This is a continuation of my first article from last semester where I started my undergraduate thesis writing process. You can find that here.
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January 24nd, 2024
Just submitted my methods and materials section. Honestly, at this point I’m a bit more stressed about actually finishing data collection than the actual writing. I’ve kind of reached a “well it’s just an undergraduate thesis and not the end of the world” mentality, which is helping a little. To be honest, I did have a couple stress dreams last week (one was where I was scrolling through an endless Excel sheet of data that I had to analyze), so just accepting that it’s not that deep is good to me. But we keep working.
I also had to peer review one of my classmates’ methods section. We had this set up last semester too, where we had to peer review other people’s proposals. This semester, I’m paired with a group of other neuro students, so I feel like there’s a lot more back and forth I can actually have with them and their research. For this student, since we had similar experimental setups, I was able to see what she did well, and it also reminded me of things that I need to add to my section.
One thing I’m trying to do this semester is to work on my thesis stuff more consistently, rather than pushing it all to the few days before the deadline. For that reason, I’ve blocked off an hour every workday on my calendar as a reminder to work on my thesis, even if it’s just for 15-30 minutes. I’ll let you all know whether this is helpful or if it stresses me out more to have my thesis on my mind all the time.
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February 27, 2024
As always, problems come up right when you don’t want them to. The stereotaxic frame got broken, so we had to send it in for servicing. This means no surgery practice this month, which sets me back on my deadlines. Luckily, I’ve figured things out with my PI and my thesis class professor, but it’s still disappointing.
Still, the time will pass anyway, and I did practice with perfusions and drop fixing in the meantime. It turns out that I had gotten rusty with these basic skills, so the time spent on that still felt worthwhile.
While I’ve been waiting on unforeseen circumstances to clear up, I’ve continued working on my thesis results and discussion section. You might ask how I could write those parts without having data, but I did a method my professor calls “Mad Libs” writing, where you leave blanks where you don’t have the information yet. This has been helpful, since I have been able to get an outline of what my results and discussion sections will look like.
So, I’ll see you in a month, when I hopefully have some data I can cut my teeth on.
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March 30, 2024
Well, I’ve gotten pretty comfortable with surgeries, and next week I’m planning on doing my first optical implant. If all goes well, I can hopefully collect some data in two weeks. I’ve definitely been stressed about completing this thesis, and part of the process for me this semester is learning to deal with/live with the stress. This isn’t something I can finish in a weekend, after all, so I need to learn to work with this “unfinished task” bell dinging in my head until I turn this thing in. I really really want to have data collection done by the second week of April so we can do data analysis and I can submit the drafts to my readers. It feels like this semester has flown by faster than I thought, and I am worried about the deadline.
In terms of what else I can do on the writing side, I am working on the schematics that will take up part of my figures in my results section. This is something you never really think about when you think of writing a thesis, but working on making good figures is difficult and time intensive. However, it feels good to be able to make those to have in my paper for now.
There’s a lot going on outside of this thesis too–I’m getting ready for graduation, writing term papers, studying for tests, and looking at housing after graduation. It’s a lot to juggle, and I hope I’m doing okay. I’ve been reminding myself that I’m basically in the final lap of this process, and that I can do it.
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April 23, 2024
Finally got some data this month, and I was able to write it all up and make a complete thesis of it all. It was stressful surrounding the data collection, but actually doing it went pretty smoothly. I typed everything up today and sent it off to my first and second readers.
Really, I don’t know what to say here. After actually sending it off, I felt a little relief, but it wasn’t a super big change. That being said, I think I’m still focused on my work because I plan to continue it after graduation, and so my work doesn’t really feel finished. Still, I’m really happy that I was able to turn everything in with time to spare. By having it done about two weeks before I have to submit, this gives my readers enough time to give me feedback and turn in everything to UROP (undergraduate research office that approves undergrad theses).
Now, it’s time to focus on everything else I need to complete before the end of the semester: term papers, exams, and graduation. But tonight, instead of working on it all, I gave myself the evening off. It’s something I deserve after all this, I think.
Am I happy I did all this? Was it all worth it? I think it might be too early to tell, but I think it was well worth my time. I learned so much about research, working on a long term project, and scientific writing. But if I could go back in time and do one thing better, I would try not to stress as much about it. I think during this past year I’ve given myself so much unneeded pressure that never helped make my thesis better in the end. But I doubt that August 2023 me would have taken that advice to heart anyway. In any case, this is my last entry, because I consider this chapter of my life complete. I hope you enjoyed this mad little journal. I’m out.
