Thesis Month

Do you want to see a picture of a happy person?

Of course you do.

This is Gaby Hamburger from the women's lacrosse team, with her advisor Alain Kornheiser, who is also an Athletic Fellow with the men's hockey team. They are following what apparently is a Princeton tradition of jumping into the fountain after handing in a senior thesis. 

Gaby, by the way, is an Operations Research and Financial Engineering major. Her thesis is entitled “It’s Electric! Optimizing Electric Vehicle Charging Through Tariffs.”

Had TigerBlog gone to Princeton, he would probably have told you the story many times about how he procrastinated on his senior thesis and had to scramble to get it done by writing 50 pages in the last two days or so. 

He's often thought about what he might have written a thesis on had it been required at Penn. Or if he'd gone to Princeton. He's always figured it would have been one of three subjects.

First, and most likely, would have been the Holocaust. He's not 100 percent sure what the specifics would have been, but he's always thought that would have been his starting point. 

If that was too emotional, then he might have gone with the Battle of Gettysburg from the Civil War. That was always very interesting to him. 

Lastly, he might have written the history of women's athletics at Princeton, but he decided to hold off on that for a few decades. 

It's interesting for him to think about how much that is taught in history classes today hadn't happened yet when he was in college. Interesting. Scary. Same thing. 

This is thesis month for Princeton's seniors. As much as TB has been a part of the fabric of the University for as long as he has, he still never got to experience what it was actually like to be an undergrad. One of the things that he missed out on was what it was like to write a senior thesis.

This is what the University website says about the senior thesis:

Writing a thesis encourages the self-confidence and high ambitions that come from mastering a difficult challenge. It fosters the development of specific skills and habits of mind that augur well for future success. No wonder generations of graduates look back on the senior thesis as the most valuable academic component of their Princeton experience.

That makes sense. TB isn't sure when it first became a Princeton requirement. The online directory of senior theses goes back to 1924. There's a reference in the June 1880 Princeton Press about the senior thesis topics of some of the graduates.

Here were some from that 1880 newspaper:

The Decline of American Statesmanship.
Nihilism.
From Aristotle to Descartes. 

Had TB graduated 100 years before he did and gone to Princeton, he still could have written about Gettysburg.

The directory that TB mentioned above is one of his favorite websites. You can find out pretty much anyone's thesis. 

TB's favorite former women's soccer player Tyler Lussi's: Exercising Their Equality: Coeducation and Athletics at Princeton University after 1969. He's read a lot of that one. 

Who else? 

Dick Kazmaier? The Company and the Union: A Case Study.

Helena Novakova and Margie Gengler Smith (the first two women athletes)? Nature in the Works of I.S. Turgenev (Novakova) and A Survey of Yellow Journalism and Its Effect on America's Involvement in the Cuban Crisis and Spanish-American War (Gengler Smith).

Amy Richlin (she was the first woman to win the Class of 1916 Cup as the senior athlete in the highest academic standing at graduation)? Defense Problems in the Roman Occupation of Britain, A.D. 43-197.

Ford Family Director of Athletics John Mack? Where Do I Stand: Student Evaluation of Self and Peer Academic Ability. 

In a thesis foreshadow, Mack's predecessor, Mollie Marcoux Samaan, wrote hers on: The Social Construction of Sport and Gender: A History of Women in Golf, 1890-1955. 

There was one from the Class of 1953 entitled "Skimmer Burns," which TB assumes was well-written: It was John McPhee's.

You can access the directory HERE.

This is a very stressful time for seniors. For senior spring athletes, finishing the thesis is balanced with competing in your final season. 

To everyone finishing theirs this month, good luck, and congratulations. 

Any time TB has ever spoken to a senior who has just handed in a thesis, the reaction is always the same. It's an incredible combination of relief, satisfaction, joy and euphoria.

As much work as it would have been, TB wishes he knew the feeling.