academic panic

[bedlamsbard]

Having a crisis of faith about my honors thesis. The first draft of my prospectus is due on March 25, the final draft sometime in April; I'll resubmit it in September to get final approval from the Honors Program. (The drafts are for my Honors Thesis Boot Camp class.) Right now I'm writing about Ovidian and Virgilian references in The Faerie Queene, specifically vision and artwork in Book III. The slight problem is that it's something I'm interested in, but it's not something I care about, and I'm starting to freak out because...well, I'm starting to freak out because I just don't care, and if I do this then I have to write 50 pages about it -- 50 good pages! -- and it's comp lit, and I'm not a huge fan of comp lit, and it will consume my life for a year and I have no idea what kind of argument I'd make because I'm not sure I care. I mean, if I start it, I'll write it. I'll definitely write it, and it will probably be good, and I will probably be crazy. I know I'm supposed to go through the stages of "love, hate, love, despair, love" while writing my honors thesis, I'm just kind of worried about the fact that I haven't even started writing my prospectus yet and I'm already going through that, although now I'm stuck on hate. Or maybe despair.

And I'm worried because it's going to be a lit paper, and I don't want to go to grad school for lit, so I'm starting to worry that writing a lit paper may not be helpful for my grad school applications, since I'm applying for history. I also prefer writing history papers to writing English papers. My major advisor (a classicist) says that I should write a history paper because it will be more relevant to my grad application.

The problem is, though, that I really want to do a topic that covers both majors, MEMS and Classics, and basically the only way to do so that I can see right now is to do a lit paper; the professor that I was thinking about doing fusion history with is on sabbatical until after I graduate. (There are probably other options, but I'm talking about things I've actually studied here; I've done enough classes on English lit and classical lit (in translation) that I could probably pull this one off. I couldn't do art history or philosophy, and I wouldn't want to.) However, if I had to choose one major to do my thesis in specifically, it would be MEMS: for one thing, it's my primary major, and for another, I...well, this is a bad reason, but it's one anyway -- there are so few MEMS majors that I would feel terrible if I did an honors thesis but not a MEMS thesis. Also the major is so new and so small that I might be the first person to write an honors thesis in MEMS, which I have to admit would be pretty awesome. And my feelings towards Classics are so mixed, I'm not sure what I'd do; maybe try and expand my term paper from the seminar, since I'm positive I could turn that from a 20-page paper to a 50-page thesis. But the professor I did that with is on sabbatical; there are other Roman historians at Tulane I could work with, but I haven't had classes with them and I'm antsy on it.

I do have a vague idea for a MEMS thesis (wait for it...wait for it...BORGIAS! I don't know, I feel like there's not as much scholarship on them, and they amuse me and interest me), and I know what professors I'd ask to be my first and second readers. I'm antsy, again, because of my inability to read primary sources except in translation, but I can't read the Aeneid and the Metamorphoses in the original Latin either. (I might be able to work through passages in very limited chunks, but...) I don't know. It's so close; I'd have to start researching now in order to pull something out for March 25, and I just don't know which of my professors to contact and freak out (politely) at. (Maybe my honors thesis boot camp prof; he said he'd be available all spring break via e-mail.) I'd have to switch readers completely, because my lit readers are obviously lit people (English professor and Latin lit professor). That's not too big a deal because I haven't done much yet. (Thus the panic. It doesn't help the not-caring, though.) I would feel terrible about it, though, although I think getting stuck writing a thesis I don't care about is way worse than feeling bad about disappointing a couple of professors.

*breathes into paper bag* Okay. At the very least, I will come out of this semester with two prospectuses. (Or prospecti. Whichever. The Dean of the Honors Program said that they decided it would be prospectuses because prospecti sounded too dramatic, or something.) I have to write a prospectus for my boot camp class, and I have to write a prospectus for my Medieval Religious Culture tutorial. As a MEMS major, I actually could then turn that into my actual honors thesis prospectus; I think the MEMS topic I'm thinking about now may not fall into that time period, but we'll see. I can talk to my professor about that. (Also, coincidentally, the Dean of the Honors Program, a historian, and one of the MEMS faculty. He wears many hats.) I'm sure I can at least write a prospectus for the Spenser thesis. Nothing's set in stone until September; I need to stop freaking out now, in March. My leisure reading right now is what the MEMS thesis might theoretically be on, so I can just keep on doing that. Perhaps a little more rapidly.

(As a side note: at my university, the only way you can graduate with honors, either university honors or departmental honors, is to write an honors thesis. As I can't conceive of graduating without honors, this is not something that's optional.

We shall of course ignore the irony of going, "Too much Christian allegory in Spenser and in the Renaissance view of Vergil! Instead, I shall write about...THE PAPACY.")

Comments

[starlady]

Fwiw, I've heard anecdotally from profs in my history department that not majoring in history in undergrad is not a deal-breaker for grad programs; some of them even consider it a plus (I know my advisor does). My writing sample was my seminar paper from my Asian Studies class on human rights in Asia, frex. Writing a good thesis in whatever department will be much more important than whatever department you wrote it in from the perspective of the admissions committees.

[bedlamsbard]

My worry about my major is on the low side at the moment! For a change. (I keep having moments of going, "I am either really prepared because I have the interdisciplinary background or really screwed because I don't have enough background in any one specific area." --er, my major is technically Medieval and Early Modern Studies, and my other major is Classical Studies, so only most of the span of written human history.)

Right now I've been planning to clean up my term paper from last semester (on the Roman military ethos and Rome's strategy during the Second Punic War, so actualfax history) and use that as my writing sample. I'm just -- antsy. Because I don't know if I really care about the lit part of my thesis.

[bessemerprocess]

I, uh, amazingly got into grad school twice without having to send in a writing sample, and to get into my History Ph.D program,sent in a material culture paper arguing the while the furnishings on steamboats reflected a cultureal norm, they clung to that cultural norm to help diffuse tensions people had about using new transportation technology. I also don't have a history BA. In fact I have a Public History MA, and part of an archaeology MA, and a BA in anthropology. You can totally get into an MA program without writing a history paper.

The thing is, if you hate your thesis, if you aren't interested in it, you're so much less likely to finish or produce a good piece. I say this a person who has an unfinished archaeology thesis to back me up. Go talk to your Bootcamp prof. They are there to help you, and I promise you, this is an issue they should be well equipped to handle.

[juniperphoenix]

The thing is, if you hate your thesis, if you aren't interested in it, you're so much less likely to finish or produce a good piece.

Seconding this. I never would have made it through my honors thesis if I hadn't been passionate about the topic. Write about something you're excited about.

I would also suggest talking with professors about your language concerns. For an undergraduate thesis, it's likely they won't care whether your primary sources are in translation or not.

[lady_songsmith]

Thirding. I went through my thesis being just on the EDGE of excited about it but never quite getting there until a month before it was due I realized I was actually writing about a related but somewhat tangential topic and then flailing around and not sleeping while I tried to make it work and mostly failing.

[lady_songsmith]

(I would edit if I could edit)

and because I realized that sounded a little eep-making, let me add: And I STILL GOT INTO GRAD SCHOOL. Multiple grad schools. Multiple prestigious schools. On scholarship. So RELAX.

[bedlamsbard]

I have been thinking back with worry on my English papers of the past -- I can turn out perfectly decent lit papers as long as they're under ten pages. (I once did do a 15-page one, but that was in high school.) History papers I'm more comfortable with doing long ones, and the one time I did a 20 page history paper I didn't actually burn out on the topic despite the fact I wrote it all in two days. So -- worry, that I wouldn't even be able to pull off a lit paper of that length, interest or not.

I go in and out of phases of worrying about graduate school. It's very depressing. *sighs* (And now I'm in one of those phases where I'm questioning what period of history I actually want to do, argh.)

[bedlamsbard]

Thus the worry...I will e-mail my boot camp prof tomorrow, on a day when it is not a city-wide holiday.

Unless I do early-modern England, which I don't want to do, I'm going to have to work with translations anyway. *sighs*

[bedlamsbard]

My major advisor has advised me that since I'm coming in without the language skills other candidates will have, it might be advisable to have a a strong history paper (as well as a statement of purpose or whatever those are called that concentrates on something that excludes the languages I don't have). Thus, I panic. Mad panicking skills! I have them! (And my general worry, as I mentioned above, that I am either incredibly well-rounded because I had an interdisciplinary undergrad curriculum or really screwed because my undergrad curriculum was too broad. I think I still have lingering anxiety over once reading that some employers and/or grad schools don't like candidates with multiple majors because it means they're unfocused and indecisive.)

That's what I'm worried about; it's something that's been pushed a lot in my boot camp class (and man, does that ever sound funny!). I shall e-mail him! Though probably not on Mardi Gras day, though I'm sure I would make points as being the one Tulane student in town not drunk and at the parades.