Thesis Challenges

When I was in college, one of the biggest challenges during our times, not to mention, dealing with professors in terror, is thesis writing. Way before, when I had never gained the writing skills compared as I have now (of course, I commend it to.. blogging!), I would wish to jump off another dimension and miss the task of coming up with the paper everything from scratch.

Choosing a topic was indeed, I may say, a tricky task. Well, I thought this was the easiest among the checklist, only to find out, that it was one tough start. How would you select a topic under the sun that would compromise with the group’s time and resources? Out of the millions of possible subjects, no one can tell that this is no-sweat stuff. Good thing, the group referred to a number of thesis examples; at least, we got the idea on the considerations to finally decide the best topic. Surely, we dropped the thing in making an architecture thesis.

I would never forget the inconvenience of gathering data from the targeted samples. One, we had to dedicate time to create connection with these samples. There was the risk that respondents may not take the questionnaires seriously and may care less enough to give doubtful answers. To minimize this, we made sure that the samples were appropriately guided and clearly informed on the substance of their response to the questionnaire. The number of samples was quite a large figure that we had to move from one location to another, putting behind the unquenched thirst and tired legs. After days of data gathering, it was indeed worthwhile to have the tabulation completed.

Here came the complicated thing of documentation. I could really attest that this when the group mates started to argue and debate with one another. True, two heads are better than one. But what happens when the group is composed of eleven (11) members? How much better the result will be? One thing was for sure and I witnessed it. It took millions of discussions until the group settled to a conclusion. Well, some insisted their beliefs. Some explained their point well. Some were left to vagueness. Who won? Majority bagged it. Why? The group had to stand by what we could defend. We had to ensure that most of the members had the capacity to make the jury understand the conclusion by presenting concrete ideas to support our premise.

The best thing that happened to the group? It all paid off after the class cards were distributed. We had it our way..