Seniors complete one final project

Ever have the desire to create an in-depth study of sexual obscenity in the arts? Or compare the post-abortion grieving process of Japanese and American women? With the senior thesis program, these goals can come to fruition.

While many seniors are looking forward to next semester as a time to slack off and enjoy Thursday nights at the Burren, the estimated six percent of the class who chose to write a thesis have their work cut out for them.

"Writing a thesis is by no means an easy task," Dean of Colleges Charles Inouye said. "It takes many years of careful preparation, methodology, knowing your discipline well enough, and knowing your professors well enough to become their peers."

Many students say the hardest part is coming up with a topic and finding three professors to serve as advisors. Though the process of researching, outlining, and writing the thesis is demanding, the seniors working on projects this year say they are intellectually engaging.

Senior Allison Archambault has chosen to explore solar energy development in Rural Mali. Archambault, an international relations major, called her topic "really random," although "perfect for [her] because it combines [her] two interests: the environment and French."

Thus far, Archambault has found that it is difficult to make money in Mali because the markets and companies are extremely small, pollution is a huge problem, and because trees are being used for firewood. She has chosen to take economic and social models from other countries and apply them to Mali, especially models relating to solar energy to propose a solution to these problems.

Marianne Chow is writing a comparative thesis about post-abortion grief between American women and Japanese women. Chow, an international relations major with a minor in Japanese, studied abroad in Japan last year, researching the topic by going to abortion clinics in Japan. There, she searched databases and medical journals to see how medical professionals view this issue.

She found that Japanese families memorialize aborted fetuses, a concept that seemed foreign to her. "I couldn't even imagine this happening in American society," Chow said. "I was curious to see how American women cope with post-abortion grief."

Both Chow and Archambault have been impressed with the thesis program in general, especially the enthusiasm of the professors.

"I've gotten a lot of help, my professors are extremely excited and always willing to help," Chow said. "There have been workshops, and the wonderful thing is that there are graduate student mentors who are really helpful because they know what I'm going through."

Lizzie Stark, a double major in philosophy and English, initially chose to do her thesis on pornography, but changed her project to obscenity and communication in modernist literature and film. She has chosen to look into obscenity in language in the novel Lady Chatterley's Lover, and in DH Lawrence, a film by Victor Fleming about the author of the book.

"The film is not pornography, but it's extremely obscene because there is so much implied sex," Stark said.

Stark plans to look at how obscenity works in the novel, formulate analogies to obscenities in the film, and ultimately figure out how obscenity in film works. Stark's topic is particularly tricky because she is working with primary texts and reader response theory.

Though the other two seniors felt supported by professors at Tufts, Stark said she did not get the help she needed in narrowing her topic down to something manageable.

"You almost have to start planning your sophomore or junior year to have the kind of depth they want," Stark said. "I found a lot of resistance, I think because my topic was pornography. I came in with a thesis that was all over the place; in fact, I had enough ideas for six theses.

"I ultimately needed to choose one, but I feel I didn't get a lot of help in doing so, but maybe that's just part of the process," she continued.

Despite the amount of work that goes into a thesis, according to Inouye, they are becoming more popular, as they maximize the opportunities of learning that exist here at Tufts.

"Writing a thesis essentially allows a senior to make a creative and in-depth contribution to the world of knowledge having discovered his or her intellectual passion, had the discipline to develop that passion with methodology, and having established good working relationships with at least three professors," Inouye said. "It's the culmination of four years of undergraduate education."