All throughout high school the moment you were waiting for was the date you could graduate and move on to college. Once at college, you enjoyed those first couple of carefree semesters until you start to feel the oncoming pressure of senior worries, i.e., internships, job searches, interviews and the ever looming senior research or thesis project.

As students, we sit in 20 or 30 different classes, but it never fails that some students just can’t seem to determine a topic they are passionate about.

Research 1, Research 2, Senior Thesis … the topic you choose will follow you around for at least a year and even longer when presented as an example for later students or, more importantly, if a potential employer asks you about your research contributions.

It is important to choose a topic that will help us grow as an educated, contributing individuals; one that will sum up our years of education and demonstrate our ability to actually contribute to our chosen field of study.

The topic is not the hard part. If you are actively involved in your learning, there are certainly those classes you are more passionate about.

However, what specific topic can you select to focus on in more depth, and one that another peer an industry professional would care about? How can we avoid wandering around in bewilderment while we try to decide what we could possibly do to get our project started and over and done with?

By the time a student reaches their senior year, most have developed a strong connection with one or more professors they enjoyed taking classes with and learning from. Often, these professors have a website where their background information, research interests, and current projects are listed for your consideration.

Recently one of my professors had an idea of a organizing a centralized listing of research projects available to undergrads. Our class was definitely in support of this idea, and so was I. Sadly, this idea hasn’t been completely developed yet, but hopefully it will be as a list of this type would be helpful for all future students at all levels.

Each professor could maintain a list of their current research topics that they are working on. This list could serve as a preparatory point, a place to start sparking our imaginations as we search for our topics.  For instance, a professor who teaches on a subject I don’t currently have much interest in may be working on a research project that indeed might be of interest to me.  The information exchange from accessing this list might point me to this professor with a desire to contribute to or to expand upon the topic or assist him in his research on it.

If all professors contributed a short synopsis of each of their research projects to this list, students would certainly have a much easier time developing an idea for their senior project.  This would create a win-win situation: the senior could assist the professor conduct their research, or they could build upon this topic of interest with their own investigation, while utilizing the professor as an expert reference and advisor on the subject.

Senior year should be a time of celebration, not stress.  The last semester or two of college should be a summation of all of the education and resulting knowledge gained and it should provide you with the satisfaction that you are really putting all that studying and class time to professional use.

Maggie Upton is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected].