Honours Thesis

[psych844]

Hello,

So here in Canada an Honours degree generally includes the writing of a thesis (if your grades are sufficient by the end point of your degree, otherwise you do two courses instead). I'm hoping to write mine next year. I still need to however do stats 1 and stats 2, along with around 3 other courses. My first question is, can I complete a thesis in one semester, if I am completing just one other course along with it? Second, I've heard that profs generally decide what you will write about (and that is an advantage, since it can be quite the task to come up with something)? Finally, any good resources/books you guys would suggest for studying stats?

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[bcliff]

Hello,

So here in Canada an Honours degree generally includes the writing of a thesis (if your grades are sufficient by the end point of your degree, otherwise you do two courses instead). I'm hoping to write mine next year. I still need to however do stats 1 and stats 2, along with around 3 other courses. My first question is, can I complete a thesis in one semester, if I am completing just one other course along with it? Second, I've heard that profs generally decide what you will write about (and that is an advantage, since it can be quite the task to come up with something)? Finally, any good resources/books you guys would suggest for studying stats?

Undergrad theses vary a lot from school to school.

Will you be collecting your own data? Will you be using a dataset that's already been compiled and cleaned? Will you need to apply for IRB approval?

My school broke undergrad theses up into a research semester and writing semester. I completed all the 'research' for my thesis during a spring semester (e.g. cleaning data, running stats analyses, building charts/graphs/tables). I think I presented a poster with some of our preliminary finders during this semester too. I completed the 'writing' section in the summer subsequent to my research semester. This wasn't very difficult since I had already presented a poster with some of the prelim findings earlier that year, so I really worked on beefing up a lot of the writing I had already done in my poster.

My thesis was the first manuscript that I ever worked on, and I did have a lot of autonomy over the project as a whole, but I definitely relied on my mentor A LOT throughout the process. The lab I completed a thesis in had a very specific focus, which aligned well with my own interests, so there weren't any problems or clashes between my goals and the expectations of my mentor, but I imagine that could be an issue in labs with broader research foci.

 

[psych844]

But is it common to still have regular courses to finish during that year while doing the thesis? How many courses are manageable while writing the thesis?

 

[bcliff]

But is it common to still have regular courses to finish during that year while doing the thesis? How many courses are manageable while writing the thesis?

I took 25 hours in the spring and 24 in the summer and got everything finished with a decent GPA

 

[mc625510]

I'll second what Briarcliff said. I know of some schools where an honors thesis is just a small lit review and some universities (like mine) require you to propose to a thesis committee, then get irb approval, run participants and then defend your thesis to your committee. While writing my proposal I was taking graduate statistics (required for honors at my college) and 20 total credit hours..it was tough but definitely not impossible

Best of luck!

 

[ronswansoneatsbacon]

I'm just about to start my honours year. My programme will be like what mc625510 mentioned. It'll take two semesters to complete my thesis. Regarding your ability to finish your thesis in one semester, it'll really depend on the nature and scope of your project. Most programmes, if not all, require students to take classes on top of their thesis load. It seems like most students manage to cope, although I imagine it'd be quite taxing.

Regarding your second question, that's really programme-dependent. Perhaps you should ask your seniors and/or faculty members.

Good luck!