It’s been almost four years of midterms, finals and more papers than I’ll ever remember writing. It’s been a fantastic ride, but I’m done. Now, all I want to do is spend my last weeks at Penn enjoying college and saying a proper goodbye to the place I’m proud to call home. To put it into technical terms, I believe I have senioritis.
But instead of enjoying all the beautiful weather and amazing things Penn has to offer (there were actually people playing Frisbee while walking on tight ropes on the Green this weekend), I am getting to know Van Pelt better than I ever thought possible.
It’s the curse of the senior thesis.
Like most seniors, I’m actually very passionate about my thesis topic. After all, we are researching and writing exactly what we want to for the first time in our academic careers. And, though this will likely change over the next few weeks, I am pretty low on the “my thesis is consuming my life” scale. So it’s not really about the specific work.
The real issue is that we are so close yet so far from being done with papers and schoolwork that writing a 65 page research paper now seems cruel. This is beginning to drive me and every senior I know slightly crazy.
Something just feels wrong about saddling us with our biggest academic undertaking at the eleventh hour of our Penn career. When so many of my peers — mostly those who are not writing a thesis — are just going with the flow this last semester, it’s hard to not want that freedom. It’s a freedom, after all, we may never find again once we leave the Penn bubble.
And, if nothing else, this would all have been a lot easier to complete during the long dreary winter — anything to avoid being stuck indoors stressing about my thesis from now to graduation.
But I get it. It’s how it is and it’s what I wanted. And I’m told that, despite spending a month indoors working when everyone else is enjoying Penn in the spring, it will all be worth it when I’m done.
And, if nothing else, there’s a light at the end of this work tunnel: my thesis draft is due three days before Spring Fling. I’ll see you in the Quad.
