Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Dissertation Dilemmas

*Dissertation*. The dreaded word of the year. A sort of rite of passage which all us MA Final Years have to go through before we are pronounced "Masters in Applied Psychology" (though what we have mastered is still quite a debatable issue!)

I do NOT like this.

I went through a miniature version of dissertation, quaintly titled "project" in my final year of graduation. And it was to put it simply, quite hellish (the people who were around me at that time, would probably nod their heads very very very strongly to that). In hindsight, it was as much a cakewalk as a research can ever be. I had the best guide possible (with her penchant for perfections, which i got thoroughly bugged at by the end of it all), a topic i was passionate to the core about, no major mishaps/loss of data (though a really scary false alarm did come my way and made my life miserable for close to 12 hours), my data collection had been done on time...yet what probably killed me by the end of it was the numerous drafts, the reading, re-reading, re-re-re-reading of the multiple drafts, the combining of all the different chapters, the formatting, the proofreading, the feeling of 'its NEVER gonna end'. but end it did...and till date, the 'project' remains my life's greatest achievement, something i still feel the utmost pride for.

THIS time around...things are different. MUCH different. I do not have a topic im truly passionate about, though to give it credit, i quite like it and find it mildly interesting. I could live with it. But passion???? i think i gave up passion after 3rd year, perhaps it died after college. I have two guides, but they wont be like preeti mam and literally spoon feed things to me. They'll be there to (hopefully) give me direction, tell me where Im going wrong...but I know they wont be the kind of support preeti mam was, they wont share the excitement with the same passion as preeti mam.

the biggest anxiety is perhaps the fact that i KNOW how stressful its going to get. Not just from personal experience of the 'project', but also from doing pseudo dissertations last year (courtesy my lovely seniors). I KNOW how horrible its going to be.

but then again, there is absolutely NOTHING i can do. except decide on my topic. and then find a way to love it. and work my butt off to produce that dissertation.

Oh Lord, help me.