Musings Along The Long Road to the Completion of my Masters Thesis

I have been told that a master’s thesis should be a reference. I think it should read like an adventure, because that's what applied scientific inquiry is. There is a risk and you don't know the outcome at the beginning, but you have a goal: finding an application for your discoveries. You try to learn as much as you can from other’s experiences before making a move and expending resources, but at some point you make a plan and follow your nose, take a chance, believing that there is genius in the process of just trying something, anything and watching carefully what happens. So why can't a thesis be that? And why can't it be personal, emotional and colloquial? Why can’t it read like people talk? Such a thesis could reach a much wider audience of people and students. It could inspire new students to go into masters programs too. Instead of writing as if you worked for the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) and were recording mundane, impersonal facts.

The Ballad of the Master Thesis

(sung to the first part of the Black Eyed Peas' "Where is the Love")

I once wrote masters thesis
Although I didn’t have a clue what to write
I knew it would be something about feces
So I played baseball to keep my sanity
For the same reason I then went to Germany
But soon after arriving I heard
That my thesis was for the birds
So I waited for the terrible news
Of all the work I would soon have to do
But sadly the news never came
And once again I was waiting to start this game
You see my thesis was more like a puck
And I’m trying to score a goal and not get stuck
By the numerous referees
Making rules here and there as they please

“Skate backwards in a line
Now you have to stop on a dime
Now change into the colour blue”
I had to sign 3 forms before I could go to the loo!
Father, Father, Father help me
Send some guidance from above
Because this has got me got me questioning
Where is the Love

So I tried to have fun with my friends
And forget about the project that I alone could not end
Until those corrections arrived
And I could pick up my pen once more and try
To get this old puck in the net
So no further would I go into debt!

GO LEAFS GO!