Thesis Writers Utilize Break

While many Harvard students spent their spring breaks relaxing and traveling, some seniors remained on campus or went home last week to work on their senior theses, which were due after vacation.

The Department of Visual and Environmental Studies (VES) and the Chemistry and Physical Biology (CPB) concentration both have senior theses due after spring break—an arrangement that some students and staff say provides needed flexibility for such a large endeavor.

Guy A. Edouard ’10, a CPB concentrator whose thesis is due on Monday, said that some students appreciate having the extra time to complete their work.

“At the end of the day, it’s nice to have the security blanket of an extra week,” he said.

Eduoard noted that writing a thesis for a concentration in the sciences is much different than writing one for the humanities because “science is a little bit finicky by nature,” and “you never know what’s going to go wrong or what’s going to go right.”

He added that the later due dates for CPB might help relieve the stress caused by these unexpected occurrences or results, which cannot be planned for like a humanities thesis chapter.

But not all science concentrations have their due dates after spring break. For example, the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (OEB) has theses due the day before spring break.

Andrew Berry, a life sciences concentration advisor and an OEB lecturer, said that until a few years ago, some biology theses were due after spring break. He added that the policy was changed because of Hoopes Prize nomination deadlines and because “students actually like to have a spring break.”

Berry said that while students in the OEB department are  motivated to finish their theses before spring break, the department is often lenient with offering extensions to overwhelmed students.

Professor Daniel G. Donoghue, Director of Undergraduate Studies in the English department, said that having theses due before spring break is needed to give faculty ample time to grade theses and conduct oral exams before final grades are due. Four weeks is usually required for a comfortable grading schedule, he added.

Donoghue said that while setting thesis deadlines for after spring break would give students more time to complete their work, the new academic calendar implemented this year gave undergraduates more time in January to delve intensively into their topics.