15 Ways Writing Your Thesis is Like Getting Married[1]
1. The long-term commitment is simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating.
2. There is definitely a honeymoon phase.
3. Your adviser is like your future mother-in-law: she has the potential to be overbearing and critical or understanding and supportive, but you’ve been warned not to push things to the limit and find out.
4. You have searched far and wide to make sure you have all the advice and information you’ll need to make it turn out the best it can possibly be.
5. The amount of time you spend on Pinterest (and Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and even LinkedIn) has exponentially increased throughout the process.
6. Watching all your friends do it really puts the pressure on.
7. You can’t wait to take pictures of you two together on the big day.
8. Everything has to be just right.
9. You somehow thought this time of your life would be way more fun.
10. You have sent at least one (come on, definitely more than one) late-night, caffeine-crazed email or text and/or had at least one late-night, caffeine-crazed conversation with your mom, best friend, roommate, or fellow thesising senior about whether doing this is really the right choice for you and your concerns that you won’t be able to pull it all together in time.
11. It’s often the first thing people ask you about, but without fail it is a topic of conversation in all conversations you have these days.
12. Let there be cake.
13. Stationery is unexpectedly pricey, but you have to splurge because presentation really is everything.
14. You’re on the hunt for meaningful, unique favors for those who have supported you leading up to the special day.
15. Even when you’re at your most frustrated and stressed, you know that you’re doing this because you love it, and that it will all be worth it. (It has to be… right?!)
[1] I have not, in fact, ever been married, and I am aware that this argument is entirely conjecture and lacks evidentiary support—thus, it is inherently flawed. However, I am employing a model popularized by the Internet (ThoughtCatalog and Buzzfeed, 2014) to spur further examination of the impact of the senior thesis on its practitioners through the lens of the familiar societal construct of marriage. Indeed, I am a little bit scared to realize that I am my personal research has shown that I am now wired to approach all arguments with a keen eye for potential rebuffs and to have at hand a variety of transitional and explanatory phrases with which to combat them. Such clever, objection-proofing articulations are often included in a footnote, like so.