Week 1: Thesis Topics

When you have so many options and don’t know where to start.

👉🏼 So it begins

Just like that, we are back to school, except this time, we are seniors😟! Last week we kicked off with our first class, Thesis Development-I, instructed by the lovely Krystal Persaud.

This platform will work as a journal for my thesis, where I’ll share my thoughts, process, and failures. Hopefully, I will be able to keep it organized and logical for everyone.

For our first assignment, Krystal asked us to choose five issues or areas of interest to research them. It wasn’t easy to come up with something right away, so the first step I took was brainstorming.

🧠 Thought Process

I started by laying out some common issues I have read in the news that I care about. Some might be related to each other in some way, but they gave me a good start on what to research.

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Then, I pointed out things I am interested in learning and my hobbies.

There are some exceptions. For example, under gardening, you will see pests control; this is something I have been struggling with lately. (Fungus gnats are a pain in the ass!) Another example would be under yoga, where I get a lot of wrist pain.

🤓 Early Filtering

After long hours of doing desk research, here goes the list of areas I might consider as thesis topics:

Mental Health
-How can we reduce anxiety with games?
-Can games keep us connected during Coronavirus?

Underserved Communities
-How can we help underserved communities/homeless people?
-How can we provide vaccines to the underprivileged?

Sustainability
-How can we contribute to a more sustainable world?
-How can we have a more sustainable lifestyle?
-How can we train ourselves to reduce food waste?

Healthcare
-How to reduce wrist pain from working out?

Finance
-How can we help Black and Latinx females get more funding?

😩 Fears

I’d be lying if I said I am confident about coming up with a thesis. Trying to decide what to do is already hard. Adding a pandemic makes it even harder, mainly because we are all affected by it. Also, as I researched these topics, I started to feel discouraged and sad about what’s happening everywhere.

I have had my ups and downs staying productive, and I haven’t felt very creative lately. Therefore, some of the general fears I am facing relate to my abilities: How can I help this community? Will I be able to create a solution that positively impacts my audience? How will I validate my research if I decided to build a tangible physical solution? Or, how can I help myself come up with creative ideas?

Feasibility also worries me. I fear that any of these topics might be too difficult to solve. Lastly, I fear that my thesis might not be compelling or engaging to companies that I apply to in the future.

😌 Hopes

I wanted to end this post on a positive note. Even though I am feeling anxious about this, I hope my work can help someone. There’s nothing more gratifying and rewarding than that of seeing others happy and supported, or inspiring people to give a hand for a cause.

No matter what topic I end up choosing, I want to work hard on this. I hope it not only allows me to grow in my design style and represent my thought process, and everything else companies look for, but also what I believe in.

Stay tuned for future updates on my thesis, and thank you for reading 🙏🏼