Survival Mechanisms for a Masters Thesis
A masters thesis can be a daunting task. It is made to appear like a mammoth thanks to the views of all those around you. It kinda is. To get from A to B, you might have no clue how it could ever be done. The horror of uncertainty looms over you consistently. Screams.
Here are some tips, birthed from my own experience, some of which I followed and the rest I wish I had. So, this post is an incomplete list of guiding principles telling me what to do when faced with a similar ordeal and the reader should, if he/she would, take everything with a grain of salt.
Know what you are going into
No matter how little you think your knowledge about your field is, never shy away from digging deeper and making the best informed decision in the given time. Explore all sources of information before making a decision while keeping the end in mind. Don’t rush into just any topic, do your best to evaluate the match between the topic and your interests.
Coarse-to-fine/Macro->Micro Scheduling
Once you have decided your topic, you need to get crunching. Make a SMART schedule over how you envision the ideal flow of the project. Divide, first, in BIG chunks, which give you a bird’s eye view of the project. Next, break down each big chunk into smaller chunks. You already knew this? Great! Keep this functional in your thesis and it’ll probably do you good.
REGULAR Feedback
You no expert. You need a little nudge here and there, REGULARLY, to keep towards your goal. Seek guidance from your supervisor but also help him help you.
All eggs in a single basket
One of the most important tips. You cannot make thesis the sole source of happiness (and despair) in your life. Why? The thesis will go bad again and again and again, and it will make you anxious, stressed again and again and again. You need to have a solid amount of positivity in you to push against these negative blows. That’s why you need to have multiple sources of happiness so that your average positivity levels remain sound. If you don’t do this, you will stress out so much that you wouldn’t be able to even work on your thesis, and you’ll fall into an abyss, with no recovery. Plus, having other things like social life/hobbies/physical fitness still in your life, in temperance of course, will serve to de-stress you and enable you to focus and be more productive at your work. Moreover, God forbid if your thesis goes to trash, you would still have other things going on in your life that you can probably be proud of.
Sinousidal work flow
Work is important and so is rest, in (probably) equal measure. Well, some would disagree here and we shall let them. Rest rejuvenates your mind so that you can focus again the next time you go to work. And hear me out: when you are resting, LET yourself rest. LET yourself forego the thought of why your results suck or why you are a loser. LET go for a while. And then, when it is time to work, give it your undivided focus and energy. Be sinousidal, like life itself.
