what is an undergraduate thesis for?

are we expected to make any contribution to scholarship? not at all. one year is too short, and we're too green. do i believe all those ma theses and disserations collecting dust at the bottom of alderman really made any contribution to knowledge? yes, some, but probably mostly not. but then what is it? an academic exercise? a kind of rite of passage, that every enterprising 4th year would take on to cap off their final year and boost their grad school applications? that's what i am most afraid it is. elizabeth (nohrnberg advisee) was talking about her undergraduate thesis at princeton and that seemed "forced" and how she didn't feel there was something to say. to say! what does any of our work say, anyway? we must say something. i hate the english system because people that come out of it have no self-belief, they're dependent and restricted by critics, what other people have done, they can't begin to write without first taking 40 books out of the library. i despise that conservatism more than anything. then, essays really seem like only an academic exercise. here people constantly tell you - don't do research! it's there to be consulted later. we want to know what YOU think. and that is why we either get it v wrong or v right whereas england just produces mostly conservative, insipidly competent, right but what's-there-to-be-wrong students.

but what is an undergraduate thesis for? no one is going to take it seriously, whatever they tell you. and you're not foolish enough to think you have anything worth saying at this time. i think nohrnberg might have said, once, that they are small vanities. and then you move on and do something better. so they're like, a rite of passage after all? it's something that doesn't mean much, but you have to do it anyway, and you have to pretend it is very important because that's part of the contract? like passing exams then.

but then it's all a sham. all the undergraduate theses that are being written in this country. some of the people are doing it because they're very good at their field and decide that that's just the thing to add a final honour to their undergraduate career. many know they need a good one to get in the top graduate schools. is that unfair? some do it because there is no chance to study what they're interested in a classroom, and a rare few know what they are doing. why don't the rest of us clear out and let those who really have something to say say it? it's not that i hadn't chosen my own topic or are interested in it i just feel, like elizabeth, that in a certain sense nowadays you're more or less expected to write one as a sign of seriousness and commitment to your major or having done seriously well for yourself at school. without it, you're probably doomed never to see the insides of harvard or yale. look at how many people are writing. can you even think of one person we know who isn't? it's absurd. i wonder how many undergrads wrote theses 25 years ago; i'll bet anything the numbers have shot up since. so if thesis writing has become a norm or a requirement almost, then that means that on the one hand, it's no big deal that you are doing one, and on the other, if you aren't doing one, then you are screwed. what i want to know is, if it's an exercise, then who cares about knowledge? is it more important to be competent and right, and boring, but perfectly safe, because the important thing is to get it done well and in time, or if it's more important to be brilliant (even if you might be completely wrong)? i am fearful of the latter because i tend to do that - come up with ideas that, like hoyt duggan pointed out very kindly once, are fascinating and imaginative, but, on the particular occasion, wrong. sort of like, in the movie a beautiful mind, the girl goes to his office and says, triumphantly, i solved the problem you left on the board, and he says, no you didn't. your solution is elegant, but ultimately wrong. but i'm even more afraid of the former, because then, who cares about being different. just be right and you'll be fine.

oh i'm so angry we're all being cheated either into thinking whatever we are trying to do means something, or we're cheated to think we could do something only we find we don't because we're not grad students we don't have years and years and real research and to figure out *the* idea. and maybe some people say there is no such thing as the idea but i'm sure there is. i don't know why i think there is, but i believe there is.