Selecting a Thesis Director

Selecting a Thesis Director Image

So, you've talked with your faculty advisor or the graduate director about your plans to write a thesis.  Now it's time to select a director. 

You want to ask someone from the graduate faculty with whom you've studied to direct your thesis.  The choice is yours, but you want to select someone who knows you, whose area of expertise relates to your thesis topic, and who has something critical to say about the topic.  When you know who you want to ask, go ahead and ask.  There is no formal process to follow, but you do need approval from the selected faculty member to move forward.

The role of the thesis director varies somewhat by individual faculty and student preferences. Though not quite a collaborative project between you and your director, the thesis represents a chance for you to establish your own professional work habits as you complete a major work under the guidance of a mentor who is there to help you conceptualize and carry out the project. To accomplish this end, each student should work out an individual schedule with his or her director. Based on your work habits and your relationship with your director, you and your director may agree to meet three or four times as you work on the thesis, to talk in detail about writing and assembling the thesis. Or you may draft the whole thesis almost as if it were an independent project, and meet only after the full draft is available for discussion—but then you may meet several times once the work is at that stage.

You and your director should be clear about your expectations of each other, and you should ask your director if you have questions. Be particularly clear about the schedule you need to meet in order to ensure that the drafts and revisions are available as your director and other committee members expect them to be. Also be particularly clear about the final deadline for submitting the final thesis, and about the amount of time your committee needs between your completing the thesis and your having to submit it for approval by the Department of English and College of Humanities and Social Sciences.