Is it over?

This whole process has been one of the best and one of the worst I have ever experienced. Though I know that my thesis is not complete because research is never done, but its interesting to see that its "finished." I don't think that I will stop working on this topic, as there is a lot of interesting content that was not able to be integrated in to my final draft of the thesis but I know that its not finished and that there is still further research to be done with the restricted collections still at the Smithsonian Archive. I hope that I am able to continue with this topic and see where any further research might guide my conclusions and future potential recommendations. 

The end is nigh!

I am so late with this. Bleh.
Currently putting the finishing touches onto the thesis currently. Because, why not? Overall this has definitely been a learning experience. As mentally burnt out as I am from writing this, I have no regrets writing this thesis. I've learned a lot from all my professors, advisers, and class mates. It's been wonderful being in class with you all, learning from you all, struggling with you all. You are all really wonderful people and I'm so happy to see how much everyone has accomplished. Thanks to everyone who helped me through this. I owe you all so many baked goods.

Stay Metal.

Fin

So the thesis is done. Kinda hard to believe, nearly a year working on this, and right to the end it's still daunting, like there's always that one thing. But it's done, and graduation's right around the corner. Don't really have much more to say about this matter, see you all tomorrow.

The End Is Here

Hello!

I still feel like I should be writing more on my thesis paper! New ideas pop into my brain that I want to include in my paper. However, it's all due tomorrow! I do want to continue my thesis paper in grad school to make it into a reality one day. I feel relieved and uneasy at the same time. Relieved to be finally done with undergrad, thesis, and school work. Uneasy because I am graduating and have to live in the adult world that no longer includes RIT. I have been so lucky to have found my career path in Museums Studies but even luckier to have such amazing colleagues and professors. I can't thank them enough for helping with my thesis and encouraging me to keep going in my studies and to speak at the conference last week. I wish everyone luck wherever they may go!

P.S. I can't wait to see what my poster will look like in class tomorrow :)

Cheers!

Ally  

Finishing up

Almost there! Me being me, I won't turn it in until right before it's due because there is always something to tweak. Like Lizzy said, with big papers it never really feels finished. That said, I am starting to relax about it. The poster is in, I gave my little talk, and now it's just reading for grammar and adding in a few more connecting sentences. Then the poster session. Though it's been difficult focusing on this and other class work, I'm already transitioning into summer mode and have been studying for my internship (got to learn those birds--already found a place that releases California Condor near where I'll be!!).

Not so fast, my friend.....

If you've ever watched College Game Day, you know this phrase. This was the phrase running through my head around 4:30 pm Thursday during the networking session.
I had just turned in what I thought was my final version of my thesis to my advisors when my phone buzzed. It was a message from someone I had asked to do an interview with for my thesis that I didn't think would be able to do it in time, so I had finished my thesis without the interview.
She CAN do the interview after all! An email to my advisors telling them to hold off and I'll be getting yet another revised version to them early next week and a meeting to do the latest interview later and I'm back at revising my thesis yet again.
I know having this last interview will only strengthen the thesis, so I don't mind doing it, but......as they say.....

Finishing Touches

Oh jeez am I exhausted with edits. Both of my advisors have been great with feedback but one is out of town, the others I'm still working on, and I'm almost ashamed to admit that I still do not know how to write a literature review.
I'm still going to try. This project is something I want to work on over the summer as well.

Spring Semester Update #6

The end is in sight! It feels good to have all my content done. Now, my main task is to fix any grammar/format mistakes and to insert more commentary/recommendations. When handing in the full draft a few weeks ago, I wanted to first make sure all my research was there, so I focused less on voicing my own opinions. I'm going back now and synthesizing all of the individual sections to make a cohesive whole and bringing my ideas together. I'm very grateful we got an extra week to work on our paper - I feel like I can complete these things without rushing.

It's crazy to think that we are almost done with thesis and senior year. I am very grateful for all the support along the way in completing this major milestone. It will be exciting to see if my research potentially develops further, perhaps in grad school.

(Almost) done!

As of right now, my thesis is basically done.  We've been given an extra week to work on it, but I'm debating just handing it in as it is right now so I can be done with it. 
I feel like if I really wanted to I could find things to fix, but I'm also in a good enough place where I feel okay submitting it and letting it be.  It's definitely not flawless, but I think when you write big papers like this you never really feel done writing it.  You can have it done, but still feel like there's just one tiny thing that if you fixed, it would all be so much better.  Realistically though, me holding onto this paper for another week just means that I would have another week where I probably didn't look at it, and let the assignment hang over me instead. 
I'm really proud of the work I put into this paper, and I feel like I learned a lot in the process of writing it.  I'm excited to let it out into the world and see what happens, and to be done with my senior thesis!

Final Stretch

Now that I have my first final draft of my thesis turned in it feels like the skies have cleared, birds are singing, and spring has come. While that might not actually be true, getting in that first final draft was a major relief for me. It felt good to see all of the hard work I have put into the thesis over the past few months finally get wrapped up. I added 38 pages to the final product and every one of them was a major boon for my confidence in the project.

There is still work to be done though as I still need to get comments on my work from my two advisers and there are a few things that I want to fix myself. Adding the sections that I want and expanding on a few things throughout will require more work but nowhere near the amount of work that it took for me to get this far. I am excited to make these last few changes and turn in my completed thesis.

Ho'boy post 5

So, heads up. Don't stay awake for 48 hours straight. It's the worst.

40 Pages later it's finally almost done! I just happened to find out today that working in google docs has been a disadvantage since I haven't been able to see many of the comments being left all semester until now. Yikes. Better late than never I suppose. Dedicating all next week to fixing up all that though. Laptop is on it's last leg as well, so more yikes. Luckily the poster seems to be looking okay so that's good. I cannot wait for summer, so I can sleep again.

One Month Away

Though I'm excited to be getting closer to finishing my thesis I can't help think about how much deeper I could have dug into this subject if I had started with it in the first place. I submitted a mostly complete draft but I know there is still a few more pieces I need to add about other symposia and the visitor study but I am excited to get feedback about the content I managed to get into this most recent draft. I am hopeful that everything is closer to finalized than I think it is but doing so much research in such a short amount of time has my brain a little jumbled.

Poster is going well so far. I need to finish filling in content about my findings/conclusion and my methodology section. I also have to determine what to include for my bibliography but besides that the layout and images on the poster seem to be pretty set in stone.

At this point I'm just trying to balance applying for jobs, finishing thesis, and doing all my final projects for other classes. It's weird to think graduation is a month away.

Almost to the finish line

Turning in a complete draft of my thesis lifted a thousand-pound weight off my shoulders. I'm so happy to have everything done, and, for me, the editing process is a lot less strenuous and tasking than writing something out for the first time. Now, I just need to finish my poster, finish my edits, and then-- I'm DONE!

I'm very excited to see how everything will shape up and look forward to being able to share my research with my friends, family and the RIT community. :) Good luck everyone!

Thesis Update #5

Here is what has been happening recently: I have been accepted into the Cooperstown Graduate Program! That's one stressful factor eliminated. Then my club hockey season at RIT on March 31st. Another weight has been lifted. I have 99.9 % completed my first full draft of my senior thesis. Thank Goodness!!! Graduation is a little more than a month away…so much to do and time is limited. 

    

What I have left to with my thesis is to fill out the appendices such as the glossary, survey questionnaire, and pictures for references. In the body of my thesis, I am having trouble writing a mission statement for my proposed museum. Should I make a mission statement or not? I want to make a mini collections plan, but I have no idea where to start. Maybe I should look at other sports museums collection plan but how would I get a hold of one? Finally, I need to find a possible location for the museum in downtown Buffalo. Then advocate why this location, this building is an ideal spot for the sports museum. Ugh, there is still so much to do! 

Draft Revisions & Poster

While I'm waiting on feedback from my advisers and dad on the draft I've been adding in Dr. Lent's feedback and just reading through it myself periodically. I hope to spend some quality time with Turabian this weekend or early next week to make sure all my citations are fine. I still need to finish the appendices, but that shouldn't take too long as I just have images.

Poster is going well, I've started adding in text and made sure the formatting looks good. I've tweaked the colors slightly as well. My biggest concern is photos, but I am hoping I will have time to drive over to Seneca Falls to take pictures of all the sites myself on the 14th. I have some now that should be fine, except I need to ensure the dpi works, especially on one of them. I just think it will be easier if I can list everything as "taken by author" and ensure the image quality. Adding in those photos will only take a little bit of editing on the poster. I also need to update the google maps image to include an additional location and draw in the route. That should get done this weekend though.

It's weird to think I'm going to be done with all my undergrad classwork in just about a month.

Post 5: Missing ingredient?

Handing in the draft last week is a weight off the shoulders to say the least, but I can't help but feel that there's a missing ingredient of my paper. Not talking about "the one decisive source" either, I'm talking about the general formatting and construction of the paper. If I'm missing something, it obviously needs to be fixed, and I can't imagine that this unknown issue will remain unknown for long, but it's still a bit of a concerning element to it. Either way, I don't see that impacting my poster too much, which in my opinion is the bigger focus this week. Get the poster done, then triple down on wrapping everything up. Not really much more to say, really.

Post #5 Revise, revise, revise....

As I stated in class last week, I was very relieved to have my final draft turned in to my advisors. I've already started to do some of the revisions that I noticed needed to be done during our peer review session, but there are many more left to do. I've already reformatted my photos appendix to have the captions under the photos instead of above. Just doing that alone has made them look so much better. Now begins the task of double and triple checking that I have all of my German words italicized, the punctuation in the right places in relation to footnotes, and getting my footnotes and bibliography in "Turabian" style. I used Zotero, but that isn't the same as Turabian, so I have to make sure I'm using the correct style. I also have a few grammatical things to clean up, but overall I'm fairly satisfied with how things have turned out.

I'm trying to let myself step back from it for a few days and be able to have fresh eyes when I look at it again, but I also want to get it done so I can be done with it and not have to think about it anymore.

But as they say, there's light at the end of the tunnel.... hopefully it's not an oncoming train! ;)