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Page 26 text:
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HONOR THESES Most students consider the senior honors thesis the climax of undergraduate education at Harvard. In the fall, faculty members eulogize the glories of theses to awe-struck seniors who at the time see only the trauma and uncertainty of the effort rather than the glory of its completion. Despite procrastination all year and all-nighters the week before due-date, the majority of thesis writers manage to nurse their project to maturity. Was the effort worth it? For most the answer seems to be yes, even though there arc certain drawbacks. Few activities, academic or otherwise, are as physically and emotionally exhausting as thesis writing. This is in part a result of the size of the project, but it also stems from the fact that the most difficult problems in writing a thesis are those encountered first. Contemplating a thesis is dangerous, for at the start it appears as an intimidating 80-arm octopus; without jumping in right away, it is easy not to get started at all. Finding a workable and interesting topic is not easy, especially since many departments ask that theses be original and because of the practical consideration that sufficient research information must be available. After finding a topic, grueling, seemingly endless weeks of research follow. Having compiled quantities of data, the writer faces immense organizational problems in composing a first draft. But when he's doing the work, and not thinking about doing it, the going is smooth and sometimes enjoyable. A good thesis demands that his soul be put into it, but during spring vacation, after he's slept off his all-nighters of the week before, he knows he's accomplished something. The value of completing a thesis is usually great. Academically, it can be a superb experience. Most thesis writers for the first time are reversing their role in the educational process; they are no longer devouring the words and views of others, but arc developing a position or theory of their own. To do so, they must refine their own abilities of critical thinking and lucid writing. The chief rewards of a thesis come not as an intellectual exercise, however, but as a personal experience. Writing a thesis provides the student many insights into himself — his creative talents, his ability to organize himself, his ability to cope with pressure and strain. As a personal challenge, it can contribute greatly to the writer's character development, even if he intends never to write a page of scholarly prose again. At Harvard, however, there is a tendency, common among both faculty and students, to overestimate the importance of thesis writing. Too often the intellectual value of theses is overrated, their personal and emotional value underrated. As contributions to scholarship, relatively few theses are earthshaking, or even water-rippling. Only occasionally are they original; the large majority are products of methodical plodding. Neither are they necessarily difficult or time-consuming to write — summa theses have been produced from start to finish in four weeks. Most problems in writing arise simply from procrastina- tion, lack of personal organization, or fear of failure. Nonetheless, a popular mystique about the intellectual value of theses has been cultivated, and many seniors find themselves pressured into writing one, sometimes on topics they dislike. Some haggard thesis writers have even been accused of being un-scholarly and anti-intellectual for failure to show complete enthusiasm in doing their project. To some seniors, the thesis becomes not a privilege, but a requirement for graduation or graduate school, and these individuals are so intent upon getting it out of the way that they have less chance to enjoy it and to develop personally from it. Such a situation is unfortunate, since it merely adds another academic pressure to the already overburdened student. In light of events of the past year, not only do theses seem overplayed, but, to some students, irrelevant and inconsequential as well. One senior commented, With all the killing going on in Vietnam, early American literature just doesn't seem so important to me. If I could. I'd drop my thesis and work fulltime for McCarthy. While this particular senior did not drop his thesis, many others this year did. The number of dropped theses this year rose sharply over past years; in some departments, as many as a third of those starting theses did not complete them. Many factors contributed to this situation, but the predominant reason seems to have been the preference for anti-war activities over what some seniors regarded as academic trivia. There would be cause for alarm if the war had not made so many seniors regard theses as relatively unimportant. Unfortunately, the war has led some people to over-react against theses. Fear of the draft has caused some seniors to substitute for thesis writing not politics, but inactivity: one senior said, If I wrote a thesis, I could graduate magna. However, even if I received a summa, I still couldn't go to graduate school next year. I may as well not write a thesis and enjoy my senior year. This rising attention to non-academic problems has also driven some students to challenge the importance of pure scholarship itself. Such are but two of the pernicious effects of an unpopular war. For the majority of students, the war does not reduce thesis writing to irrelevancy any more than the claims of some professors make it an academic necessity. It is important to realize that thesis-writing is a highly personal matter: some students may spend their time more profitably in other activities, yet the fact remains that for many individuals thesis writing can be intellectually rewarding, war-time or not, and that for scholars it is intellectually crucial. In any case, the thesis' main purpose should be the writer's personal development; and, as such, the thesis is only one way — but an excellent one — to promote this. — Kenneth M. Ludmerer
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Page 25 text:
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themselves. It is ironic that Harvard evidently expects its students to learn this important piece of wisdom by themselves. Hopefully, help and encouragement for the discouraged student might be provided by informal student-faculty contacts. This is rarely the case, and amounts to a double tragedy: not only is the student left to fend for himself, but the quality of academic intercourse is impaired. Theoretically, tutorial and the House system provide the personal contact and intimacy to countervail the size and impersonality of the University. In practice, however, the Houses, with an average population of over 400 students per house, have become little more than overcrowded dormitories. The opposition to House courses on the part of conservative members of the Faculty illustrates that even the administration basically conceives of the Houses as fancy dormitories. Most people now recognize that the central issue behind the parietal uproar is not “longer sex hours, nor even democracy for the sake of democracy, but rather that there would be a much greater chance of student involvement with the House community were the Houses to be self-regulating. However, because ultimate responsibility for governing the House falls upon the Master, not the students, and because of mundane things such as limited budgets (Houses are totally self-supporting, in contrast to Yale's Colleges), more and more students leave the Houses to live off campus. There is no excuse for such bumbling waste of what might be Harvard's most desirable feature. Tutorial has worked out slightly better. Here, at least, the student has the opportunity to meet his instructor on a relatively individual basis. When difficulties do arise, they usually stem from either the tutor's not being interested in his student (most tutors are graduate students pursuing their own studies) or from the fact that students simply do not know how to behave in a one-to-one classroom situation. Despite the occasional successes of Tutorial and the Houses, most students consider Harvard a lonely, impersonal place. There is little or no sense of community, which is regrettable, for it is in community that one is able to learn and share with others on a personal basis; it is in community that one finds relevance and immediacy in education; and it is only in community that a college can flourish. Considering the lack of community, the increase in students who feel alienated from Harvard is not surprising. Now that the possibility of leaving is temporarily closed, the student who might otherwise have left will be around to voice his discontent. If self-criticism is a virtue, then perhaps the draft will have served Harvard well. Harvard, as well as every other American college, is caught in a difficult situation. It has to abandon its traditional function of professional training, which is being taken over by graduate schools, and to find a new role for itself in American society. That the college will have a role is inevitable. Being convinced of the importance of a college education, the American people will continue to encourage their sons and daughters to take advantage of it. It is not difficult to envision a college which does raise the level of our society. For this to happen, there must be a radical and thorough reorientation in the sorts of things colleges do. Many men may be capable of advanced thought, but few are academics. While it is not too soon for Harvard to consider what its new role in society should be, it may be too much to expect that it will. The draft is only temporary; even now some students are leaving, unwilling to endure any longer what they consider to be a purposeless grind. The frank, radica) self-probing necessary to enact meaningful change may prove to be beyond the capacity of a community noted for its liberal cool. If this is the case. Harvard will be around for a long time to remind us of a glorious opportunity missed. — Jeffrey L. Elman
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