This week, I have senior theses on the brain.
Before this year, I was so confident that I would write a thesis that I barely gave it a passing thought. As someone with a Type A personality, it felt almost sacrilegious to shy away from an academic challenge.
Over this past winter term, though, the idea of not writing a thesis crept into my mind. As the weeks ticked by, it dawned on me that I didn’t have a compelling enough reason to justify the months of my time that a thesis would consume.
As spring term began, I felt content with my decision. Yet within the last week, I’ve had three conversations with friends currently working on their thesis proposals. Each one of these interactions left me wondering if I should reconsider.
It’s not that talking to my friends lit me with a burning desire to drop everything and cook up a thesis idea. Ultimately, writing or not writing one is inconsequential. But I’ve come to realize that the hubbub surrounding theses has stirred up the same worry I’ve often felt throughout my time at Dartmouth — the nebulous fear that I should be “doing more,” both inside and outside of the classroom.
Honestly, this fear is mostly irrational. Sometimes my schedule is so jam-packed that I couldn’t squeeze in another activity even if I wanted to. But there’s no denying that whenever I find myself with a suspicious amount of free time, my mind immediately wanders to what I should add to my to-do list. At the start of this term, for example, before my assignments started to pile up, I thought to myself — should I train for a marathon? Study for the LSAT? Network for post-grad jobs? When I got eight hours of sleep for multiple nights in a row last week, I worried that I was forgetting an assignment.
It’s possible this is a problem unique to me. But in writing this Editor’s Note, I’ve realized how pervasively hustle culture has burrowed itself into this campus’s central nervous system. At the start of this term, I reached out to one of my friends to get a meal. We’ll be having dinner this Saturday — three weeks later — because that’s the first day both of us are free. Another friend recently told me that she hates how “scarily empty” her Google Calendar looks right now.
All of these anecdotes are to say that it’s been hard to give up on writing a thesis, and I think it’s because writing a thesis would give me the sense that I was “doing enough” academically. But I hope this decision is the first step in ending my worship at the altar of overachievement.
There will always be more chances to write long papers. Comparatively, I have so few hours left to run far too many laps around Occom Pond, attend 22nd birthday parties, watch my friends clamber around on stilts or sit in Foco for two hours gossiping and watching Purdue basketball — all of which I was able to experience this week instead of writing a thesis proposal.
This week in Mirror, our writers explore student achievements like extraordinary feats of endurance and admission into the Geisel BA/MD program, as well as local quirks, such as Hanover’s zoning laws or its recent nomination as a top small college town. Finally, one writer talks to students about their honest study abroad experiences.
For many, this week marks the start of midterms, and the spring will only grow busier from here. If I could leave you with one sentiment, it would be this: rather than wedging more to-do list items onto an already full plate, take the time to slow down. Relish the quintessential Dartmouth moments before our four short years here are up — like enjoying our newly-warm weather while catching up on this week’s Mirror. See you next week.
