SO it’s your last semester in college. You’ve struggled through killer math exams, memorized names and dates for history quizzes, and embarrassed yourself in front of your crush when you goofed up during a class presentation. As a senior, you giggled at the neophytes applying for your org, and figured out the cheapest food spots in the campus.
Graduation is so near, you can almost taste it. Save for a few more weeks of classes, nothing can stand between you and your diploma—except for your thesis, that is.
The undergraduate thesis is an academic hurdle that countless students underestimate or take for granted. Many don’t graduate on time (or fail to graduate at all) because of it. If you still haven’t done at least 30 percent of your thesis as you read this, chances are, you might not be able to turn it in at all unless you take drastic action.
What’s a crammer to do? Here’s 2bU’s guide to turning in a good thesis—on time.
1. Cut down on your extracurricular activities. So you’re the president of your org and an active charity volunteer. While it’s true that non-academic activities will boost your resume and expand your network, you have to cut down on your other commitments so you can prioritize your thesis. Avoid hanging out at your org tambayan and sacrifice mall weekends. Explain to your orgmates that you’re not snubbing them, but really need the time to work on your interviews and charts.
2. Transcribe interviews in your free time. Drop the iPod and start transcribing—the longer you put off transcribing, the more you won’t be able to work on the body of the text. Interviews may provide you with nuggets of information that you still have to double-check through other forms of research (and take a lot of time), so do them early.
3. Consult with your adviser frequently. Some students put off consultations, hoping that their advisers won’t have as much time to sort through all the information. Chances are, your adviser (if he/she is a good one) won’t just wave away glaring errors and inconsistencies and may make you start from scratch if he/she is dissatisfied with the final product. Prevent last-minute changes and make sure that you attend consultations all the time. That way, you also end up with work that you can be proud of, not just something cobbled together haphazardly.
4. Don’t rely on coffee and energy drinks. The occasional all-nighter isn’t bad, but if most of your thesis was written in a bleary-eyed state, you’ll end up jotting down disjoined thoughts and scatterbrained sentences. As much as possible, do the bulk of your work in the daytime to avoid relying on caffeine to keep you up. Save the all-nighters for doing work that doesn’t require a lot of active thinking, like transcribing or fixing margins (or editing if you’re working on a film or multimedia thesis).
5. Backup, backup, backup. Save your files obsessively. If you’re working from your own desktop or laptop, make sure that you backup to an external hard drive or CD. If you work from a public computer, make sure that the files are properly saved on your thumb drive—and save in multiple storage areas, because if you lose the USB that contains your entire thesis, you’re done for.
6. Ask for help. Of course, it’s one thing to ask someone else to write your thesis, but it’s not a bad thing to get a helping hand when you need it. Ask a friend to help you make charts, transcribe (only if you trust the person), or just motivate you when you’re feeling lazy. Tap your network to make sure that you’re getting as much information as you need—social networking sites can be a great source of information.
7. Work in a private place. Sometimes, you really need to get away from it all—distractions like free Internet, interference from well-meaning family and friends, and plenty of food can prevent you from working at your optimum level. Spend a couple of hours every day in places that give you no choice but to work: the library, an abandoned classroom, a quiet coffee shop.
8. Make a checklist. Write down a list of to-do things, and set deadlines. For instance, promise to finish the index before you polish your review of related literature, or check all the footnotes before you work on the charts. Doing a checklist of different areas helps you organize things better; that way, you won’t be scrambling to see what you have or haven’t done already.
E-mail the author at biancaconsunji@yahoo.com.
