Tag Archives: fall thesis

What I Want to do for Thesis

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About a year and a half ago, I was working as a lab assistant in a professor’s lab at Keck science. One friday afternoon, we were about to start our weekly lab meeting, a time normally utilized to debrief and discuss our lab’s projects and goals for the coming months. However, on this particular day, we had a visitor drop by our meeting. She was a senior student who was just putting the finishing touches on her thesis project. She had asked my professor if she could stop in on our meeting to practice presenting her poster to all of us. As we all listened attentively to her presentation, I noticed something intriguing about the content of her project. It seemed as though she had worked in a hospital in between her academic semesters and had gathered research alongside a clinical mentor about the head sizes of pre-mature babies under specific conditions. As you can probably guess, I was immediately taken aback by the structure of her project. Since the beginning of that semester, I had begun to feel uninspired by the research I was conducting at my lab bench and this type of project was exactly the wake up call I needed. I became inspired by the work of this singular individual (whose name I can’t even remember…) to completely change the direction of my efforts.

Now I know thesis is can be an extremely stressful time of year for many students. But, to tell you the truth, right now I’m quite excited for it. The shear number of possibilities that can stem from the vague and multidirectional prompt of “thesis” is exciting, though a tad overwhelming. Because of this, I began seeing Jill Jones, the incredible pre-med counselor at Keck and she slowly began coaching me in the art of clinical exploration. She showed me how to aim for positions within my interests and skill set, while also encouraging me not settle because of my age or degree. She advised that I find unique, alternative experiences that would really help to expose me to my career goals and that would inspire me to perform excellent research. So I began searching everywhere! I called up every clinical profession within a 10 mile radius of campus, scouring for opportunities. I asked professors and administrators for advice and possible connections. I would actively wait every Sunday for CP&R’s Career Courier email for any applications or position openings I could find! You can maybe now understand why I was so thankful when I was contacted by a long time family friend who wanted to help me in my search. As a geneticist, she was not only interested in recruiting me for volunteer research, she also had a wide range of connections with doctors and professionals doing active research, people who I never would have been able to get a hold on on my own.

What I think I’m trying to say is that when it comes to thesis, and many other academic endeavors, exploring new and unlikely paths may just get you to exactly where you’re going. The inspiration, advice, and aid I’ve received for each of the women in my journey has been instrumental in igniting my thesis drive and, as a rising senior, I just can’t wait to get started.

What is this thesis thing?

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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!