Masochism Rewarded

If you see slightly dazed-looking seniors wandering down the street today and tomorrow clutching two black binders, congratulate them. Then again, if the 5 p.m. bell is ringing, and you see them looking blearily around the Yard, ask their concentration and point them in the direction of the appropriate building. By all means, keep them away from any grates that might lead to Widener's boiler room. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the end of this week brings thesis deadlines for the lucky folks in several concentrations, including Afro-American studies, classics, history, history of art and architecture, psychology, sociology and social studies. And honestly, we couldn't be happier.

It's been a long year since we first began thinking about this magnum opus, the work said to define our academic careers--a project requiring original research, lots and lots of text, and more blood, sweat and tears than you can shake a stick at. Some of us (social studies, take a bow) had no way out of this requirement (though an eleventh-hour switch to government might have done the trick), and others of us were just plain crazy enough to volunteer for hazardous duty.

The months slipped through June, July and August, when we were absolutely gung-ho to start our research, to the useless months of the early fall when standardized tests, job applications and extracurriculars had us asking, "Thesis? What thesis?" It never goes away, though, and avoiding one's advisor in the department office can work for only so long. By the turn of the faux millennium, a helpful kind of panic had set in, with fewer than four months before D-day and much work still to be done.

The line between being too busy to care about one's thesis and becoming obsessed with it is a thin one (maybe even invisible to some of us) which is usually crossed by mid-February. One moment, we're (fairly) normal people who are happy to discuss current events at dinner; the next we're catatonic slugs who perk up only at the mention of a possible bibliographic citation for our topic. You can diagnose an obsessed thesis writer using the following check-list of symptoms: the room is piled high with over-due library books; you can't see the desk for the post-it notes and index cards covering it; and judging from the wastebasket, a normal meal consists of Cracklin' Oat Bran in a paper cup and two cans of Coke. The Room 13 sign that asks, "You want that thesis chapter when?" suddenly speaks to the obsessed senior and may take up residence on his or her door, edited to say, "You want that thesis when?"

By the time the last week arrives, we're beginning to see the home-stretch and wondering whether we'll have enough time after all. Obsession has really set in, and we're sure that if we just had another week, we might be able to make it really interesting. It's the Murphy's Law of the Thesis that the moment you realize you'll have to give it up is the same moment you feel as though you can't let go.

For those of you non-seniors who might be reading this column and asking yourselves whether you should choose to write a thesis, I refer you to a helpful list of "Dos and Don'ts" written by former Crimson columnist Geoffrey C. Upton '99 on this page (Column, April 21, 1999). Read it and think about whether a thesis is the way you want to cap off your Harvard career (instead of doing independent research, taking a couple of seminars, or spending more time on your extracurricular of choice). The only advice I'll echo here is the importance of picking a topic you like and will continue to like for 12 months--there is a certain reassurance in waking up in the middle of the night and caring about your topic, however arcane or trivial it might seem to the outside world.

And oh yes, the outside world. We all have a mental list of acknowledgments of those people who helped us survive the most stressful moments of this process, roommates who knew the right moment to turn up the radio full-blast and sing along as a study break; blockmates and friends who listened to us whine and brought us food when we were too stressed to go to the dining hall, parents who said it would be okay if we dropped out right now, and of course advisors who patiently waited for our delayed chapter drafts and then quickly returned them with comments and suggestions. Don't forget to make that mental acknowledgment a verbal one.

Congratulations to all of you who have finished the very last sentence. Put those pages in a binder, tie your shoes, and try not to trip over a root as you race past Widener to turn in your thesis. Brendan Fraser would be proud.

Susannah B. Tobin '00 is a classics concentrator in Lowell House. Her column appears on alternate Thursdays.