The NMW guide entry #542: How to screw up your dissertation in 10 easy steps.
As I promised last week, here is an account of how I managed to get my dissertation in by the deadline. To be honest, the finished product was on a new level of crapness from anything I have handed in during my 3 years of university. This is rather depressing as it counts for a fair amount of my 3rd year mark. I just hope that my supervisor is a bit (or very) drunk when he marks it and is feeling sympathetic when he reads it.
On a slightly more positive note I did get an essay back (the one that I handed in to the BBB before Easter, if you remember that blog entry!) at the same time as handing in my dissy. I got 69% which is 1% below the mark needed for a first. This was a total result as if you remember I wrote the entire 3000 word master piece on the night/morning before the deadline. It was also for a lecturer who spent half a lecture explaining how 90% of the students who take his course get between 55 - 60%. So unless the exam in fecking impossible, it means he was totally bull shitting.
Anyway, here are my top tips on how NOT to do a 3rd year project/dissertation:
1.) Don't use one of the project ideas supplied by your department, instead choose something you think know about. Therefore, most likely, your supervisor will have neither a clue nor any interest in your work and is subsequently unable and unmotivated to help you in any way throughout the life of the project.
2.) Choose the most laid back and non-interested professor in the department as a supervisor because he will not want to meet up for the mandatory supervisions and therefore you can get away with doing NO work for 6 months.
3.) Write a time plan 9 months before the deadline. Make sure the plan is totally unrealistic in that it requires you to work for at least 50 hours ever week in the following 9 months to have a fighting chance of finishing your extravagant project on time.
4.) In the term running up to your impending ‘deadline of doom’ remember that when you have the afternoon spare to do some work on your project it is always a good idea to say "Yes I'll have another pint of Strongbow please, it won't inhibit my work ethic for the rest of the day" to the attractive girl you are lunching with, even if she doesn’t offer you a drink.
5.) Develop a Cola-cola addiction (preferably "diet" and "with lime") in the fortnight before the deadline, meaning that you are unable to do any work when you have not imbibed at least 2 pints of the heavenly goo and also meaning that you now require at least 3 hours of "brain switching off time" before you can go to sleep. [Excessive dosage can lead to 'Shaking hands' which can be a added benefit that draws sympathy and kind looks from your fellow university students].
Note: The consumption of over a gallon of coca cola can lead to your wisdom teeth (which last grew when you were 17) to start growing again causing you extreme pain and guarantying you won't sleep. As you can’t sleep, why not take advantage of the time and take some snaps of the inside of you mouth to try and spot the little fu*kers....
6.) If you are unable to get your project to work/function with less that 24 hours left before the deadline cut the most important and therefore most problematic part of it out and make a 30 word footnote in the documentation with reference to its absence and your dog's ability to eat anything (even lines of computer software).
7.) There is no reason to think that you should start typing the required 10,000 words more than 18 hours before the deadline. Doing this will NOT cause you to PANIC and stop blogging. If anything it will improve the quality of your grammar and spelling. Remember that proof reading is the sport of WIMPS.
8.) Sleep for the 36 hours before the deadline is PROHIBITED. You may be a useless zombie for most of it but it is a great thing to brag to you mates about after you have finished your dissertation. To help you stay awake make sure you have done #5 and also it helps to line up "love heart" sweets on your keyboard and then eat 5 at once in an act of total self indulgence.
9.) Take stupid photos of yourself (out of focus) in the last 24 hours, these will amuse you and take your mind off your impending failure.
10.) Manage to type an average of 1500 words per hours for the last 5 hours leaving 2 hours to spare for proof reading, printing, binding and transport to your department office.
A few other things that may help you:
- Go to the wee every 30 minutes (you will find that due to the amount of cola you have introduced to your body that this is not something you will not struggle with)
- Find a housemate who’s deadline is the same as yours, make sure that they have more to do than you, then you can take time off to encourage/ wake/ motivate them and feel like a hero doing it.
- Eat so much comfort food (turkey dinosaurs and tesco pizza) in 5 weeks that you put on a stone in weight and feel like a whale the next time you try to play squash.
- Find another housemate who is more organised to feed, cloth and tell you off for being disorganised during the final week of PANIC.
- Go for a short (4 hour) drive across Dartmoor to relieve your stress levels by pretending you are a world rally champion.
BUT most importantly remember that the fact you met all the intermediate stage deadlines well in advance of when they were due and the fact that you spent 5 weeks of Easter working full time on your project (in the last week you do not allow yourself sleep) means that somehow you will still manage to completely run out of time and be likely to have a little cry at 4am on the morning of the deadline while nobody else is watching. This is completely INEVITABLE, live with it. There are plenty of jobs for people with an E grade at A-Level chemistry and no honours degree.
On a slightly more positive note I did get an essay back (the one that I handed in to the BBB before Easter, if you remember that blog entry!) at the same time as handing in my dissy. I got 69% which is 1% below the mark needed for a first. This was a total result as if you remember I wrote the entire 3000 word master piece on the night/morning before the deadline. It was also for a lecturer who spent half a lecture explaining how 90% of the students who take his course get between 55 - 60%. So unless the exam in fecking impossible, it means he was totally bull shitting.
Anyway, here are my top tips on how NOT to do a 3rd year project/dissertation:
1.) Don't use one of the project ideas supplied by your department, instead choose something you think know about. Therefore, most likely, your supervisor will have neither a clue nor any interest in your work and is subsequently unable and unmotivated to help you in any way throughout the life of the project.
2.) Choose the most laid back and non-interested professor in the department as a supervisor because he will not want to meet up for the mandatory supervisions and therefore you can get away with doing NO work for 6 months.
3.) Write a time plan 9 months before the deadline. Make sure the plan is totally unrealistic in that it requires you to work for at least 50 hours ever week in the following 9 months to have a fighting chance of finishing your extravagant project on time.
4.) In the term running up to your impending ‘deadline of doom’ remember that when you have the afternoon spare to do some work on your project it is always a good idea to say "Yes I'll have another pint of Strongbow please, it won't inhibit my work ethic for the rest of the day" to the attractive girl you are lunching with, even if she doesn’t offer you a drink.
5.) Develop a Cola-cola addiction (preferably "diet" and "with lime") in the fortnight before the deadline, meaning that you are unable to do any work when you have not imbibed at least 2 pints of the heavenly goo and also meaning that you now require at least 3 hours of "brain switching off time" before you can go to sleep. [Excessive dosage can lead to 'Shaking hands' which can be a added benefit that draws sympathy and kind looks from your fellow university students].
Note: The consumption of over a gallon of coca cola can lead to your wisdom teeth (which last grew when you were 17) to start growing again causing you extreme pain and guarantying you won't sleep. As you can’t sleep, why not take advantage of the time and take some snaps of the inside of you mouth to try and spot the little fu*kers....
6.) If you are unable to get your project to work/function with less that 24 hours left before the deadline cut the most important and therefore most problematic part of it out and make a 30 word footnote in the documentation with reference to its absence and your dog's ability to eat anything (even lines of computer software).
7.) There is no reason to think that you should start typing the required 10,000 words more than 18 hours before the deadline. Doing this will NOT cause you to PANIC and stop blogging. If anything it will improve the quality of your grammar and spelling. Remember that proof reading is the sport of WIMPS.
8.) Sleep for the 36 hours before the deadline is PROHIBITED. You may be a useless zombie for most of it but it is a great thing to brag to you mates about after you have finished your dissertation. To help you stay awake make sure you have done #5 and also it helps to line up "love heart" sweets on your keyboard and then eat 5 at once in an act of total self indulgence.
9.) Take stupid photos of yourself (out of focus) in the last 24 hours, these will amuse you and take your mind off your impending failure.
10.) Manage to type an average of 1500 words per hours for the last 5 hours leaving 2 hours to spare for proof reading, printing, binding and transport to your department office.
A few other things that may help you:
- Go to the wee every 30 minutes (you will find that due to the amount of cola you have introduced to your body that this is not something you will not struggle with)
- Find a housemate who’s deadline is the same as yours, make sure that they have more to do than you, then you can take time off to encourage/ wake/ motivate them and feel like a hero doing it.
- Eat so much comfort food (turkey dinosaurs and tesco pizza) in 5 weeks that you put on a stone in weight and feel like a whale the next time you try to play squash.
- Find another housemate who is more organised to feed, cloth and tell you off for being disorganised during the final week of PANIC.
- Go for a short (4 hour) drive across Dartmoor to relieve your stress levels by pretending you are a world rally champion.
BUT most importantly remember that the fact you met all the intermediate stage deadlines well in advance of when they were due and the fact that you spent 5 weeks of Easter working full time on your project (in the last week you do not allow yourself sleep) means that somehow you will still manage to completely run out of time and be likely to have a little cry at 4am on the morning of the deadline while nobody else is watching. This is completely INEVITABLE, live with it. There are plenty of jobs for people with an E grade at A-Level chemistry and no honours degree.
posted by Nurton at 8:39 am
7 Comments:
Loved your dissertation 'how-to' manual! I've always wondered about the actual hell that takes place from start to finish. Your write-up and photos took me there. (Why get a degree? Might be easier and neater just to get hit by a truck!)
Love the sink right next to the computer. That's practical! Is that for when things aren't going well, you can just kind of swivel your chair around and go, huhhhhhu!
I've taken some courses here + there, but no university diploma (waa!) The mistakes we make. I did work at a college once where alot of the students were doing their dissertations and oral defenses. So it was just this level of fear and panic that was kind of fascinating! I was only at the job for 3 months; great people but I hated the work. Ugh. A dream job opened up and I ran with it.
The stress of getting degrees at that level is no funny thing. One girl went into the restroom near Admissions and had a nervous breakdown. Crying, curled up on the floor... a female Prof. went in. We called a Psychiatrist who was on staff. It was medication time. I have no idea if she stayed to finish at that point. I think she left.
Sorry for the long post.... did I miss your dissertation theme? Something on chemistry? I guess I was laughing too hard!
:)
Ok, I guess I have been hiding this bit of information about myself for too long now, ..... I am a COMPUTER SCIENTIST by day. It feels good to have that off my chest. I only took the course because I knew it would be easier than the Maths or Physics degrees that were my alternatives. To be honest, I rarely go to the lectures, don't smell of pizza, can talk to women and have never watched an episode of Star Trek, so I guess I might just have avoided becoming a nerd. (Am I a nerd, tell it to me straight?)
I was seriously stressed for the first time in 3 years with about 20 hours left to go. It was completely and utterly my own fault. I believe that stress is either caused by leaving yourself an impossible amount of work to do on something that is really important to you (that's me!), or by taking something on that you are never (no matter how hard you try) going to be able to do. Either way it is normally your own fault, nobody elses.
That sink has witnessed some pretty awful moments, one including a 'Chicken Tikka Burger' from the Raj India kebab shop. That's another story.....
It has also been a pillar of strength and support to me over the last few weeks. Recently I have given in and started to drink the cold water rather than walking downstairs to use the kitchen tap. It is probably "tank" water that will kill me, but I am hoping the lack of exercise will get me first!
I agree with that. Stress can be delegated into little itty pockets of... time management. Not that I know much about that!
It sounds like you did pretty well until you had those last 20 hours. Sometimes people feel they do their best work under pressure. And then sometimes, it's just good old procrastination.
The computer sciences, only way to go these days. Not geeky at all. So many job opportunities now, and 5 years from now? Who knows where technology will take us! So you brainiacs with all the training and credentials will be alright.
Congratulations now- it's all behind you!
"....All behind you" - Yeah except for the dissertation presentation/oral exam and the 5 exams I have to sit. Then it will truly be over!
Until October when I have another 4 professional exams. Then it WILL be over
Until in two or three years time I do a MPhil so I can become a CEng, then IT WILL BE OVER!
Nurton, there's no way you're a nerd. But since you posed the question, here's a "quiz" to calm your nerves!
http://www.blogthings.com/howgeekyareyouquiz/
To link, click on my fake handle or cut + paste.
Did the test, turns out i am not a nerd (except for the fact that I own a large number of black t-shirts (let me assure you this is purely because I am a messy eater and they hide stains well)).
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