Graduate Log 101: The Graduation Dissertation

            Hello everyone! I hope you are all in the best of health. Today’s topic is a little bit academic and school related. That’s why I decided to tackle it here on the blog and not on the podcast as I knew it would probably exceed an hour of talking lol! Today, and as you can see from the title, I will be talking about something that is somehow a source of stress to graduates. The talk is about the grad dissertation. So with that being said, I would love to make a small disclaimer before I start:

1-      I don’t mean to bash anyone of the people I would possibly mention in this blog post.

2-      My experience isn’t a reference and anyone can have a different experience depending on how they manage it.

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Now without further ado, let’s get right into it:

        So now that we’ve made it through the introduction, let’s first start off by defining what a graduation dissertation is. In very simple words: it is a document that you submit at the end of your course in order to get your degree. The length and nature of research might differ depending on what degree you’re working to get.

      As I graduated with a Secondary school teacher degree which is known commonly as a B5 degree (that’s very Algerian but…); I wrote a 50 pages dissertation along with a colleague of mine as we were supposed to deliver this dissertation in pairs (this is the case for my school).

     My dissertation was related to teaching and linguistic skills improvement. We (me and my partner) went from the broad title of: Using Mobile Applications to Enhance Students’ Achievements in EFL Classroom (English as a Foreign Language) to: Investigating the Effect of Netflix as a mobile application on EFL students’ speaking skill (the case of Algerian college students). I made this choice after long talks with my partners. As a small note, my partner was extremely excited when I suggested the Netflix idea. We really did not want to talk about Facebook or Viber or even Skype because it was already done and we didn’t think we will be adding anything interesting to it since we were not really so into it. And that’s our small story behind choosing Netflix. Now for the topic itself, I think that the topics that were suggested last year required a lot of work and energy and they were frankly draining (little did we know back in July of 2019 that a deadly pandemic would hit and pause our entire lives). This has led us to select the least tiring topics! And there is nothing wrong with that. I feel like once you know to what extent you can invest your energy into something, you’re all good. And I think this is a key element in the success of your research process and I will talk about that later in this post.

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      I would actually like to give you my 101 tips on how to survive stress and actually make a decent research and write a cool dissertation:

 

1-      Choice of the topic:  the topic of your research should be something that would ring bells in your heart and brain. In other words: choose to work about something that you know you would enjoy for the coming six months! Your dissertation would literally live with you for a long period of time and the work pace will change throughout the process. You definitely don’t want to feel burnt out or unmotivated few weeks in! Thus, choosing something that would always spark your excitement will not only allow you to be genuinely into it and make it worth it; but also fuel your motivation whenever you feel down or unable to create anything good! Your choice of topic should also put into consideration the circumstances of work because, for my personal case, little did anyone know that COVID would strike and ruin everything! So in this COVID era, make your strategy “less of a pain to you” through thinking of ways to conduct your research without breaking the distancing laws and the virus spread prevention measures. This will depend on what kind of research you’re conducting and what methodology you’re going for. Personally, my partner and I initially planned a set of interviews and questionnaires and we had a completely different sample of study in mind. Our topic was a little new so we wanted to kind of examine a very different societal slice if that makes sense. In terms of linguistic capacities and other things in this regard. But when the lockdown was announced and as we started taking classes from home; we were so afraid that what we planned pre COVID would be so impossible to do. And you guys really have no idea how devastating and frustrating it was. It was also by the time we started planning a new data collection method that Ramadan came in and so many things switched including that fact that we had to work at night since day time was so occupied by other tasks. True that we didn’t expect the response to our plan B to be a success for us. But the pain was there literally few days before trying to make up anything just to get that part of the dissertation done and over with.

 

2-      Choice of the partner: this is as important as the choice of topic! In fact, choosing your partner comes before choosing your topic of research! In this regard, I would advise you to choose someone with whom you are on the same page. Your partner should be someone that is ready to commit to the research, have a flexible schedule for meetings and discussions, and also be open minded and respectful to you and to the work you are putting your efforts into! I am so grateful that I did not have any major problems with my partner. We were not “best friends” but we carried out our work with a high degree of professionalism. My partner used to notify me whenever there was something she couldn’t do or whenever she found an extra source of information. I also am very humbly grateful to the fact that she was very okay with me changing some of her words the way I see fit. If you happen to read this, thanks for trusting me!

 

 

      One important thing that I want to mention is that you SHOULD be on good terms with your supervisor! I don’t mean to generalize but some supervisors are literally so into the half ass work that you would find yourself doing everything on your own! A supervisor’s job is to help you put your work in the best shape, make you pay attention to some academic details and give you consistent guidance and advise you whenever needed! Some graduates might experience the extreme opposite! In fact, some supervisors would only contact you to ask for the final version of a chapter when they have been absent all the way long. Some might email you for some stuff that you did on your document that they probably did not check out and it would only make you furious. Others will keep you waiting for days and even weeks and you would feel literally ghosted and so lost. In all honesty, my submitted graduation dissertation copy has not been fully examined to be considered a final copy! I was in charge on correcting my own mistakes, designing a whole frame of work without a single interference from my “supposed to be” supervisor!

      No shade though, but some people can’t act super professionally and that’s a pain for someone like me. That’s why I said in the beginning that my experience is not a model to follow as some people might actually tolerate some stuff just to get done with things!

      In light of the same talk, don’t hesitate to reach out to your supervisors. Spam them and ask them whenever you need help or guidance! It is their job at the end of the day and they should be responsible over it.

      Now onto the elephant in the room that I LOVE talking about which is mental health. Now let me tell you that a big part of my endless struggle with burn out and anxiety attacks was mainly because of my dissertation making process. Not to dramatize anything, but not having consistent supervision can be really bad! For someone who was experiencing something for the first time, the least thing they deserve is genuine advice and guidance. Midnight emails and annoying commands over and over almost got me over the edge multiple times. I suffered from insomnia and spent nights working on something that I didn’t know whether it was good or not. The constant thought process about your submitted work was really painful. I always had dreams that I would receive a fat ass rejection for all what I have written and AT THE LAST MINUTE and then boom! Fail! Nightmares are so bad I wish no one has them TT

      So what I would love to tell you now that I am past that phase of my life, is to prepare yourselves for the worst case scenario! You will have to undergo a lot of sh*t if your raise the bar of your expectations! So be ready to witness so many stuff go the opposite way from what you initially planned. Also, try to prepare more than one plan for everything you plan out. This will prevent you from panicking if something goes wrong or doesn’t work well at all.

      I would also like to tell you that it’s okay to feel lazy sometimes and not do anything. Discuss things with your partner and figure things out together because at the end of the day: you’re a team! Also, try to distance yourself from work every once in a while and don’t let yourself get absorbed by it. Your time can be a warm cup of tea or milk or a walk outside or even a random “Yuta being Yuta for 10 minutes straight” YouTube video! What matters is that you should clear up your mind for a while to pump up some more energy and not get too overwhelmed and drop it altogether.

       I think with all what I have mentioned above, I would call it a wrap!

I hope that this was useful to all of you. Please take my words with an extra grain of salt because none of it is factual and it’s all out of a personal experience and from a subjective pov!

      Lastly, I want to thank my blog squad for supporting my podcast and sending a lot of love! You guys are so nice and I appreciate your lovely messages and comments!

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