Welcome to the final semester of the O’Neill Honors Program! If you’re feeling overwhelmed, I’m here to tell you that everything will be okay. I was super behind when I enrolled in the thesis writing course (oops), but I made it through and ended up producing something I’m actually really proud of! Who would’ve thought? That being said, here are my words of wisdom.
- Choose your advisor wisely. You’re going to be spending a lot of time with your advisor over the next 16 weeks, so it’s important that you pick a good one. Make sure that they know what they’re getting into, and make sure they’re the best person in O’Neill to support your project, because you’re going to have a lot of questions as you collect and analyze your data. While all that is important, I’ll go one step further and say you should make sure to choose an advisor that you get along with well. Have I mentioned you’re going to spend a lot of time with your advisor this semester? Make sure it’s someone who can uplift you when it gets tough and someone you look forward to meeting with every week or two. It makes the process a lot easier and less daunting.
- Struggle together. This is hard! Your professor is even going to tell you right off the bat that this. is. hard. There’s no way around it. However, you have an amazing cohort of other honors students going through the exact same thing! If your professor doesn’t put you in a writing group, make one yourself with your classmates. Meeting with my writing group was hands down what made writing this thesis manageable. We laughed together, we cried together, and we wrote the longest papers of our undergraduate careers together. Don’t do this alone, especially because you don’t have to.
- Be gentle with yourself. This is going to be a bumpy ride, but that’s okay. Writing isn’t easy, even though researchers make it seem like it is. You’ll hit roadblocks probably every week until you present at the symposium, but that’s all a part of the process. Know your limits. Sometimes you just can’t spend another second looking at the manuscript in front of you, and that’s okay! Close your laptop and come back tomorrow. It will never be perfect, but I promise you’ll end up with something you’re proud of even though it almost never feels like that along the way.
- Be consistent. Being gentle with yourself also means not waiting until the last minute to meet your deadlines. Work on your research consistently in little chunks, and it will feel like so much less of a chore than sitting down for 24 hours straight right before your first draft is due. Taking it in smaller pieces over a longer amount of time is the key to success here, people.
- Remember your life outside of your thesis. This is probably your last semester at IU, right? Enjoy it! Your thesis is something to be proud of, but you’re so much more than this research you’re doing. Spend at least double as much time nourishing yourself and your relationships as you do on this thesis. You won’t produce a good manuscript if you’re not taking care of yourself, anyway. You deserve to make some good memories here while you can.
I know reading these when I first enrolled didn’t make me feel all that better to be honest, so I’m sure I haven’t convinced you that everything will be okay. Still, the truth is that you’ll complete your incredible thesis and present it at the symposium beautifully, and everyone will clap and ask questions like you’re some sort of research wizard. All your hard work will be worth it in the end! You’ve got this.
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