Let’s continue our discussion, which we started back last year. As a reminder, the topic of the conversation is “How a young person can survive at a university.” Today we’ll talk about choosing a topic for research work.

Let’s make clear right away that we’ll be talking about choosing the substance of the work, not the title that will appear on the title page. Sometimes the title of a paper changes often. For example, last semester, over two weeks, the title of one student’s term paper changed three times. And I was already mentally prepared for the fact that by the time of the diploma defense, that title would change another couple of times.

Let’s start with the fact that a student or graduate student, as a physically healthy and sane young person, should be curious about the things happening around him. This is confirmed by personal conversations with students, as well as by notes on Twitter and in blogs that I read. This is where the topic of the work should come from—the personal interest of the person researching it.

Ideally, the topic of the work will be interesting to you and to your academic advisor. You can probably already guess that this only happens in fairy tales. Let’s look at what can get in the way of such an ideal situation.

Any piece of work has several parties interested in its being done:

  1. The student.

  2. The academic advisor.

  3. The state.

The student’s motivation is to study some new technology, programming language, or method.

The academic advisor’s motivation is to involve the student in carrying out a separate part of a large project. The academic advisor’s tasks are: a) to define a set of term-paper topics within a single discipline; b) to assign the task and advise on the course of its completion; c) to evaluate the results of the work.

The state’s motivation is to train specialists in the required fields to work at local enterprises. The state’s task is to determine the list of disciplines in which course projects are done, and also to pay the advisor and the student/graduate student for the work.

It’s clear that everyone’s level of motivation and involvement is different, and changes with time, place, and participants.

A common conflict is a student’s misunderstanding or rejection of the academic advisor’s assignment. Some reasons for this:

  • the student may not understand the essence of the major he is studying in (for example, his major is “specialized computer systems,” but he dreams of developing websites);

  • the student may not see the big picture of the problem (for example, the student has been assigned to program an algorithm for diagnosing defects in a system-on-chip, but the importance and place of this algorithm in the microelectronics design and manufacturing cycle have not been explained);

  • personal conflicts between the student and the advisor.

In the first case, the student needs to understand that by enrolling in a particular major, he is signing up for at least four years of studying and passing all the courses listed in the curriculum. In addition to classes in subjects of interest, this also includes a large number of subjects that will seem uninteresting, boring, stupid, and sometimes completely unrelated to the major. One interesting way to solve this problem is a compromise between the assigned topic of the work and the student’s wishes.

Here’s an example. One student was brought in to develop tests for a compiler. At the start of the new semester it turned out that he had to do a term paper on databases. Initially, our plans did not include any tasks where databases could be used. And we decided that the student would develop an automated compiler testing system in which the tests and test results would be stored in a DB. Thus, the student’s interests (working on compiler testing) and the state’s interests (a database term paper, which is included in the curriculum) are fully satisfied.

Another example. A student is studying in the “specialized computer systems” major, but in practice he does web design and web programming. The solution is the term-paper topic “Online Textbook for the Discipline.” Everyone wins from this. The advisor gets online lecture notes and teaching materials for the discipline, and the student applies his knowledge in practice and gets a good grade.

In the second case, the student must make it absolutely clear to the advisor that it is unclear why this topic is important and relevant. And demand explanations from him. In parallel with this, time should be spent studying the issue independently. You need to ask yourself: will I be able to apply this knowledge in the local labor market? And in the global one?

In the third case, both the advisor and the student need to remain professionals. Despite personal incompatibility, the student needs to be disciplined, diligent, and bring the work he has started to completion. Attempts at sabotage will not lead to anything good. In this case, the student will waste time (when he could have studied and done something new); he also risks getting a lower grade and a damaged reputation.

It may happen that during your studies the topics will change. The term paper was on one topic, the bachelor’s thesis on another, the master’s thesis on a third, the dissertation on a fourth (and then you’ll get tired of the fourth one too, and change it to a fifth). This is normal. There are known cases when people have distinguished themselves in different fields. I’ll repeat: it is important to approach each topic as a professional, and to succeed at it.

Recommended reading

How to Succeed in Graduate School: A Guide for Students and Advisors by Marie desJardins.