My Thesis and its Evolution

Going into this class, I had very little idea of just what I wanted my thesis to entail.  Did I want to do research?  Did I want to construct a project or program?  And what topics would I include?  As I researched theses and saw the various kinds of papers previous students had created, I eventually came to the conclusion that my thesis would be best constructed of something that I had interest in, and especially something that would be relevant to my career prospects.  My thoughts often went back to my recent internship at the Aviation Museum of Kentucky, where I got a feeling for the type of work environment and museum that I would enjoy working with.  From there, I looked at topics related to aviation that I felt I could do good research on.  I had began my planning looking at things from the perspective of research, and had planned to make my thesis a research project.  I arrived at thinking of a topic that had relevance to aviation yet also contained appeal to people with interest in art or history.  I planned to research military nose art, the tradition of painting the front of an aircraft's body.  My research of the existing literature on this subject went well, and after meeting with my primary and secondary advisors, my thesis plan underwent its main major change.  Instead of conducting a purely research project, I am instead constructing an online exhibition on nose art.  This expanded my reading from the history of nose art outwards into audience engagement and visual interpretation methods.  I feel that my current plan is suitable to move forward with, and look forward to any minor changes that I decide to tweak in regards to my exhibit construction.