Planting burning questions for vibrant theses

Housed in the Duke archive repository lay the illustrious fruits of the year-long toiling and many sleepless nights of hundreds of students through the years: senior honors theses. Spanning all departments and delving into topics of boundless diversity, these projects take their writers on careening intellectual paths and, like a needy partner, demand all-consuming energy. To the seniors triumphantly returning the last of their towering book stacks and whose work will soon join the theses in these archives, we extend hearty congratulations and commendation.

The thesis program—more formally the program for graduation with distinction—has become increasingly popular in recent years. In the past decade, the number of students in Trinity and Pratt who have graduated with distinction doubled from 12 to 25 percent and 10 to 20 percent, respectively. Unlike its peer at Princeton, our program does not require written theses and, instead, operates on an opt-in voluntary model, and the overall number of participants is heartening for what it says about our undergraduates. Yet, there is room to improve the program and the experiences of students therein.

A brief survey probing why students decide to undertake a thesis project suggests that, for many, it is an ultimate challenge and herculean test of themselves and, for others, perhaps a precursor or bellwether for graduate school. For many, the decision to write a thesis comes before the selection of a topic—a sequence that usually results in a desperate search for an idea and a cobbling together of questions in the late spring of junior year. Yet, the process and the student experience would be improved by inverting the beginnings of thesis writing. That is, students should begin thinking about questions to explore more fully in a thesis throughout their time at Duke rather than under the pressure of a proposal deadline—questions arising from, perhaps, spotting gaps in the scholarly literature read in class or an observation while on DukeEngage. Such proactivity not only hones a lens of critical analysis that benefits any later endeavor but may also remove a daunting barrier that deters many from writing a thesis.

The process of writing a thesis rightly varies between departments and, in the end, allows students to look back fondly and proudly at the monumental work they have accomplished. Yet, at its core, writing a thesis—no matter the discipline—is an opportunity for personal growth and mentorship from the first citation to the last presentation.

Perhaps, then, the professor in a student-professor thesis relationship would be more aptly renamed from thesis “advisor” to thesis “mentor.” It is a seemingly small terminological shift that nonetheless captures the importance of mentorship in the thesis writing process. A strong thesis mentor is one whose knowledge in the field can guide students, especially in the beginning stages, toward honing a question and setting the framework with the foremost scholars and literature of the field. Yet, in some cases, students have ideas to pursue but are unable to find faculty with the requisite expertise. In this case, the most important factor in thesis mentorship is a willingness to engage with and follow the student in their exploration, to traverse the research with them and to dedicate time and energy to develop not only the research but, also, the researcher, not only the scholar but, also, the individual. It is a partnership that can be enriching and rewarding for both student and professor.

As the thesis program at Duke becomes increasingly robust, we encourage students of all years to amass burning questions throughout their experiences at Duke and, if the inspiration strikes, to wet their feet in the thesis endeavor.