[nabs-l] Graduate project?

[Greg Aikens]

Hi Adriana,
Congratulations on almost being done with your masters degree.  Choosing and completing a good masters project can be quite a challenge.  Remind us what your field of study is and tell us the topic you have already chosen but that you are not satisfied with.  Every school has different requirements for a masters project and so knowing that would also be helpful for giving specific advice.  

I can give some general pointers about choosing a topic for a masters project though (I have completed 2 now).  Keep in mind that in most fields, a masters project is not going to be ground breaking work.  I don't say that to discourage you, but to help you keep the appropriate scope for the project.  Many students bite off something too big to cover in a small masters project and get frustrated and end up doing way more work than is necessary.  On the other hand, most schools want masters projects to be something that could be published in a professional journal when shortened to an appropriate length.  So it needs to be good, extend the literature in some way, but be limited enough in its scope so that you can accomplish it in a reasonable amount of time.  

Often, a masters level project is more about the process than the topic, so agonizing over finding the right topic can be a waste of time.  The university wants to see that you can conduct masters level research in your chosen field and can demonstrate scholarship through your analysis, experiment, etc.  They want to see that you can choose a relevant topic, analyze it, propose a solution, or whatever the parameters of your project are.  Masters level students will often pick a topic that one of their advisors are an expert in, just to make the project easier, even if it is not their favorite topic.  

I would recommend doing whatever you can to get the project done quickly.  You want to do a good job, and it is nice to pick a fun and interesting topic, but getting it done is most important. :)

For my masters thesis, I knew I wanted to do something related to braille reading but struggled to pick a topic.  There was a doctoral student in my program who had chosen repeated reading with large print users as her topic, replicating a previous study.  So, I chose to use repeated reading with braille readers as my study topic so we could design and implement our research study together.  This made it easier on both of us, both logistically and because we had another expert in the office we could bounce ideas off of.  

If your current advisors are not experts in your field of study, I recommend contacting an expert in your field who would be willing to give you guidance at several points during your project, especially during the topic selection process.  This person could then be one of your readers once the project is complete.  

I hope some of this is helpful.  

Feel free to contact me on or off list.  I know this can be a very frustrating process and you want to get it right because you are going to spend the next several months married to this project.  

Best of luck,
Greg

On Feb 3, 2013, at 3:33 PM, Adriana Pulido <adrimpc80 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello guys,
> It's been a while since the last time I wrote on this list. I'm taking
> the last semester of the master's, and I have found it extremely
> difficult to make decisions about my graduate project. I have reviewed
> a good amount of literature but I'm still confused. Also, my current
> advisor (I have had two) is putting pressure because she's not going
> to be here during the summer, but I'm aware that I will not be ready
> by the end of spring term.
> I would really like to have suggestions from those of you who have
> already graduated. I'd particularly like to know which strategies you
> guys use, in order to make the right decisions about your grad
> projects. I had already chosen a topic but I'm not having fun with
> that, and my professors haven't previously working on disability
> issues so they cannot offer the best guidance.
> 
> Thank you in advance for your suggestions.
> 
> -- 
> Adriana Pulido
> Filóloga en Inglés y músico de la Universidad
> Nacional de Colombia. Estudiante de Maestría en University of Florida.
> 
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