#65: The Dissertation
A proud moment: the experience of holding your own words as a tangible object.
I have written my longest piece of extended writing to date. Above is a photo of the printed and bound version of my BA Dissertation: 11,976 words that attempt to articulate my thoughts and questions about ‘music, identity, and the self’ in contemporary literature.
I have to say, when I held the bound copy in my hands, I felt pretty proud of myself. I had written this, edited it, put it together, even bound it myself. This dissertation has been a major figure in my life since April 2016. It is now April 2017, and it is no longer my main focus, because I have handed it in. I can’t quite believe that I’ve done it, but I have, and I feel a little lost.
A common view on the BA Dissertation is that it is a traumatic process, one that the student only wishes would end. For me, it wasn’t quite like that. I enjoyed the process. A 12,000 word dissertation is the first time, as a BA student, that you get to experience more intense and independent academic work. The fact that I enjoyed the process so much has helped me to figure out that I am an academic at heart, and it has guided my mind to new ideas for my future.
However, I am not saying that it was all plain sailing. It may have been fun to have a completely independent piece of work to do, one where it is all down to my choices, but these decisions were also what made it so difficult. Those who know me also know that I can be absolutely terrible at making decisions, even if I’m just deciding what to eat for lunch. To then have to decide what my topic is, what texts I’m doing, what my focus is, what my title is… There was a lot to decide, causing many stressful moments and the shedding of more than a few tears of frustration. I will be honest, it is not a painless process. But to finish it, to hold it in my hands… I sure am glad I did it.
Writing my dissertation, I would start to muse about the media of writing available to us today. Of course, I typed up my dissertation, and a lot of my editing was done on the computer. But I also had pages and pages of hand-written notes and quotations, and there is no better way to do a final edit than to print out the whole thing and grab a brightly coloured pen. Scribbling all over the first printed draft was exciting, if only to put some colour on it.
But although it was written on a laptop, its final version is a printed copy. These are my words, and after nearly a year spent thinking about it, I can now hold a physical copy of my articulated thoughts. It makes it real, a physical object, as it presses upon you the powerful physicality of words. A little while back, Eleanor wrote about the writing process in ‘The Typewriter’, and the satisfying experience of immediately making your words into a physical entity. The following week, she wrote about ‘The Book’, and the intangible worlds that a tangible book holds. It is so much more than its physical presence, and so is my dissertation.
Yet for me, having lived in the world of its ideas for nearly a year, it is the physical object of my dissertation which has more impact on me now. As I sit here holding it, I am taken aback by the tangibility of my thoughts, articulated in words, printed in ink on paper, and bound together, turning my thoughts into something I can hold.
