Oh, what fun it is to write a Bachelor thesis
Everyone knows, to obtain a Bachelor’s degree, one must write a Bachelor thesis. This is not news and was certainly no news to me when I started my studies. I remember in my fourth semester I had a seminar, in which students in the sixth semester talked about their bachelor thesis and how they lacked time or were not able to meet the deadline. Back then, the thought of writing a Bachelor thesis seemed daunting. How would I be able to write such a paper? Let alone write such a paper well? So, I ignored each thought that went through my mind wondering and already stressing about this thesis. However, roughly one year ago the process started when we had to choose which bachelor thesis we wanted to do. I chose one that interested me and I was eager to start writing. Although I only really started in October, my enthusiasm hadn’t diminished up until then. The first phase of writing my Bachelor thesis went well. I researched articles and tried to narrow down what precisely I wanted to do(I did a literature review and could choose what precise research question I wanted to explore in a given field). However, after this first phase of enthusiasm washed away with my mulled wines in November, I stopped because I simply had other, more pressing assignments to complete during November, December and January. Then in February, as always, we had our exams, which means, no time for the Bachelor thesis. After everything was done, I suddenly remembered that I had this huge, important assignment due in about six weeks. I won’t lie, I was really freaking out for a moment there. Where had the time gone? Usually, my planning and prioritizing are not too bad, but regarding my thesis, I somehow put that a bit too far into the back of my head. Anyhow, after I survived the first freak-out and another meeting with my supervisor, I started actually working on the thesis. Fortunately, back in October, I’d already found a lot of articles that fit perfectly into the topic I wrote about. I also managed to narrow down my research question enough in order to start writing. One major problem that I encountered, and I know a lot of others did as well, was stopping the research and starting to write. This was really difficult since I mostly thought that certain aspects of an article looked great which could be explored in depth. But this attitude only leads you into an interesting, albeit infinite forest of research. Although it was hard in the beginning getting started to write and I was very stressed because I thought I should have more by that time, I finished my thesis on time. My advice to anyone writing a bachelor thesis is that you shouldn’t get stressed about where you are at a certain point if you are already doing something. If you aren’t doing anything, start by e.g. doing research or writing . But if you are already writing, keep writing and don’t’ compare yourself to how far others might already be. Just start, it’s the best piece of advice I can give. Just start.
