Thesis writing– varying experiences
Today I submitted my first two chapters to my thesis director – the Background and Lit. Review. At lunch, I went to a Belfer event where I ran into former ALM student, “Jim”. We exchanged notes about the thesis writing process. He had a phenomenally smooth experience – he wrote his thesis in three months, handed it in complete, and had it accepted without changes. He got an A! (His thesis advisor is a well-established faculty member who has mentored a lot of students so it was not because the director was green).
As he readily admits, that is a unique experience in the ALM program. He recounted stories of several students who had a difficult time with their directors. For instance, the director would tear apart the submitted drafts and even if there had been an agreed-upon outline, the director would be surprised by the direction the student was going in and recommend a different tack.
When I told him the name of my director, he said he’d only heard good things about her. I recounted that except for a bit of a poor start in the first meeting, things have gone well since then. But on the drive home I couldn’t help but think about those directors who tear through the drafts and tell the students to go back to the drawing board. I’m hoping my experience at least fall somewhere in the middle between his and theirs. A “bumpy” thesis process is, after all, the norm.
Jim also pointed out something I hadn’t really thought about – handing in a completed thesis draft rather than handing in chapters piece by piece means your director can’t read the thing all the way through. This can present problems if the director approves one or two chapters of the thesis early on but then feels chapters submitted subsequently don’t jibe with the earlier material. I should think if you have both agreed on a detailed outline that should not be a problem, especially, if you have discussed your primary theory and possible conclusions early on.
I think there are pros and cons to either approach: whole or chapter by chapter. I’ve heard of a student who is on track to graduate in June who was told over the summer by her director not to hand anything in to him until January. That is late in the game if the student needs to make substantial changes. And it’s hard to believe she wouldn’t need to make some improvements. It would be a horrible time to find out you and the director are on different wavelengths.
One aspect of Jim’s thesis is worth noting: he did a theoretical study. He wrote about political philosophy. He did not have to gather data or plow through data to write the thesis. There were no charts, graphs, interviews, or even a mild amount of stats to sift through so the tasks and time associated with them did not apply in his case. He could indeed sequester himself away for three months and do a cerebral thesis without the additional burden of the tasks that many thesis writers take on.
