Lauren Agresti | Theories on theses

Today is the first day of my post-thesis life. And already, I’ve got a serious case of the “that-wasn’t-so-bads.”

It’s like going to the gym or — I’ve been told — childbirth. You experience anxiety, uncertainty and extraordinary suffering and then suddenly forget about all of the misery because you’re so happy with the outcome.

I’m sure there’s a well-documented psychological explanation for this, but if you’ll forgive me, I just don’t feel like researching it right now.

In any case, a few weeks ago I would have told anyone who asked to never ever in a million years even consider doing a senior project of any kind. As far as I could tell at the time, the entire campus was out having a blast without me, and my fear of missing out was nearly as unbearable as my fear of failing to complete my thesis.

But now, it’s all over, I’m a happy camper and I’m one of those people writing one of those God forsaken editorials about the value of research.

Except I’m not. Research is what you already know it is: intellectually stimulating and grad school resume-improving.

What you might not know is that when it comes time to sign up for those extra hard things, your fear of missing out on senior year may be misplaced. In reality, I had more irreplaceable life experiences — totally unrelated to my actual project — because of my thesis than I would have had if I had chickened out.

First of all, you create all kinds of new relationships. The people in your program, students also working with your advisor, professors, library-dwellers, Starbucks baristas and random people from high school grumbling about writing theses on social media all become fair game.

All you have to do is give someone the “I’m so stressed out” face, point to your watch, mouth the words “happy hour?” across the room and you’ve got a new friend (and a margarita). It couldn’t be any easier. Huge academic undertakings can and will completely disguise all of your social incompetence.

Your relationships with your existing friends also change. The ones who stick it out through the grumpiness and the coffee-making noises at 4 in the morning are saints. Everyone else provides excellent insight into just how much normal human beings hate to hear you complain.

Theses are also about introspection, especially if you are lucky enough to land in a year-long program. With such an expansive timeline, you usually get at least an entire month or two to devote entirely to questioning your own mental capacities and fortitude.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll spend most of the fall wondering what you’re really interested in anyway, contemplating if you are capable of focusing on anything at all for more than a week and trying to pinpoint exactly when you developed such crippling anxiety about school. In the best circumstances, massive projects can force you to learn about yourself.

Don’t get me wrong, though — theses are not for everyone. I firmly believe they should not be required. I sincerely wish someone had warned me about the low points. I was blindsided by the nights when I couldn’t sleep because I was too nervous that the whole thing was going to fall apart and the days when my standard lightning-fast writing speed dropped to roughly zero words per hour.

There were entire mornings spent staring out a window on the fourth floor of Van Pelt trying to figure out whether or not I had to delete the last 10 pages I had produced. I cannot overemphasize how much your brain will experience physical pain and how willing you will be to sit on the steps of the library — in your sweatpants, double-fisting lattes — waiting for it to open. For some people, it just isn’t worth it. And that’s okay.

That said, I can guarantee that if there is something difficult you really want to tackle, you will probably benefit from being just as reckless as I was in committing to it. You’ll struggle, whine and fall asleep on a couch in Huntsman in the middle of the day. But you’ll be on a crazy journey, and you should be at least a little bit afraid of missing out.

Lauren Agresti is a College senior from Fulton, Md. Her email address is laurenagresti@gmail.com. Follow her @lagresti. “Piece of Mind” appears every other Tuesday.

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