Senior theatre thesis: been there, done that

Facebook, one of my many online social networks, is my number one friend-stalking tool. I constantly refresh my page when I don't have anything better to do to see who updated their statuses, simply because I want to know about the cool things going on in their lives, or lack thereof lately, as most of us find ourselves up to our ears in mid-semester schoolwork, projects and papers.

Sifting through statuses the other day, I had to laugh at what I saw.

Several theatre majors I know had things posted like "is in the library from now until the end of time" or "has 10 pages down, 10 more to go" or "needs some distraction from Stephen Sondheim for a while." Ohhh, yes, I thought, smiling to myself superiorly. It's THAT time of their college careers as theatre majors.

The dreaded senior theatre thesis. I can hear the dated horror movie screams now.

I'm not sure why Towson requires its theatre majors to write a 20-page thesis before they can earn their degree. I speculate about it all the time, wondering if the university administration thinks that as mischief-making, obnoxious theatre kids (come to a cast party and you'll see what I mean), we don't take ourselves seriously, or whether they believe because we have a number of courses that stray from the typical lecture-exam class structure that we're not retaining information as well as other students in other majors do.

Regardless, it's unavoidable. I mocked my research-laden friends, especially the ones who are preparing to graduate in 46 days like me (oh yes, the countdown began a while ago), and gave myself a pat on the back for deciding to write my thesis the semester before my last semester.

I thought I didn't have motivation then? Ha! I certainly don't have any motivation now, definitely not enough to even begin to think about writing a worthwhile thesis.

Well done, Dana. You made a good decision last semester, even though there were nights you felt like tearing your hair out as you labored over the computer screen writing about French translation in theatre.

Best of luck to my comrades, but I don't envy you.

--DQ