End Draws Near for Senior Theses

For many seniors, this week has been circled on their calendars for months. While the rest of campus is counting down the days until Spring Break and drudging through the last round of midterms and papers, about half of the senior class is preparing to hand in a senior thesis.

In addition to gallons of coffee, thesis-writing seniors said the most helpful opportunities that Harvard had provided them as they worked to complete this year-long endeavor were the chance to do on-the-ground research and the extra time to focus on their projects during the new January Term.

Through Harvard grants, many students use their thesis as a way of traveling and studying abroad. While exploring underground archives or interviewing the local populations in the Chinese countryside, Harvard students get a University-subsized glimpse of life outside of Cambridge.

For Weiqi Zhang ’10, who is writing a thesis in Social Studies, his time abroad this summer convinced him to alter the focus of his thesis. Zhang, an inactive Crimson news editor, had originally planned to focus on the Nu River Dam in southwest China and locals’ concerns about the dam’s construction.

But after arriving in the country and beginning his research, he decided he would rather focus on the environmental activists’ worries about how the dam would affect the surrounding area.

Zhang said that the in-person research he conducted helped him realize what truly interested him.

The new January Term break gave this year’s seniors the opportunity to focus on their theses without the distraction of classes and extracurriculars.

“It was nice to have a period of time where it was all you had to think about” said Sarah R. Burack ’10, a History concentrator writing a thesis about a race riot in London.

With the end in sight, all seniors interviewed said they look back on the thesis writing process favorably.

“It’s a nice way to wrap up your studies and put everything you’ve studied together,” Zhang said.

When asked if the end result will be worth all the time and effort she has put into the project, Reyzl R. Geselowitz ’10, a Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations concentrator writing her thesis on the role of women in ancient Israel, had two separate answers.

“If you ask me on Friday at 5:01 p.m., I would say, ‘Yes,’ unconditionally. I’m glad I had the experience, but right now I’m a little bit frazzled and sleep deprived.”

After completing the largest endeavor of their academic careers, seniors will certainly be celebrating this weekend.

“I’m planning a massive pub crawl through the Square,” Burack said. “Then I’m going to Costa Rica and not bringing my laptop or a single book.”