Finding a Thesis Topic

thinking about a thesis is a pretty I think it's actually the most exciting part of the whole business of Graduate School II the exploration necessary to find a good thesis topic is is the most creative the most exciting because it's completely feels like at least completely blue sky what do I want to do so I'm going to talk briefly about finding a topic now the big thing about finding a topic is you can't wait for it to come - it's just like relationships you've got to go out and you got to look for them you got to keep your eyes open and and really be actively engaged in looking for an idea that you want to have a relationship with and ideally because the nature of graduate students you can even try sleeping around a bit you can look at developing more than one idea and you can play with those ideas in fact you should play with those ideas until you find the idea that you really want to that you really want to be with because you're going to have to be with this idea for a year at least however while I well there are lots of ideas out there to play around with you have to remember that each our graduate programs has boundaries on what's acceptable and what's not acceptable and so you have to be cognizant of those boundaries and keep your topic more or less within those boundaries or else be prepared to go and give a vigorous argument to your program head about why you should be able to extend beyond the end of the edges of the boundaries how do you find those great ideas to hang out with well read widely talked to people broadly a very good piece of advice is to go into the Royal Roads library go into the thesis and dissertations section of the library go to ProQuest do a search for recent doctoral dissertations on the subject more or less that you're interested in all dissertations will have a subsection or a section called future your recommendations for research recommendations for research or what you're looking for look for some cool ideas that come out of recent doctorates because they always make recommendations dissertations always make recommendations now a more practical way to find a topic do you owe anybody anything like does your employer for your employer is helping you fund your graduate work do they expect something from you that may be where you find a topic you want to find a topic though it's going to keep you motivated so you got to talk to your employer about doing some research that may benefit your organization that you're really excited about doing but that may be a way of finding a topic talk to your employer if you owe them something if you can get permission to do it particular thesis on company time this is a huge benefit if you can actually get paid to do your your thesis maybe they're not supporting your dissertation your thesis your thesis research but but they'll let you do some of it on company time totally great find a topic that your employer will let you do on company time and do it some people come into the graduate programs here looking to make a change in their life or a professional change in their life so is there a thesis that you can do that will help you to gain the skills that allow you to make that transition many students will be looking for those kinds of new skills so you decide I want to learn about something like program evaluation can I learn those skills as part of my thesis do a program evaluation and come out of it with the skills necessary to be a program evaluator of course of course you have to consider about what engages you what engages you intellectually what engages you emotionally you know what what do you independent of your employer and dependent of a further career advancement what do you want to do what what really is exciting what ideas really just grab you and pull you towards them can you make the emotion and the intellectual aspect of a thesis come together and find something that totally grabs you many students do that and you want to keep your eyes open for those opportunities is there a person that you'd really like to learn from that you'd like to work with that is doing interesting stuff if there are talk to them see whether they have any research that that they'd like to see done and if they would supervise you to to do that work right find a good person offer that's maybe the most important aspect of going to university find good people to hang out with and learn from now as you look around for your topics there's a couple of pieces of reality that you have to bite into if you're going to be successful at the end of the process one is you have to be you have to have the time to do the work that you want to do if you have a great project and you you're not going to have the time don't do it don't make yourself crazy is the data that you're interested in analyzing and playing with is it available can you get it if you can't nice idea but don't don't waste your time struggling around data that isn't available and do you have the skills or do you have the confidence that you can gain those skills to do the tasks you do do you want to ask a question that's going to involve intense statistics and do you have the skills to do it or are you willing to commit the time and energy necessary to learn statistical analysis so you got to be you got to take the stuff seriously finally my I guess my advice is follow your head and your heart but you have to keep looking for you have to keep it real you have to find a thesis topic that fits within the program bounds that is doable in terms of time and data availability and your own skills and abilities you have to want to live with this thesis idea for a year and if you can put it all together you'll have a totally great time

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Length: 6min 9sec (369 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 05 2014