Well.... my so-called Honours Thesis is soon to be kaput. It has gone the way of the Edsol. In other words: I decided to drop it!
The decision came as the reality of completing a thesis for which I lacked a reasonable topic became less and less realistic, given a limited time frame of 2 months.
This is of course a gamble, which could have negative implications for my graduate school aspirations. However, I am banking on the fact that my transcript is otherwise quite strong and of course the alternative- actually completing the thesis- does not seem like a reasonable task, at least not if I want to have any remnants of my santé mentale in April.
This was a decision I made with great humility. I swallowed a great deal of pride in saying that I failed.... that I am incapable of completing this project. Of course, there were extraordinary circumstances which were beyond my control which, I believe, made this thesis a near-impossible task.
The more sobering implication of this decision is not wether it will prevent my admission into Grad school.... but does it reflect my lack of readiness for grad school? This is a daunting question for which I currently lack an answer. One on hand, school- especially this last year- has pretty much depressed me. I am sick and tired of reading overly theoretically and jargon-laden mumbo jumbo which authors have intentionally made excessively wordy and complicated for the sole purpose of establishing themselves as an élite class of intellectual academics. I'm also no longer looking forward to the task of having to create some brilliant project out of scratch- in other words, a thesis. Perhaps most of all, I'm not terribly fond of the life of limitless homework and readings, a life in which if I'm not actively reading something for school, I am sleeping, eating, or commuting between home and school.
Yet a part of me is still naïvely optimistic about grad school. If, as I hope, I get into NUS, it will be a complete change of environment which will hopefully eliminate some of the Canada-blues, caused primarily by the weather, but secondarily by the largely uninspiring food, people, and aesthetics. Secondly, the nature of grad school is fundamentally different to that of the undergraduate degree- no longer will I be a slave in 4-5 classes, and no longer will I have to fabricate some sort of thesis project for which I can't even do my own firsthand research. In fact, even for my Master's degree, I will be able to embark upon which is inevitably every first-year anthropology student'S pipe dream: ethnographic fieldword in an exotic locale, which, for me, means I might be able to return to Mae Sot, Thailand- a community to which I have great emotional attachments.
At the moment, grad school remains part of a distant, only possible future. For now, I have to overcome the rest of my semester, despite my unfortunate failure with the honours thesis, and finish my tenure at McGill with some dignity. It would help, of course, if I could overcome this seasonal depression...
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4 comments:
I'm really sorry... about a lot of this stuff. (Does this make sense? I'm not sorry for them because obviously I didn't cause them but I'm sorry that you're feeling so bad)
I wish I could say anything wiser than that I'm certain, from what you have told me, that giving up your Honours project doesn't mean failure but you realizing that this is a task almost impossible to succeed at. I suppose that you could write up some crap within two months but this is not the point of such a project and you realizing this shows a great deal of maturity, not only school-wise. From what you've told me, many conditions were pretty unfavorable and indeed out of your control.
So, yeah, I suppose you know all that stuff already (from own musing but also because I tried to tell you ;)) but I hope you'll be able to overcome your feeling bad about this. And the general feeling of depression.
And I really hope that it won't have negative consequences on your applications (which I seriously can't imagine... even if they take it into account) because you sound so excited about Singapore.
I hope you can smile again soon :)
J
yeah, don't worry about it. Your time is done at McGill, so just finish it up, and move on to something new.
Man, I have to say I'm hoping Singapore. This is your part of the globe.
Hey Dude,
I wouldn't look at it as a failure, but a decision you had to make. Sometimes you've to do things that are hard, but since it's what's best for you, hey -- there's no shame in that. What matters more now is that you make the most of what's left of Montreal.
In any case, you applied to grad school for that "pipe dream" of yours -- to work and help in another country, and to get a degree for it. I wouldn't say you're unprepared for it at all. After all, you had to drop your thesis for reasons mostly beyond you. To the contrary, you seem like you really want to go to grad school -- so keep following that dream :-).
On a more material note, the first year of grad school is notoriously open-ended, so you don't have to worry about heavy expectations.
Also, going to grad school is infinitely better than getting a real job. I can't imagine you working in an office... particularly with the economy in its current state.
Thank you all for your words of encouragement! I will let you know when I hear about Grad School!
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