From Frogs to Washington And Lebanon

October is a rather lazy time of year; most students have only a few hourlies and the rain to contend with, as they enjoy the last few weeks of fall.

But several hundred seniors can't afford to take it quite so easy. They are beginning work on what the Government Department, for one, predicts will be the "high point of their undergraduate education"--the senior honors thesis.

At many colleges the writing of something as ambitious as a senior thesis is put off until graduate school, but that is not the case at Harvard and most other Ivy League schools. At Brown and Dartmouth, for example, social science departments generally require an honors thesis for students wishing to graduate with departmental honors. At Yale, some departments, such as History, require that all students, not just those going for honors, write a "senior essay."

At Harvard the requirements are not that strict, though, and as a general rule only those students hoping for departmental honors and those in the few selective, honors-only concentrations such as Social Studies and History and Literature must write a thesis.

Nevertheless, most students who write a thesis seem to agree that there is "something" about it that makes writing one a little more nerve-wracking and a lot more time-consuming than simply writing a long paper.

"I'm going to be swamped," says Dean Spencer '78, a Government concentrator who is writing a thesis on the legitimacy of lying according to political theorists.

"I have a clearly marked tendency not to start writing things until the night before," Spencer says, and for that reason he hopes to write as he does his research. "But, on the other hand, I'm still scared," he adds. "It's kind of a frightening idea, to throw it all into one paper."

Susan Waxenberg '78 says, "I'm sometimes jealous of people who say with a smirk 'I'm not writing a thesis,'" but she adds that she hopes her thesis, on barriers to entry in the fast foods industry, will be for her "part of the growing up you do at Harvard."

But although Waxenberg says she is interested in her topic, and looks forward to the challenge of writing a thesis, she says she is "not looking forward to December, January and February" when she will have to write it. "I could have such a good senior year...sometimes I ask myself why I'm writing a thesis," she adds.

Why, then write a senior thesis, and face the prospect of long days in the library during the winter, and sleepless nights at the typewriter in April? No two people have exactly the same reasons, but graduating with honors is an obvious motive for writing one, a motive stressed by many thesis writers interviewed last week.

Writing a thesis does not, however, ensure that a student will actually receive honors in his or her department, and those who do not write theses can still graduate with honors--cum laude in general studies. Moreover, the requirements vary with each department. Some science departments, such as Chemistry and Physics, do not require a thesis for honors, while others do, such as Geological Sciences and Astronomy.

Even in the social science departments, for which a thesis is almost invariably required for departmental honors, many students never begin a thesis. Others drop them at some point during their senior year. Of about 125 seniors in Government each year, fox example, 90 or so start work on a thesis, and about 20 never complete them, according to Nancy L. Rosenblum '69, head tutor in the Government Department.

Rosenblum says that writing her senior thesis, on Hegel, was "a great experience."Yet she would only advise a student to write a senior thesis "if you have something in mind, something you want to explore," or "if the process is appealing"--that is, if the student enjoys researching and writing long papers. But someone who does not fit into either of those categories, she says, "would be well advised not to write a thesis."

Rosenblum suggested that writing a thesis does not necessarily help you get into graduate school. Admissions officers at the Law School and Business School said last week they agree. N. June Thompson, assistant director of admissions at the Law School, says she has "no feeling either way" about whether an applicant should be writing a senior thesis--particularly because acceptance notices are sent out well before the theses are written.

But writing a thesis may be more of a help in applying to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and an admissions official there said last week that because it shows a student is interested in a subject, and doing work in the field, "it would be a plus in your favor." Still, few seniors interviewed last week said their graduate school plans have much to do with their writing a thesis, and several said they think it might even hurt their chances of getting to law school, because it may take away time they would otherwise spend filling out applications.

Why, then, spend much of one's senior year in college working on one long paper, if you can graduate with honors without it, and you do not need it for graduate school?

For some, the question simply never came up.

"I just assumed from the start I would write a thesis," said Thomas A. Mullen '78, an American History concentrator. For his thesis on the changing views of colonial Americans as seen through colonial newspapers. Mullen plans to spend much of his time in Lamont Library, which has the second greatest collection of microfilmed colonial newspapers in existence. (The best collection is in Worcester, Mass., but Mullen said he will probably not need to use it. Besides, he added, he has "no ambition to hole up in a Howard Johnson's for a week" in Worcester.)

Daniel Poneman '78 also had planned on writing a thesis for several years, and he got a head start last summer when he spent nine weeks traveling through Europe, doing research for his topic, the progress of nuclear energy programs in West European nations. Partially funded by grants from the Center for European Studies and the Center for International Affairs, Poneman interviewed government officials, members of international agencies involved with nuclear power, and members of the press.

"I'm slightly intimidated by the whole idea," he says, especially because the nuclear situation in Europe is changing so rapidly. But still, he says, "I'm looking forward to actually doing something more than a normal term paper."

Many other thesis writers are also hoping to do "something more" with their thesis than they have in courses or papers before.

"A thesis should be a learning expeience," says Irene Rosenberg '78, who is studying the structure of DNA taken from corn chloroplast into E. coli bacteria. She hopes to learn about lab techniques, and in the process, contribute information that may someday lead to benefits such as higher crop yields. "My project isn't earth-shattering, it's not cornshattering, either," she says, "but it will provide some information."

For Bart Naylor '78 his thesis research, studying the neurological impulses of frogs, is "as testing ground to see it I'm really into that sort of thing." He says that although his topic "sounds peculiar, and like something you wouldn't tell you kids about," his thesis may add to the general knowledge of the field, while many social science theses "won't be read by anybody outside the student and the thesis readers" who grade the work.

"I look at a thesis as a challenge," says Karen Baum '78, who will be writing about the criteria by which people judge restaurants. As a freshman, she says, "the mere thought of writing a 60 page paper really blew me away"--but now, after becoming less concerned with the intricacies of grammer and more concerned with "working thoughts out on paper," she says she is looking forward to doing the thesis, as a learning experience. (But, she adds, "that's not to say I don't think I'll have weeks of pure hell, come March.")

For Baum, though, the thesis may not just be a learning but a practical venture too, because she would like to open her own restaurant some time after graduation. "Right now it's a dream that I would open my own place, but I'd like to," she says.

Several other seniors mentioned that their decision to write a thesis was partly because it represents a challenge, as probably the longest and most difficult piece of work of their four years here. Almost everyone, whatever their reason for writing a thesis, a agreed it would be a lot of work.

For some, such as Daniel Poneman who traveled to Europe, the research for the thesis involves a great deal of time and effort--and, maybe, a little fun. Brad Behrman '78 spent his summer in Washington on an Institute of Politics grant, interviewing bureaucrats and others for his thesis on the politics of aviation regulatory reform. What with accumulated tapes of interviews, stacks of books and committee hearings and reports that he gathered over the summer, he says "My biggest problem coming back here was excess baggage."

Ronald Zeghibe '78, who spent the summer in Lebanon doing research for his thesis on leadership elites in the Lebanese civil war, faced a more serious problem: the difficulty, and even the danger, of working and living in a country torn by internal strife. Although most of the people he met and came to know were very friendly, he did find out that "life is very cheap" in the country as a whole, "and everybody gets used to it." He learned that lesson abruptly one day when, after a small automobile accident on a city street, the two drivers got out and began to fight--until one pulled out a gun, and shot and killed the other.

Zeghibe's experience is undoubtedly the exception among thesis writers, and for many the farthest trip required for research is probably only to Widener Library. But simply putting together a 50 or 100 page thesis can be an overwhelming job for many students. Nancy Rosenblum has advice for thesis writers worried about what to do with the material they gather.

"A thesis is really just a long paper," says Rosenblum, "but it takes a lot of energy and worry," Many students write 30 page papers in one semester, she points out--so why not 60 pages in two semesters? The key, according to Rosenblum, is to start on the writing before all the research is completed; otherwise, she says, "you have a thousand file cards and notes, and you sit down over Christmas vacation, and it's overwhelming." She admits that it is difficult to write while one is still doing research, but not impossible if every book read is related, in writing, to a central "thesis" argument that the writer has written out beforehand.

William G. Perry, director of the Bureau of Study Counsel, offers a different sort of advice: don't restrict yourself to a rigid approach to the subject while doing research. "English teachers said to outline, but that's not how the mind works," says Perry. "You need to collect data and mess around with it, until the thoughts come out of the material."

How long should a thesis be? That depends largely on the writer, and the department. The English and American Literature Department says its theses should be between 10,000 and 15,000 words (about 40-60 pages); for Philosophy, no more than 18,000 words; for Government, the limit is 35,000 words, and other departments have different limits, or no limits at all.

Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger '50 turned in what is probably among the longest Government theses ever written at Harvard; his magnum opus, on "The Meaning of History," ran for 383 pages, plus bibliography--and that was after he had cut out two chapters, in an effort to shorten it. The effort won Kissinger a summa, but not the gratitude of some of those in the department who did not want to read it all, and some years ago a maximum page limit was set to avoid the problem in the future.

From frogs to DNA, from Washington to Lebanon, thesis topics range widely. Writing a thesis can be a tremendous challenge, and for many people offers a welcome chance to study a subject in great depth. But, for others, a thesis means only sleepless nights and blank pages in the typewriter.