Undergraduate Thesis | Bethany Cluff

I recently went to a meeting for writing an Undergraduate Thesis Panel held by the English Department - mostly out of curiosity, but also because I’ve been thinking about writing one myself. The panel was held in Denney Hall, and featured a few distinguished professors and other undergrads writing their own thesis. The thesis they were writing ranged from a screenplay, a thesis for two departments, a creative writing thesis, and a general thesis on an author and his contribution. Here are a few things I picked up from the meeting:

-Writing a thesis earns you a “Graduating with Research Distinction” on your diploma. If you are in the Honors department, you earn “Honors with Research Distinction” however the requirements are a bit different.

- You must find a faculty member to become your thesis advisor. They will oversee your entire project and help give you advice. The best thing to do, once you’ve sort of got an idea about what you want to write about, is go to one of your professors that has had you in class.

- There is no specific length for your thesis, but most of the panel had at least 60 pages on each of theirs. If working with two departments, it’s expected to be twice that.

- The thesis requires an extensive amount of research, so it’s great to make friends with the librarians.

-After your thesis is completed, you must submit a “Thesis Application,” then make an Oral Defense in front of a select few faculty members.

- If your thesis is approved, it gets added to the OSU Knowledge Bank.

I learned a lot at this meeting, and it was really enlightening to know what and how to do a thesis. Now is the time to start thinking about it, because they can take a long time to complete, and I bet that it will be a very gratifying process.