Modern College, Week 2: Defining Our Thesis Statement
This post is part of the Modern College book project, in which we will be publicly documenting our experience writing a book on college with the help of the community.
As discussed last week, my coauthor Alex Valaitis and I will be writing a book on the modern college experience. We’ll be documenting our progress throughout the course of 2019, with weekly blog posts here on Medium.
There is an exciting new wrinkle to our journey as I will be moving to New York City in the coming weeks to start a new job and enter the next chapter in my life. With Alex being based in San Francisco, it will be even more critical that we follow the methods we put in place to help guide us across the finish line.
One of these methods is breaking the writing and publishing process into clear steps mapped to time frames. For January, we are focusing on the book’s thesis statement and overview.
We believe a thesis statement is one of, if not the most important factor in defining a book’s success. Compiling the essence of our book into a few sentences is useful in gaining a sense of direction from the jump, as well as in maintaining integrity throughout the writing process. Our thesis statement aims to keep us focused and disciplined.
In comprising our thesis statement, there are several concepts to ponder. Because we’re writing this book for college students, we want to know what recent college graduates have to say about their experience(s). We believe the greatest wisdom pertaining to our book will be in the eyes of students and recent graduates, with fresh wounds from the trials and tribulations of college. Hence, why we’re here!
College is just one chapter in the book of life. So often people turn the page without reflecting and reasonably so; the post-grad process is equally grueling. However, we see value in recounting our unique college experiences, gathering insight from others and providing a resource we wish we would’ve been handed a few years back.
To us, the reason for this is clear: the college years are malleable and informative in our future pursuits. If we can minimize the discomfort, maximize the opportunities and help college students successfully navigate their way, we can positively impact a lot of lives.
But first, Phase 1: Crafting our Thesis Statement.
In order to create a strong thesis statement, we wanted to start by both taking a stab at it on our own. We worried that if we tried to combine our thoughts right away, we might have some blind spots in our rationale. In order to avoid this, we agreed to create thesis statements independent of one another. Below are the initial drafts we came up with on our own.
Kasey’s Thesis Statement:
Over the past few decades, advancements in technology have forced inefficiencies to become outdated. We’ve shifted our means of transportation, communication and the like; yet popular resources on successfully navigating college are tethered to an era preceding the internet. In order to address the modern college experience, we must hear from and cater to modern minds. Topics include maximizing opportunities during college, maintaining a healthy balance and setting oneself up for personal and professional success beyond the classroom.
Alex’s Thesis Statement:
Society has changed a lot over the years, but the advice we give college students has not. In order to succeed in the modern college environment and beyond; students must recognize the flaws in the current system and overcome them by following a new set of rules. By following these rules, students can ensure that they maximize their success during their time in school. But more importantly, students can also maximize their success in life after they walk across the stage for graduation.
Upon sharing our thesis statements, we both had concerns on opposite sides of the spectrum. Alex suggested I broaden mine, while I advised him to narrow in a bit. This lead to some really insightful discussions on how we can best leverage our thesis to write a compelling narrative.
We were pleased to note overarching themes in our thesis statements, such as outdated advice covering the college experience and our focus on setting students up for success beyond college.
We decided to take a crack at condensing our ideas into one, without getting too caught up in the details.
Converged Thesis Statement:
Over the past several decades, we’ve witnessed many shifts within society. And yet, our advice on the college experience has not appropriately reflected these changes. In order to maximize opportunities in college and set oneself up for success beyond, it is crucial to deconstruct the outdated processes and replace them with ones that better reflect the modern college experience.
While we know that it will still take a few more revs to reach our final thesis, it felt good to put a few attempts down on paper. Because we’re taking a collaborative approach, we want to ensure we fully understand what speaks to modern college students. This calls for insight from current students and recent graduates.
To conduct field research, this week, we will each be speaking with 2–3 current college students. We aim to gather insight into the resonance of our thesis statement, along with broad topics of interest within our target market.
If you have valuable input or ideas to share, please do not hesitate to leave a comment or get in touch with us! We want to hear from as many people as possible. We promise to credit our collaborators in the final manuscript (hint: this is a great résumé building opportunity).
We appreciate your support and contribution. We’re excited to move forward into week three and continue building our Modern College community!
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