If you're writing a thesis on "Mesopheric Meteoric Dust" you probably went to space camp as a kid. If you're a guy writing a thesis for the creative writing department, I'd guess you're the brooding, sensitive type. Anything earth science-related probably signifies that you consider showering optional. Or does it?
For the past year, thesis writers have gotten extremely close to a topic of their choice --living, sleeping and breathing "Hydrothermal Waters of Ischia Island, Italy: Important Point Sources of Environmental Arsenic Contamination?" among others.
One imagines such a significant undertaking would offer a window to the soul of sorts. After all, when a student spends so much time with a single concept, it follows that the finished product would offer some insight into their personality.
Alex Cushman '08, whose thesis topic is "Health Care Politics: An Evaluation of Lyndon Baines Johnson's role in the Passage of the 1965 Medicare Bill," has always been interested in the political process and specifically, the presidency.
"The presidency has always been something that has fascinated me," he said. "If you don't look at Vietnam, Johnson's domestic record -- he essentially accomplished more in two to three years than the previous three or four presidents combined in decades."
Cushman, who was a Senate page in high school, joked that he likes to bring history books to the beach on vacation -- for fun. He adds that his major is also a major interest outside of class.
He cites his topic as a marriage of legislative, presidential and historical factors, which makes for an interesting exploration and an apropos one given today's political climate and issues Americans are facing.
"I personally think that one of the biggest problems today is that 47 million don't have health insurance, and to look at possible solutions you have to look backwards," Cushman said.
Despite his commitment to and excitement regarding his research, which included a trip to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Texas, Cushman cautions that his thesis by no means ensures a scholarly future.
"As of right now, I don't think I want to get a Ph.D. in history," he said. "I wouldn't rule it out, but in doing this, I have a much better sense of what that would be like."
We'll hold off on the tenure, sweater vest and extensive library for now.
While some theses, like Cushman's, reflect a profound representation of a childhood passion or interest grown-up, others are more recent in intellectual origin, and still others beg the question: how did you ever come up with that?
Kristin Vallacher '08, a linguistics major, is the only non-native speaker writing a thesis entirely in Spanish this year. She noted that the idea for her topic, an exploration of time and memory in Jorge Luis Borges' stories, came a little at a time.
Her inspiration initially came from Borges' work itself.
"The ideas kept coming in waves," Vallacher said. "Initially I wanted to talk about Borges, and he analyzes time and space pretty creatively ... I would explain all these ideas I was having when I would read his stories to [Professor] Bueno in person, and I began to see them more as models than ideas. That's how it became appropriated."
Vallacher, who describes her thesis as an "emerging and developing ball of ideas," wouldn't go so far as to make an analogy between her own individuality and the pioneering, breakthrough nature of Borges' work. However, she noted that the thesis does represent aspects of her personality and interests.
"I'm really susceptible to boredom," she said. "I get bored so easily...Whenever I'm writing about anything I feel like I have to take other mind-frames and put them in, making me less bored writing it and the reader, hopefully, less bored reading it. My dad academically is also huge influence on me."
A professor of social psychology, Vallacher's father has always encouraged her to be experimental with the psychological view of her work.
In response to the suggestion that she is a pioneer in her challenging, Spanish-language interpretation of Borges, she argued that the uniqueness of her work wasn't the end in and of itself.
"Mine is probably very different from what other people are doing, but my intention for making it different wasn't to be different," Vallacher said. "It was more because I think I would just cry and hide under a desk if I had to write 100 pages solely on literary theory."
For Vallacher, post-college life may lead to graduate programs, but the road paved by Borges and the space-time continuum would, of course, never go straight from Point A to Point B. For now, she is taking a year off "not studying anything" and moving to Boston.
With theses that don't lend themselves to creative interpretation or self-expression, one has to search a little harder for the intersection between the project and the personal.
Joseph Politi '08 wrote a thesis exploring the question, "Does Aldosterone Directly Affect the Heart?" Though perhaps esoteric for a lay-person, by peeling back the layers of thought behind the research and the process of this work, a slight personal reflection is also discovered.
Though Politi wasn't reading books on aldosterone as a kid, he noted that the topic certainly holds a personal and professional interest for him.
"I had just taken a class in which I had written a paper on aldosterone, Bio 37," he said. "I joined the lab that studied that. I then found out that this hormone aldosterone had an effect on heart disease. Since my dad had heart disease, I asked my principal investigator if I could do my thesis on it."
Politi's thesis was in many ways more process oriented than others, as he spent time in the lab gathering original data. Though he says he is not the first to document that "heart disease turns up aldosterone, and aldosterone turns up heart disease," his work helped to "elucidate the process."
He also emphasized his interest in exploring other options beyond what he called the standard Dartmouth undergraduate degree. Doing a thesis in the biology department allowed for much more procedural freedom and a profoundly different sense of the work.
Though modest about his findings, Politi noted that his thesis does differ from many others.
"My process, as opposed to most processes, shows a lot more going in and trying every possible angle as opposed to just trying to get something done," he said.
"I think mine was a lot more on my own," Politi said. "I didn't really have much guidance. I don't mean to brag and say that I have these great ideas, but mine was a little more exploratory and less results-driven."
He espoused the independent research component as the most valuable part of the thesis experience -- one that exhibits a desire to extend the parameters of an ordinary undergraduate education.
A historical exploration of a presidency's legislative triumph, a Spanish-language approach to time and memory and an intricate scientific portrait of a biological phenomenon -- all journeys of sort, reflecting specific interests, past experiences and current motivations.
Though divergent in approach and focus, it seems all theses, despite the obvious relief that comes with the finished product, have one common effect on their creators, a result best jokingly described by Cushman.
"Essentially I've been working on this for a year," he said. "When I hand it in, I think I'm going to go through some sort of withdrawal. Generally, when I don't know what to do, I just go work on my thesis."
Christine is a staff writer for The Mirror. She thinks writing a thesis at all is a sign of a masochistic personality.
