Graded honors thesis hours. Help greatly appreciated.

[goldandapager]

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Hello,

I've taken a pretty light course load the last 4 semesters (14 credit hours each), so I think I need to buck that trend immediately. For my current term, I'm registered for 13 credit hours worth of coursework and 3 credit hours for my honors thesis, which will be graded. Is this enough, or should I tack on another class? Will my thesis work be viewed as legitimate coursework? I just want to show that I can handle a normal load and that I'm not trying to bypass anything.

Thanks a ton

 

[Evergrey]

Hello,

I've taken a pretty light course load the last 4 semesters (14 credit hours each), so I think I need to buck that trend immediately. For my current term, I'm registered for 13 credit hours worth of coursework and 3 credit hours for my honors thesis, which will be graded. Is this enough, or should I tack on another class? Will my thesis work be viewed as legitimate coursework? I just want to show that I can handle a normal load and that I'm not trying to bypass anything.

Thanks a ton

I did my thesis my last semester of college with 15 credit hours of coursework. For about a month, my life was hell -- I'm talking about skipping almost all of my classes, only showing up for tests, and spending 70 hours in the library working on that crappness. No, I'm not exaggerating. I was taking Chinese, Organic Chemistry, ochem lab, a bio lab, then my thesis was 3 credits and I did some art stuff on the side.

I don't know what your thesis is on, how much work you have done on it, or how demanding the process is at your school, but I would encourage you to limit yourself to 3 classes and 1 lab, or something around there. It is just too difficult to do a good job on your thesis otherwise.

I guess a better question would be why has your course load been so light up until now? If you were working or doing a lot of stuff on the side, that's understandable... but that is not very many classes otherwise. Either way though, I don't think adcoms will care that much.

 

[sylvanthus]

The better question is why even do an honors thesis if it eats up so much time and energy? Medical schools generally do not care about honors as they are extremely extremely variable between schools. Some honors programs are easier than the regular classes, some harder, some thesis take a huge amount of work, others are an afterthought.

 

[Evergrey]

The better question is why even do an honors thesis if it eats up so much time and energy? Medical schools generally do not care about honors as they are extremely extremely variable between schools. Some honors programs are easier than the regular classes, some harder, some thesis take a huge amount of work, others are an afterthought.

I dunno, I have yet to be accepted to medical school but I think doing a thesis is a big deal. Writing a thesis was the first "big boy" academic thing I did... I mean, you spend all of college listening to what other people say, and a thesis is your chance to reverse the situation. After I wrote my thesis, I was the campus "expert" on my topic. During my oral defense, even though my committee rocked my ass, they also asked me questions for their own curiosity's sake because I had done all of the research. That was totally awesome.

I suspect that medical schools think writing a thesis is cool, too. But it probably matters more to research-oriented schools. I could be wrong though -- like I said, I have yet to receive an acceptance (or even get more than one interview, heh..)

 

[goldandapager]

I haven't done anything exceptionally time-consuming, just the regular pre-med fare of tutoring, research, clubs, other EC stuff. I came into college with over 40 credits, so I've had the luxury to take less-than-stellar course loads.

I just want to know if 13 hours of classes + 3 graded thesis hours is a good course load.

 

[Pose]

I don't know. I've taken like 12 credits for every semester of college. And doing my thesis this upcoming semester with the same course load as you.

I wouldn't worry about it?

 

[NickNaylor]

I think if you can demonstrate that you did legitimate scholarship and discuss your thesis well it would be worth the effort. But that's just my personal opinion. I don't think anyone's going to be impressed with graded thesis hours, though.

 

[DocBell]

I dunno, I have yet to be accepted to medical school but I think doing a thesis is a big deal. Writing a thesis was the first "big boy" academic thing I did... I mean, you spend all of college listening to what other people say, and a thesis is your chance to reverse the situation. After I wrote my thesis, I was the campus "expert" on my topic. During my oral defense, even though my committee rocked my ass, they also asked me questions for their own curiosity's sake because I had done all of the research. That was totally awesome.

I suspect that medical schools think writing a thesis is cool, too. But it probably matters more to research-oriented schools. I could be wrong though -- like I said, I have yet to receive an acceptance (or even get more than one interview, heh..)

I agree. My thesis defense was probably the freakiest thing I have ever done but it was like "hello welcome to the world of real academics....you finally deserve to be here" best feeling ever was when I got home and changed out of my suit and realized I was DONE! I havent been accepted either...I'm actually still waiting to see if I will even get an interview 🙁 but I still highly recommend it.