Psych Students Need Support

Over the course of five years, the number of psychology concentrators swelled from 282 in 1995 to 427 in 2000. Although the department has made a valiant attempt to keep up with this new interest, it has nevertheless fallen short. This year, scores of seniors will thus not be able to write theses, forced to conclude their undergraduate educations without the culminating experience of year-long original research projects.

As it stands, each potential psychology thesis writer must assemble a three-person reading committee in the spring of his or her junior year and, in addition, write a 20-page research proposal. As part of this committee, the student must enlist a faculty member who will also act as a thesis advisor. This poses a problem, as there are now only 23 full faculty members for over 100 potential senior thesis writers. This dearth of advisers is aggravated by a general lack of psychology faculty, so even those professors who are available to advise are often already carrying the burdens of teaching many classes load and overseeing multiple graduate students.

Although the psychology department has taken several noteworthy steps over the past few years to address this problem, they have been only marginally successful. While many new lecturers and visiting professors have come to Harvard, they have only been allowed to teach courses and not advise theses. The department has hired three professors over the last year, but even that has not been enough to cover the growing number of students who want to pursue honors.

Although it is a noble goal to allow each thesis writer to have a faculty adviser, the lack of professors has rendered this impossible. Until this crunch is alleviated, the psychology deparment should do everything in its power to ensure that students suffer as little as possible from under-staffing. The department must be flexible enough with its requirements to allow qualified non-faculty members—such as lecturers or senior graduate students—to advise theses and lead reading committees.

While there is still a faculty shortage, the department must take great pains to ensure that sophomore advising does not continue to suffer. Concentrators should not feel that in order to write a thesis they have to ally themselves with a professor and choose an area of focus during their sophomore year. Advisers should never discourage thesis writing or imply that it would impose too much of a burden on the department or its faculty. It is daunting enough to have to devote an entire year to research; students’ dedication to such an intensive project should be their only obstacle.

Unfortuantely, these problems are not confined to the psychology department; they are widespread throughout many concentrations in the University. All undergraduates should have the opportunity to write theses and pursue rigorous, original scholarship.