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The Dissertation Thread 2016-2017

Hey guys! I've had a read of the old dissertation threads in preparation for writing my own this year and thought it was about time that the new dissertation thread was started.

My dissertation isn't due until early April, but we've been given some brief guidance on what we should be thinking about prior to submitting topic choices in November and our official proposal in January. I have a little bit of time over summer, so I want to spend some time preparing for my dissertation and I figured that I'm probably not the only one. Are you guys thinking about your dissertations already too?
(edited 7 years ago)

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For some unknown reason, I can't format my posts on here anymore. I'm not just an idiot who cannot use a paragraph or formatting, the forum just won't allow me to format my original post and it's driving me crazy.
Original post by GoingToBurst
For some unknown reason, I can't format my posts on here anymore. I'm not just an idiot who cannot use a paragraph or formatting, the forum just won't allow me to format my original post and it's driving me crazy.


Maybe @SeanFM can help and maybe stick this thread at the top of the forum?
I really should start thinking about mine :colondollar: I'm putting it off until we get our second year exam results!
Original post by Firefly13
I really should start thinking about mine :colondollar: I'm putting it off until we get our second year exam results!


When do you get your results? I missed an exam due to illness and had sit it a month later instead so I'm waiting for a result too! Expected it this morning but no such luck :frown:. What do you study?
Original post by GoingToBurst
When do you get your results? I missed an exam due to illness and had sit it a month later instead so I'm waiting for a result too! Expected it this morning but no such luck :frown:. What do you study?


Sometime this week - that's all we've been told. I'm pretty sure we'll get an email on Friday as well saying they've been delayed as well :s-smilie:

Missing an exam because I get ill is one of my biggest fears, I'd be so annoyed all that revision got wasted! Hopefully you'll get the result you wanted today though :h:

I'm doing Biology. What about you?
Having completed my dissertation last year my biggest piece of advice is to get started early! Meet your tutors before you HAVE to get your forms signed etc. Anything in preparation you can do over the summer - do! Haha.*

I tried to do that but got distracted and hence had a bit of a stress. Some of my friends left everything to the end and it wasn't pretty..*
Original post by Firefly13
Sometime this week - that's all we've been told. I'm pretty sure we'll get an email on Friday as well saying they've been delayed as well :s-smilie:

Missing an exam because I get ill is one of my biggest fears, I'd be so annoyed all that revision got wasted! Hopefully you'll get the result you wanted today though :h:

I'm doing Biology. What about you?


Sounds like your uni is as good at getting results back as mine haha, they're always delayed! It was honestly a nightmare, and then I ended up being ill right the way through anyway and the exam didn't go as well as I'd hoped, so I'm just praying I managed to do enough for an okay grade :frown:. I do accountancy and finance. Do you have to do a lab based dissertation?
Original post by GoingToBurst
Sounds like your uni is as good at getting results back as mine haha, they're always delayed! It was honestly a nightmare, and then I ended up being ill right the way through anyway and the exam didn't go as well as I'd hoped, so I'm just praying I managed to do enough for an okay grade :frown:. I do accountancy and finance. Do you have to do a lab based dissertation?


It's pretty bad. Although I prefer this to our January exam results where they came out one day without any warning because at least I can prepare for it!

That's so annoying! Hopefully you'll get some special consideration though? Good luck whatever happens :h:

We can do a lab dissertation or a literature dissertation (like a review paper), but if we chose the review option we have to do a science communication course as well. At the moment I want to do the literature dissertation because I hate analysing data from labs I've done (it always goes wrong :frown:). What were you thinking of doing for yours?
Original post by Firefly13
It's pretty bad. Although I prefer this to our January exam results where they came out one day without any warning because at least I can prepare for it!

That's so annoying! Hopefully you'll get some special consideration though? Good luck whatever happens :h:

We can do a lab dissertation or a literature dissertation (like a review paper), but if we chose the review option we have to do a science communication course as well. At the moment I want to do the literature dissertation because I hate analysing data from labs I've done (it always goes wrong :frown:). What were you thinking of doing for yours?


I'm the total opposite, I hate knowing roughly when they're coming out because I can't stop thinking about it until they are released haha! Thank you! Nope, no special consideration, my uni don't offer that. Good luck for yours when they come out too! Do you have any idea of how the exams went or are you just waiting to see what happens?Oh ouch, that sucks having to do an additional course alongside it. I had initially wanted to do a literature review dissertation because I did two literature reviews this past semester and got the best feedback and highest grades I've ever had on coursework, so I felt comfortable doing that. Having explored my topic ideas a bit more though, it looks like I'm going to have to go down the empirical dissertation route. I have one well thought out idea that would be my first choice, but we have to submit three detailed options so I need to research the other ideas I've had and narrow those down too :frown:. Have you got any idea what you might want to do yours about?
Original post by GoingToBurst
I'm the total opposite, I hate knowing roughly when they're coming out because I can't stop thinking about it until they are released haha! Thank you! Nope, no special consideration, my uni don't offer that. Good luck for yours when they come out too! Do you have any idea of how the exams went or are you just waiting to see what happens?Oh ouch, that sucks having to do an additional course alongside it. I had initially wanted to do a literature review dissertation because I did two literature reviews this past semester and got the best feedback and highest grades I've ever had on coursework, so I felt comfortable doing that. Having explored my topic ideas a bit more though, it looks like I'm going to have to go down the empirical dissertation route. I have one well thought out idea that would be my first choice, but we have to submit three detailed options so I need to research the other ideas I've had and narrow those down too :frown:. Have you got any idea what you might want to do yours about?


I'm sure you'll have done fine, you've made it this far through your degree so you can do it! What uni do you go to by the way? Our results came out an hour ago and I'm very happy, unfortunately it means I can't stop avoiding my dissertation now :s-smilie:

At least you have one idea sorted out already and you have the whole summer free to think about the others. Hopefully you can find a way to do what you're interested in on a literature dissertation! We have a weird system where we're given titles at the start of next year and we just pick some we'd like to do. My tutor told me there are hundreds of title to chose from and as long as the tutor agrees we can pretty much do anything in their subject area. I'm just hoping what I want to do is available as an option!
Original post by Firefly13
I'm sure you'll have done fine, you've made it this far through your degree so you can do it! What uni do you go to by the way? Our results came out an hour ago and I'm very happy, unfortunately it means I can't stop avoiding my dissertation now :s-smilie:

At least you have one idea sorted out already and you have the whole summer free to think about the others. Hopefully you can find a way to do what you're interested in on a literature dissertation! We have a weird system where we're given titles at the start of next year and we just pick some we'd like to do. My tutor told me there are hundreds of title to chose from and as long as the tutor agrees we can pretty much do anything in their subject area. I'm just hoping what I want to do is available as an option!


Yay congratulations :biggrin:. I got my result today and I'm super happy! I'm at aberdeen uni, what about you? Yeah that's true! Oh that's a really random way to do it, hopefully there is something on the list that you like. When do you get the list given to you?
Original post by GoingToBurst
Yay congratulations :biggrin:. I got my result today and I'm super happy! I'm at aberdeen uni, what about you? Yeah that's true! Oh that's a really random way to do it, hopefully there is something on the list that you like. When do you get the list given to you?


That's great!! Well done!! :biggrin:
Oo what's Aberdeen like? I'm at Imperial, I love it there but our departments organisation is...interesting :s-smilie:. I think they said we'll get it at the start of the year (October), but to think about what we'd like to do over the summer so we can contact the people when we get the list to see if they'd be happy to do our topic instead of theirs. It's a bit weird!
Original post by Firefly13
That's great!! Well done!! :biggrin:
Oo what's Aberdeen like? I'm at Imperial, I love it there but our departments organisation is...interesting :s-smilie:. I think they said we'll get it at the start of the year (October), but to think about what we'd like to do over the summer so we can contact the people when we get the list to see if they'd be happy to do our topic instead of theirs. It's a bit weird!


Thank you! I'm just glad I got it before the weekend because now I can celebrate hahaha! I love it here, there are some little annoyances about the uni, but overall I think it's a great uni. The staff in my department are brilliant, so I'm really lucky in that respect. The only thing that I really hate about my uni is the library for this reason (there are 7 floors of that, with the library cafe on the ground floor so the noise carries up throughout the entire building - worst planning ever). Yeah that sounds like more hassle than it's worth on their part haha. If they still have to approve the topics then why don't they just let everyone choose their own anyway? They maybe had some issues with it in the past? Hopefully you can find a member of staff is willing to do your option though!

I'm quite lucky in that I went to one of my lecturers with a proposed idea and she said it was similar to what she did in her undergrad, so she'd love to read it. I'm hoping and praying I get to do that dissertation because it's my favourite option out of the ones I'm considering!
Original post by GoingToBurst
Thank you! I'm just glad I got it before the weekend because now I can celebrate hahaha! I love it here, there are some little annoyances about the uni, but overall I think it's a great uni. The staff in my department are brilliant, so I'm really lucky in that respect. The only thing that I really hate about my uni is the library for this reason (there are 7 floors of that, with the library cafe on the ground floor so the noise carries up throughout the entire building - worst planning ever). Yeah that sounds like more hassle than it's worth on their part haha. If they still have to approve the topics then why don't they just let everyone choose their own anyway? They maybe had some issues with it in the past? Hopefully you can find a member of staff is willing to do your option though!

I'm quite lucky in that I went to one of my lecturers with a proposed idea and she said it was similar to what she did in her undergrad, so she'd love to read it. I'm hoping and praying I get to do that dissertation because it's my favourite option out of the ones I'm considering!


I almost teared up seeing your library. It's so beautiful my goodness! (Yes, I'm one of those students!)
How is everyone going about planning their dissertation? I had to pick my dissertation topic and choose a supervisor in second year, so I'm hoping to get a lot of it done over the summer, but unsure where to start!
Original post by The Empire Odyssey
I almost teared up seeing your library. It's so beautiful my goodness! (Yes, I'm one of those students!)

It's an awesome building, but genuinely the least functional library I've ever been in hahaha. It's a tripadvisor tourist attraction and it has those goddamn holes through it.
Original post by SammyHam
How is everyone going about planning their dissertation? I had to pick my dissertation topic and choose a supervisor in second year, so I'm hoping to get a lot of it done over the summer, but unsure where to start!


Planning the content of the dissertation or planning how to actually tackle the project?
Original post by GoingToBurst
Thank you! I'm just glad I got it before the weekend because now I can celebrate hahaha! I love it here, there are some little annoyances about the uni, but overall I think it's a great uni. The staff in my department are brilliant, so I'm really lucky in that respect. The only thing that I really hate about my uni is the library for this reason (there are 7 floors of that, with the library cafe on the ground floor so the noise carries up throughout the entire building - worst planning ever). Yeah that sounds like more hassle than it's worth on their part haha. If they still have to approve the topics then why don't they just let everyone choose their own anyway? They maybe had some issues with it in the past? Hopefully you can find a member of staff is willing to do your option though!

I'm quite lucky in that I went to one of my lecturers with a proposed idea and she said it was similar to what she did in her undergrad, so she'd love to read it. I'm hoping and praying I get to do that dissertation because it's my favourite option out of the ones I'm considering!


Great news on your dissertation! If she approve it do you still have to come up with two other ideas? We have no idea why ours is run the way it is! There are times I like it though because it means I don't need to worry so much about picking a topic and I can just chose from a list :colondollar:

Your library doesn't sounds great. Ours is a similar size, but luckily to noise doesn't carry that much. It's just always really busy so I tend to work from home!
Original post by Firefly13
Great news on your dissertation! If she approve it do you still have to come up with two other ideas? We have no idea why ours is run the way it is! There are times I like it though because it means I don't need to worry so much about picking a topic and I can just chose from a list :colondollar:

Your library doesn't sounds great. Ours is a similar size, but luckily to noise doesn't carry that much. It's just always really busy so I tend to work from home!


Thank you! Yeah regardless of any prior approval we still have to submit 3 topic options for official approval. It's a bit of a pain really, but I guess I'm learning some interesting things during my search, so can't complain too much. That's very true! Choosing topics is pretty tough, or rather, narrowing down to a question has been pretty tough haha. Yeah it's a nightmare. We have silent rooms in the library, but the building is a big glass box and the silent rooms are around the perimeter of the building, so they get very hot and stuffy when it's busy or sunny. I just prefer to work from home or use the library at the other university in my city haha. Although it's a big glass building too, such terrible library choices here.
Original post by GoingToBurst

Planning the content of the dissertation or planning how to actually tackle the project?


Both pretty much. :tongue: I'm not sure where to start or how to break the work down, feeling a little overwhelmed!