Look at me, preachin' y'all like I'm the shit. Well lately I have been going through a legit thesis shitstorm and I seriously wish someone had told me these things when I was starting out. I mean, certain things, however smart you might be, you only learn from experience. First of all though, Imma throw a quote at yo faces so you start taking me a little seriously and think that I am smart. Also, it shall uplift your wonderful but tired souls (in case they are not tired and are feelin' fresh af, do share the freshness). Okay, let's do this!
"Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy."
-Norman Vincent Peale
Not gonna lie to you, this made me a little emotional. Ahem. Okay. Tip time:
Número Uno
Keep your desk organised as hell. By this I do not mean that decorate the shit out of it. No, assign everything a place. When you are researching you start printing a lot of papers, you have books, you have your personal notes. Organize them by topic or however you would like to sort them. I personally organize everything by topics or subtopics. So that when the time comes to write extensive stuff on these topics, you go to your drawer or folder and there you have it! Everything you collected over time on that particular topic.
Nummer twee
If you are in a science field, or actually any field and you come across a research paper and you decide to read it. I seriously suggest you first print it, now alongside highlighting it like crazy (which let's just agree all us nerds are obsessed with), make notes near paragraphs that you think are important to know. Sometimes the way they write in the paper can be too complicated and you have to read it twice to get their point, so when you actually get the point, write it down in your own words in the corner. This will help you tremendously when you start writing your thesis for reals. Everything you need to write will be laid out in simple words and all you gotta do is copy it and fancy up a couple words.
numéro trois
This one is for them science peeps. We all have experimental sections as you know, because we make experiments. Word of the wise, and believe me this is the best thing you will ever do, start writing your this section from day 1. Every time you make an experiment, write about it in detail. By the end you will realize you have an entire chunk of thesis already prepared and it will save you so much trouble.
number four
Please keep a freakin to-do list or a planner whatever you follow! We all have the tendency to postpone crap, "Ah I will just do it tomorrow", slowly it spirals out of control. You plan things weekly, you see what you need to do, you just stfu and get it done. At the end of week you see you had a productive week and then you can relax over the weekend with a chill mind or you will for sure feel guilty as hell. This brings me to my last and most important point.
arithmós pénte
Take care of yourself, please do not be too hard on yourself. Know this that along the thesis period, specially if you are a scientist sometimes your experiment will work and a lot of the times it will fail but that is life and it is totally okay! Bad results are results too and literally your job is to just analyze and report your findings. If it does not work, tha does not make you a bad scientist/student. Do some relaxing stuff on the weekends, give yourself breaks now and then. Keep it light.
Well, that is it for now! If you liked this and let me know in the comments down below if you would like to know more about thesis related things!
Written by @things, 2018. All rights reserved.
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