Thesis Writers Reach End

While running from Mather House to CGIS to turn in her final thesis last Thursday, Christina Kozak ’08 discovered that she had not printed out the two complete sets required by the Government department.

“I turned to the last page of my second copy and realized that the printer had run out of paper and my bibliography wasn’t there,” she said.

Kozak ran back to Mather to print the final page before sprinting across campus to CGIS.

“I ran. Very quickly,” she said. Her thesis was handed in with several minutes to spare.

As students in Economics, History, and Psychology turn in their senior theses this afternoon, they undoubtedly hope for a less dramatic finale to the months of research and writing that have gone into the process.

Psychology concentrators will have one less hurdle to jump as they turn in their theses electronically—a policy begun in 2006.

While History and Literature concentrators submitted their work on Feb. 29, for many thesis writers today represents the final sprint before the official beginning of “senior spring.”

When theses are finally finished, students said they are anxious to rid themselves of all reminders of their struggles.

Albert D. Genna, a library assistant in the stacks division in Widener Library, said that some students bring in as many as 300 books at a time.

“They come in shifts,” he said. “People will come in and you can always tell when they have finished their thesis because they will announce it when they return the books.”

But even after the theses are handed in and the books are returned, some students find it difficult to regain a sense of normalcy.

“Afterwards, I couldn’t even take a nap,” said Kozak, who wrote her thesis on the role of women in the reformed Communist Party in East Germany. “I was so tired and overcaffeinated.”

Diane R. Guite ’08, a social anthropology concentrator, is excited to submit her work on Islam and finance today.

“It’s so far out of the realm of possibilities that I would ever stop working on my thesis,” she said. “I don’t even know what that would be like.”

She took a brief break from final editing last night to offer advice to younger students interested in writing.

“I went to Dubai, which is what made it all worth it,” she said. “If you’re going to write a thesis, at least try to get a trip out of it.”

For Kozak, the most important advice was that students choose subjects about which they were “absolutely passionate.”

“Towards the end,” she said, “you’re not going to like any topic you’re writing about.”

Today marks the exciting end of months of work, but for most students the process has not been without hurdles.

Elizabeth B. David ’08, a History concentrator, will also turn in her final draft today.

“There have been definite moments when I realized that the thirty pages I had written were best in the trash on my computer,” she explained. “The way the process works is you keep writing and you end up losing a lot of the pages that you write, but those pages get you to the final pages that you turn in.”

—Staff writer Laura C. McKiernan can be reached lmckiern@fas.harvard.edu.