Senior honors thesis

[emilyskates]

So I've been working in the same lab for about a year and a half and I was planning on doing an honors thesis, but apparently my mentor got a new job and is leaving the lab at the end of the month. I'm not really sure what's going to happen to me in the lab since I'm a second semester senior and I apparently don't have a mentor anymore. So I probably won't get to do the honors thesis. I've heard that the honors thesis doesn't matter much for adcoms if it's unpublished and is at most a good talking point in interviews and such -- can anyone offer any insight?

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[narla_hotep]

When you say your mentor left, do you mean like a postdoc you were working with, or the PI of the whole lab? And it would be helpful to have some other background: what type of research are you working on, do you have your own independent project, etc? I ask bc it miiight still be possible to get the thesis done if you want. (Not that it's a requirement for med schools or anything). I was in a similar situation my senior year of college where my postdoc mentor left suddenly but the PI of the lab was still there, so I worked mostly independently / consulted the PI sometimes, and did the thesis.

 

[Catalystik]

1) I've heard that the honors thesis doesn't matter much for adcoms if it's unpublished and
2) is at most a good talking point in interviews and such

-- can anyone offer any insight?

1) Correct. And meaningful publication doesn't apply to non-peer reviewed venues, like an in-house database or repository of hardbound theses in your school's library.

2) I've never heard it brought up at an interview.

 

[aldol16]

I mean, an honors thesis basically gives you the opportunity to conduct original research and compile a body of original work that is cohesive. That obviously is better than nothing but not as great as a publication. Think about it this way. If the option was 1) do an honors thesis or 2) have a bunch of "research" experiences where you did a lot of lab work but never really had a project or project(s) that you conceived of and took to completion, then obviously having that personal project is better. But if the options are 1) honors thesis or 2) publication, then obviously having a peer-reviewed publication is better. That's because a publications is peer-reviewed meaning that its impact and importance has been judged by peers in the field. Whereas an honors thesis hasn't been peer reviewed by anyone and might not represent really impactful work.

Now, if an honors thesis is really just a formality, i.e. just a write up of one of your original projects, then it doesn't really matter if you do it, right? Focus on getting a paper drafted and submitted.