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The expense of ambitious off-campus research, such as a comparative study requiring visits to several countries, can easily exceed our funding abilities. Resources are a potential issue in that even a comprehensive and well-funded university like Penn State does not have the physical infrastructure for every possible kind of research. There are circumstances where you might defer graduation to complete your thesis, but that should not be your initial plan. The honors thesis should not extend your time at Penn State by design. The feasibility of a given thesis problem is bounded, as mathematicians might say, by several factors. This is part of what the thesis experience will test for you - whether or not you want to continue via graduate school in that kind of slow-moving enterprise. This realization might be disheartening, but it is an introduction to the reality of modern scholarship: Knowledge almost always moves incrementally and the individual units of knowledge production and dissemination (theses, journal articles, books, etc.) are only rarely revolutionary in isolation. There is strong evidence - several thousand prior theses - that your honors thesis will not accomplish anything on that scale. You might want to come up with the definitive explanation for Rome's decline and fall, or the cure for cancer. This is where you start to strike a balance between ambition and feasibility.
SENIOR PROJECT TABLE OF CONTENTS EXAMPLE PROFESSIONAL
Identifying a TopicĪn interest can come from anywhere, but the problem that defines a thesis can only come from a thorough acquaintance with "the literature," the accumulated knowledge or creative value in your field.īy speaking with faculty (preferably more than one) and reading professional journals (again, more than one), you not only get a "crowd-sourced" sense of what is important, you also get a sense of what the open questions are. Even with a creative or performance thesis, the purpose is not to demonstrate technical ability (writing, painting, acting, composing, etc.), but to express something you think is worth expressing and hasn't been fully expressed already. Your intellectual engagement is the thing that will carry you through what may at times feel like a long and sometimes difficult process.Ī thesis is problem-oriented and identifies something of importance whose answer or best interpretation is not fully known or agreed-upon by people who make their careers in the field, and it proceeds towards the answer or best interpretation. The quality of your thesis is truly dependent on the depth of your interest and the energy behind your curiosity. We recommend avoiding the temptation to stick with your first lab placement merely out of convenience if the topic is not interesting to you. Once complete, the purpose of the thesis is to advance knowledge, understanding, or creative value in its field. Purposeįrom the perspective of the Schreyer Honors College, the purpose of the thesis experience is to develop your intellectual and professional identity in the field and to help you think about your future. The single biggest factor in determining thesis quality is your level of interest in and engagement with the topic, so consider multiple possibilities rather than selecting the first one that seems attractive to you. Give you the opportunity to work closely with faculty.