I've Written 45 Pages. Can I Stop Now?
by David Faris

Originally published Jan. 31, 2001 on studentadvantage.com.

My advisor peered at me quizzically, waiting for me to answer his question. I stared blankly at my notebook, grappling with a familiar dilemma: lie or tell the truth? Tell the truth and our meeting would be extended for another half an hour; lie and I could leave, putting off the reckoning for at least another week.

"Yes, I feel better about the thesis, Dr. Simon," I stammered. Blinking furiously, as I often do when I'm nervous and tired, I stuffed my notebook back in the bag, hoping for a quick exit.

The previous night Dr. Simon, the advisor for my senior honors thesis, had accompanied me to a meeting with the other honors candidates and their advisors, about 50 people in all. It was mid-October already, and by this time many of my peers had been working on their projects for six months. Most sounded polished and confident, and many had begun their research in earnest. I, on the other hand, had a one-page, double-spaced piece of paper which vaguely concerned U.S. policy and the right of self-determination for ethnic minorities, which itself was vaguely based on an article I had read in Harper's magazine.

In short, I bluffed my way through the evening, which was designed to make us all feel more confident and "better" about our endeavors. It was now the next morning at our scheduled meeting, and I sensed that Dr. Simon was about call me on it.

Dr. Simon, a balding, stocky fellow in his late fifties with a mellifluous news anchor's voice that could captivate a room full of jittery freshmen, leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on his lap. "My only concern," he said slowly, "is that your topic is too broad."

Topic? What topic? "Well—" I began to reply.

"Self-determination is a very broad subject," he said.

"I know."

"You should narrow it down a bit. Could you concentrate on one group seeking self-determination and look at how they've been affected by U.S. policy?" he asked.

I nervously glanced around. What a great idea! All I needed now was a group seeking self-determination. I looked at a map of the world on the wall to my right and focused my eyes on the Middle East. Palestinians? Too complex. Islamic separatists? I didn't want to be the next Salmon Rushdie. I looked at Turkey, then Iraq, and then Iran to the right, and it hit me. "The Kurds!"

I blurted it out with childlike excitement, the way I once shouted "White Castle!" when my father asked me where I wanted to eat. Dr. Simon nodded. At long last, I had a topic.

What I did not have, at least not for another few months, was a fire under my rear end. I procrastinated for the rest of October, taking a book or two out of the library just to prove to myself that I wasn't getting four credits for this thesis-preparation course for nothing. After coming down with an infection that knocked me out for almost all of November, it was suddenly finals time and I still had little more than a five-page proposal to show for a semester's worth of "work."

Dr. Simon, strangely, didn't seem terribly concerned. I had aced three of his classes, and he had a certain amount of confidence in my abilities. Determined not to disappoint him (and since I needed to finish the thesis in order to graduate), I pledged to write half of the 90-page behemoth over winter break.

After using the first two weeks of break to finish my graduate school applications, I spurned my usual winter break job at a local hotel. Instead, I locked myself in my room every day from 9 to 5 to read books, take notes and hammer out 45 pages of my thesis.

The following few weeks are a blur. I remember doing little besides reading books like Turkish Ethnocentrism and feeling the triumph as my tome ploddingly expanded: from nothing, to 10 pages, to 20, and finally, by the end of January, to 43.

The hard work had been rewarding, and when I returned to school I maintained my diligence. I had taken a part in our theatre group's production of Edward Albee's The Zoo Story, which was to be performed in the first week of April, the same month I was set to retire as editor of the student newspaper. Wouldn't it be wonderful, I thought, to defend my thesis that same week? I'd be able to save the last month and a half of my college career for spending time with friends and relaxing.

With that thought in mind, finishing the thesis became a kind of monomania for me. I said "no" to friends so many times that after a while all I had to say was "honors thesis" in response to an invitation and I would be understood.

By early March my rough draft was complete. I won't bore you by diving into the details, but suffice it to say I was pretty proud of the thing. Many revisions lay ahead, but most of the hard work was done. I scheduled my defense for the first week of April. After wasting an entire fall semester wondering whether I was even capable of writing a thesis, my thesis defense was now scheduled to be the first of the spring.

The day of my defense arrived, at long last. The thesis, "A Cynical Exercise: The United States, the Kurds, and the Politics of Betrayal," had been pared down from 100 to 83 pages. The defense was open to the campus, but since mine was first it hadn't been very well publicized. The audience consisted of the four professors on my thesis committee, my parents, some friends, and my girlfriend.

After introducing a broad outline of my thesis, I underwent several rounds of challenging questions from my professors, and even one or two from the audience. It was intimidating at first, but as I stood at the podium fielding tough questions and discussing a subject I knew inside out, I felt for the first time that my dream of being a college professor was truly worth pursuing. In the end the professors on the committee had nothing but praise for my work.

When I dropped the final cut off at the library several weeks later, it was exhilarating. All the uncertainty and doubt of the first few months, the painstaking research and writing of the second semester, and the initial anxiety about my defense seemed to melt away, replaced by feelings of deep contentment and accomplishment. My thesis alone wasn't going to launch me on a path to international renown, but I finally felt as though I could walk into my advisor's office and mean it when I said, "Yes, I feel better about the thesis, Dr. Simon."

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