No more proposals for dissertation topics

This big task is over for this year! Every autumn, I have to give all the 3rd year students a dissertation topic, and I encourage them to design one themselves. It's a good academic practice, and they get to do something they find especially interesting. And it's a bit of work to get it right, so I start telling them in spring that this is an opportunity and that I recommend it. And they shouldn't let it come to the last minute.

A very small minority take this to heart. There was one student who gave themselves months to get it right, and they got my approval. And then there were quite many who gave themselves weeks to get it right. For most, that was not enough. And then there was the inevitable flurry of students who gave themselves days to get it right. This is not impossible; there were two proposals (but not very late ones) I gave my ok to straight away. But it is unlikely.

I had also made a change from last year; then they had an infinite number of attempts, which I regretted, as too many students made minimal changes to their (rejected) proposals before resubmitting them. That just took too much time. So this time I gave a maximum of three attempts. That helped. I had also considered standard replies, but I didn't implement that. I figured students would struggle to understand the exact changes they would have to make to improve on their proposals.

I have a double deadline for this: the first one for first proposals, and then a final deadline the week after for people who still have a few days to improve on their proposals if they weren't immediately given the ok. When the first deadline was reached I knew there was only a limited amount of work to do on this. And then there was relief when the final deadline was passed.

This year I received 26 first proposals, 16 second proposals, and 4 third proposals. In total, I approved 8. It's a lot of work for eight dissertation topics! But at least these eight students are doing something they are passionate about. And they have already shown some independent thinking and data finding. Good stuff!

I could imagine I will get some negative comments in the module evaluation about how difficult it is to get your proposal approved. So be it. Nobody benefits from me approving proposals that are not very well thought through, and are very likely to lead to low grades. I will probably even get fewer negative comments if I don't allow them to design their own topics in the first place. That would be a lot less work, but I would find it a bit of a pity! And at least the process for me worked better than it did last year. Not so much for the students, though: a much higher percentage got their proposal through last year…

There was a proposal about orcas. Pic by Robert Pittman, NOAA