As Deadlines Loom, Seniors Sweat

Thesis deadline season has arrived once again at Harvard University.

Widener’s stacks are being replenished as writers return their books, and the faces of missing seniors are reappearing in classrooms and dining halls across campus.

The endless nights, the untamed beards, the caffeine kicks, the weight loss, the weight gain—all spectres of the past for more seniors with every passing due date.

With most thesis due dates falling in the weeks just before spring break, deadlines range from March 1, for History and Literature, to April 22, for Engineering Sciences.

Unlike schools such as Princeton, which require undergraduates to write theses, only about 50 percent of Harvard students choose to do so, according to the Class of 2003’s Senior Survey. This results in about 800 theses per year.

However, according to the survey, about 70 percent of Harvard College students enter their concentrations planning to write a thesis and around 60 percent start one.

For many of the writers, the thesis is the axis around which their lives turn.

“My thesis was determining the books I read, the music I listened to, the movies I watched, what time I went to bed at night and woke up in the morning, kind of like a domineering romantic partner,” says T. Josiah Pertz ’05.

Dr. Craig F. Rodgers, counselor and psychologist at the Bureau of Study Counsel, recognizes the dominating grip that the thesis has on many senior writers.

“The thesis can easily consume the rest of the writer’s life unless the writer actively works to counterbalance this dynamic,” he says.

For the most part, professors acknowledge this fact.

Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Avi Matalon, who teaches Foreign Cultures 90 “Tel Aviv: Urban Culture in Another Zion,” says he tries to help seniors by exempting them from attending section.

“This to give them more time to free associate, which happens to rhyme with free procrastinate,” Matalon says.

TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

Even with extra time spent researching, thesis writers often have to modify or trash large portions of their projects in the face of new information or advisor disapproval.

Colin S. Kelly ’05, who wrote his History and Science thesis about the emergence of cosmology as a scientific discipline in the late 1960s, ran into a last minute crisis.

A week before his due date, Kelly came across an old dissertation in his field that “essentially refuted the foundational assumption” of his thesis, he says.

Although he created a group on thefacebook.com called “I’ve Spent a Year Working On My Thesis Only To Discover That I’m Wrong,” he was able to incorporate the counterargument into his thesis.

When Abigail L. Fee ’05 had to throw out 40 pages of her thesis about family planning in Ho, Ghana at her advisor’s request, the revision didn’t go smoothly.

“I rewrote the two chapters, but when I sent them to my advisor I forgot that I had titled the file ‘CHAPTER3-HOLYBALLSMYLIFESUCKS,’” Fee recalls.

Even without significant setbacks, senior thesis writers often struggle to meet their own high expectations.

For his thesis, Joseph H. Weintraub ’05 says he has produced the first critical English translation of Dante’s Latin Eclogues since 1902.

He says that exploring such a topic— one that has been largely understudied in the past—put a large amount of pressure on him to develop a definitive academic work.

“I feel like I have this tremendous weight on my shoulders to write something absolutely brilliant,” he says.

BATTLING THE CLOCK

For many, the process would not be complete without the occasional crisis of self-confidence.

“I did have some crazy freak-outs,” Weintraub says, recalling a time he phoned his Hasty Pudding Theatricals castmate, Nicholas H. Ma ’05, looking for solace.

“I called [Ma] crying on the last day of winter break because I hadn’t gotten anything done,” Weintraub said.

But Ma was also feeling the pressure of the clock.

Even with an early start to his research—with summer trips to Syria and Lebanon and a trek to the Middle East in the fall—he says he has his work cut out for him as Thursday’s Social Studies thesis deadline approaches.

Rogers says it is common for thesis writers to struggle with “the oft-stated perception that ‘I’m way behind all my friends who are writing their theses.’”

But sometimes, the fear is founded in truth.

While his friends lament, fellow Pudding actor Thomas P. Lowe ’05 says he does not share in their pain.

Anticipating the difficulty of writing while in the Pudding show, Lowe finished his thesis over Thanksgiving break.

“It’s been really nice,” Lowe says of the thesis process. “I’ve never been stressed at all about it.”

NEEDY THESES

Taking a toll on its writer, the senior thesis often comes at the expense of the personal relationships.

After a late start, Eli S. Rosenbaum ’05—a Government concentrator writing his thesis about congressional redistricting—all but moved into the Littauer Building, where the Government Department is housed.

“I hadn’t left the building during the whole snowstorm,” Rosenbaum says. “I was shocked to find snow on the ground.”

Rosenbaum says he worried his girlfriend would be jealous of his all-consuming relationship with his 193-page thesis.

“My girlfriend is going to break up with me,” Rosenbaum said, as he continued to write.

But Meghan E. Haggerty ’06, Rosenbaum’s girlfriend, insists that will not be the case.

“His thesis has made our relationship a lot better,” Haggerty says. “We’re not together all the time so there’s less room to get into little squabbles.”

Theses can also help foster new relationships.

Pertz—who wrote his thesis on the emergence of bluegrass music among Jews in New York City’s Washington Square Park from 1946 to 1961—says his thesis became such a central part of his life that he created a thefacebook.com account for his thesis, appropriately naming it “Josiah’s Thesis.”

Pertz listed himself as “In An Open Relationship” with “Josiah’s Thesis.”

QUITE A-MUSE-ING

In need of encouragement, Anicia C. Timberlake ’05 purchased a thesis mascot, a pet plant named Karl Liebknecht.

She named Karl after a German socialist, as she is writing her thesis about the reinterpretation of the idea of German musical traditions that took place in the Weimar Republic.

“Occasionally I talk to Karl and tell him to grow,” Timberlake says.

When Karl got sick two days before Timberlake’s due date, she became worried about her thesis, since he was supposed to be cheering her on.

While Karl is Timberlake’s muse, Ilan T. Graff ’05—who is writing about the role of entertainment media in advancing social values, by looking at Superman’s relationship to social theory and moral values—need only look around his room for inspiration.

In addition to a large Superman hanging from his ceiling, Graff has acquired a lunch box, a poster, three action figures, and comic books—all Superman themed.

While Graff will hand in his opus on Thursday, the memorabilia will be a constant reminder of the time he and his thesis shared together.

As Graff says, “I’ll likely need super strength to lug back the piles of books, but the Superman decorations will probably stick around to remind a energized second semester senior of the continued importance of truth justice and the American way.”