Sorry, this will be really boring, I just need to Share a Mundane Pointless complaint. Any advice is welcome.
So I’m writing my undergrad dissertation*. I was actually fairly excited, it’s about the influence of television on women’s emancipation.
Only then the dissertation supervisor blues happened, and now…UUGGH. I’m so fed up! First I was assigned to this useless professor, but thankfully he was actually useless enough to get fired. Then I was assigned to someone in the theatre department, so I got shipped to someone in media anthropology. That was great, he was excited about the subject, really nice, helpful. Then he went on sabbatical. He sent me on to someone else (great professor, one of my favourites) but he was too busy and now I’m stuck with this…woman.
Just got her feedback on my plan (it’s due in on the 24th) and it’s just a few lines, basically trying to make my dissertation conform to what her area is. Instead of critiquing my (elaborate) structure she wants 2 chapters that are not related to what I’m writing about.
So, sorry… just feeling complainy. And fed up. And totally confused about what I should be doing Mundane and pointless, I know…
*yeah…went back to uni after several years doing…other stuff
In my experience as an undergraduate, graduate student, and university instructor, students pursuing an undergrad thesis usually do so by finding their own professor. That is, sometime during the first few years of your degree, you find a subject area and a professor that you like, and you then ask that professor to be your adviser for your senior thesis (or Honors Thesis, as it was called at my Australian university). The professor agrees, and you work together for the whole year.
Not only that, but in my experience undergrad dissertations are almost always done at the department level, and it would be almost unheard-of for a student to be shuffled back and forth between a bunch of different departments like Theater, Media Anthropology, History, etc.
Also, it seems that you must have stumbled across a very unusual set of circumstances to be bounced around so much, because an undergrad thesis is usually a one-year process. The great prof you had in Media Anthropology should have known when he took you on that he would be going on sabbatical before you finished your degree, and should have either agreed to stick with you until the end, or demurred altogether.
Where are you studying? My first guess, based on your spelling of “theatre” and your use of the term “dissertation” to describe an undergrad thesis, is that you are in the UK. Is that correct?
That’s too bad, but my advice is to not sweat it. Ask her what she is expecting, and do that and have fun. Undergraduate theses are usually not very vital to a professor, so unless she is evil she’s not going to give you a lot of grief as long as you more or less fulfill her expectations. My undergrad thesis adviser was an idiot, and I wasn’t too hot myself. (It was in EE). I got a summer job out of it, though I could have made more working for the post office. It was life-changing, though - I swore to never pick up a soldering iron again!
You’re right that the undergrad theses don’t have much of an impact of professors’ careers or advancement, but how much they expect might depend on place and on discipline.
When i was an undergrad in Australia, the Honors year was taken seriously by the profs, and every thesis was graded by two (non-supervising) professors, with a third brought in if there was a marked discrepancy. The grade on the thesis would determine whether you received First, Second, or Third class honors, which in turn could have a big impact on your chances for grad school positions and scholarships.
Exactly right. I completed my Honours last year in NSW, and was informed that if I wanted to move directly into a PhD with an Australian Postgraduate Award, I needed First Class Honours at the very least (with journal publications giving a boost). There really was a lot riding on my performance.
Hey thanks guys! Somehow, the SDMB wasn’t working for me yesterday, so after I posted this yesterday and checked back I thought it hadn’t gone up. I was actually pretty relieved, because it was so whiney
mhendo, excellent detective work, I am in the UK I think getting shuffled around like this is just an unlucky situation, I’ve not heard of it happening to anyone else. In our system you write a proposal and then the proposals are divided up among professors. That’s how I got the useless guy at the beginning: he really liked me. Yay. Lucky me. From there it was just bad luck. The media anthropology professor did say in advance he would be leaving, but he was going to pass me on to the really nice professor, who is also his best friend, so I was happy with that. But then he was too busy and I went to crappy Felicia.
Other than that it works the way mendo and Lobot describe. My media anthropology professor asked, very informally in passing, if I wanted to do a PhD with him, so he was definitely interested in the subject matter.
I think I’ll just email her back and ask for her to criticise the abstract I sent her. That might be of a little more use. I can’t follow the structure she proposed, firstly because it is meaningless, secondly because my structure was very clear and detailed and hers was not, thirdly because it isn’t what I’m writing about.
Thanks very much for all the commiseration. I think I just needed to get off my chest: stupid Felicia! Feel much better now
Mundane and pointless, I know…
I think getting shuffled around like this is just an unlucky situation, I’ve not heard of it happening to anyone else. In our system you write a proposal and then the proposals are divided up among professors. That’s how I got the useless guy at the beginning: he really liked me. Yay. Lucky me. From there it was just bad luck. The media anthropology professor did say in advance he would be leaving, but he was going to pass me on to the really nice professor, who is also his best friend, so I was happy with that. But then he was too busy and I went to crappy Felicia.