thesis”. But it must mean different things for different people. I know plenty of people who see it as simply a hurdle that must be jumped through to graduate. For others, it’s a chance to explore more fully a subject that truly intrigues them.

I’m hoping Columbia will be impressed with my thesis!

So what does thesis mean for me? As I think more seriously about applying to graduate school, I view thesis as something that could be very beneficial in applying and actually getting in. Especially as my thesis heavily incorporates ethnographic research I conducted myself while in Beirut this summer, I feel (and have been reassured by a number of my professors) that it will be an asset when applying because it will demonstrate my skills with and dedication to Anthropology in the Middle East around the topic of religion, something I’d like to pursue in graduate school. For this reason, and because I find my thesis topic endlessly fascinating, I am planning on trying for Honors in Middle Eastern Studies. I feel lucky to have the opportunity that is this thesis thing. Thanks, Scripps!