my spring break

Spring break is typically the time of year when college students hit up the southern states/countries in search of warm weather and hot sun.  Luckily this year, many students didn’t have to travel far from home as this March has been one for the record books weather-wise. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining about the weather at all or the fact that spring break exist, I am simply sharing my sob story of how I spent my entire spring break: thesis-izing (yes that is a word I totally just made up). 

So what exactly does a thesis entail??? Answer: lots and lots of information of course!  First there is the title page, and as you may have guessed this was the first document I completed.  I have been saving each component of my thesis as a separate word document to enhance my writing experience and data space on my computer.  Next there is the acknowledgements portion.  This is the time to thank all of those who have been involved with one’s grad student career:  family, friends, colleagues, professors… you get the jist.  I tried not to make mine read too sappy, but there were a lot of emotions flowing when I wrote that part!!  From there, the table of contents follows, and then by the introduction, which is basically a statement of purpose, or why the research was done.   The next portion has probably been the most fickle part of my whole thesis-izing experience: the literature review.   This component can be compared to a giant book review.  I have a few topics that I focused on: history of US beef fabrication, tenderness, alternative fabrication, and international market opportunities.  With that being said, I have spent hours in the library and on my computer looking up past manuscripts, books, and articles on these topics.  I say this part has been fickle, because it has been challenging and frustrating to write, yet I have enjoyed researching the topics and have vastly increased my meat science knowledge.  Currently I am at 15 pages for this part of my thesis….including my sources, or bibliography haha.

Now we get into the heart of it all: the actual research, how it was conducted (materials & methods) and what the results (manuscripts) were.  The materials and methods portion is a very detailed description of how the materials were collected, measure, analyzed, etc.  This was by far the easiest part to write, and probably the reason why I have over 20 pages!  Too bad the other segments of thesis-izing were that easy!

The next and most significant portion of a thesis is the manuscripts.  For my particular thesis I will have 5 manuscripts; I have 2 done and 3 to go!  Go Me!!  A manuscript is a short write up (10-20 pages) of the actual research.  Each manuscript contains an abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, implications, and tables/figures component (if desired).  These documents are typically submitted to scientific Journals for publication, and are thus included in future thesis and literature reviews.

If you can’t tell I am currently riding the high of scientific writing or am losing my mind due to lack of sleep. I am currently at 55 pages and counting.  My goal is to have the final copy of my thesis to my advisor by the end of April, and revisions made by the end of May.  With this timeline I can defend my thesis (I will explain this in another blog) in June and graduate in August!  With that being said this is probably going to be the busiest/craziest/fastest summer of my entire life.  And I must admit, I am quite excited for it to get here :)