We're excited that you have decided to work on an MA thesis in our department. This will most likely be your first long-term research project, which is very different from taking classes, including class projects. The purpose of this website is to outline the roles and responsibilities of the people involved in your project, and to help you be considerate and punctual in your interactions with them. More information on what a thesis is, including links to the necessary paperwork, can be found here.
Most importantly, you should have fun working on your research! This might not become what you're doing for the rest of your life (though that would be cool), but doing research for a good chunk of time should be fun.
Aside from you, the people involved in your thesis project are your advisor and (typically two) committee members. Here's a brief outline of each person's role:
You are the primary researcher on your project. This will involve learning mathematical material through independent reading, working through computations and examples, and proving theorems (which may or may not be your original results but will certainly involve deep and original thought). It will also involve writing your thesis, which is a nontrivial part of the process.
Your advisor is the person who will propose the topic of your thesis, typically by posing a specific problem or question. You will meet with them regularly and ask them many questions, both on the mathematical and the writing sides of your thesis, and they will give you guidance and feedback, but they will not do either the research or the writing for you.
Your other committee members will probably be open to occasional math questions from you as well, but their main role happens when you have a finalized draft of your thesis written, at which point they will give you (possibly extensive) feedback on it. It is not their responsibility to check that the mathematics is correct (that’s the responsibility of you and your advisor), but it is their right to ask questions, and it’s not unusual that mathematical errors are caught by a committee member’s careful reading.
The process of writing a thesis, from the time you choose an advisor until the date of your defense, typically takes approximately one calendar year. Toward the end of this year, you will need to find out the deadline for filing your thesis, and you will need to consider the time constraints of everyone involved. Here are some key moments and considerations:
The semester before your (expected) last semester: Ask permission from two faculty members (aside from your advisor) to be part of your committee; your advisor will help you select appropriate committee members. These members must be listed on the Proposal for Culminating Experience form, so you must have chosen a committee by that form’s deadline.
During your (expected) last semester: Go through many edits of your thesis, with extensive feedback from your advisor. When they agree that your thesis is ready, they will give you the “okay” to share it with your committee.
Six weeks before the deadline for filing your thesis: Send a complete draft of your thesis to your committee via e-mail. (Be sure to thank them for their input, and if it’s been a while since you last corresponded, remind them that they’re on your committee.) In this initial e-mail, you should not yet discuss scheduling a defense, because your committee members may find mathematical issues in your thesis that need addressing before you’re ready to defend. You may need to go through several rounds of feedback and revision before they agree that you’re ready to defend, at which point you’ll need to find a time for the defense that works with everyone’s schedules.
Two weeks before the deadline for filing your thesis: Defend your thesis.
One week before the deadline for filing your thesis: File your thesis with the Graduate Division.
If you are finishing your thesis work over the summer, please add some extra time to this schedule, keeping in mind that your professors might be traveling (and that they are not being paid over the summer).
Finally, here are a few tips for a successful thesis experience:
Explicitly discuss with your advisor what each of your expectations are when it comes to the frequency and mode of communication, the deadlines for various tasks, and the time commitment involved. Many advisors and advisees find it helpful to record these expectations into a contract like the ones in this folder.
You will get stuck sometimes; that’s a natural and necessary part of the process. When you do, don’t let it lead you to paralysis. Instead, try working through examples, framing your confusion as precisely as possible, or writing up everything you currently understand about the problem. This will give you lots to talk about at your next meeting with your advisor, and it may enable them to help you get un-stuck.
Take your thesis work (at least) as seriously as you take your classes. This will be difficult sometimes, because classes have regular deadlines and thesis work is largely open-ended. You should plan blocks of times in your schedule when you’ll work on your thesis, and try to go into each of those blocks of time with a specific task in mind. Although we understand that life gets in the way of mathematics sometimes, if you find yourself saying "Sorry, I didn’t get much done this week" more often to your thesis advisor than to the professors for your courses, you likely need to find a way to prioritize thesis work more.
Take ownership over your project. Your advisor is there to guide you, suggesting things to read or strategies to try, but it’s not their responsibility to give you homework each week. Figuring out how to work on an open-ended project is a difficult task, but it’s part of what a thesis is meant to help you learn.
Don’t leave writing to the last minute. Even after all of the learning and research on a project is “done,” it typically takes students at least a semester (and many, many drafts) to write their results in a formal thesis. Writing is a crucial part of learning mathematics, and it almost always highlights aspects of the problem that you didn’t understand quite as well as you thought you did.