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calderone

Cancelled
Original poster
Aug 28, 2009
3,743
352
A thesis is required in my undergrad philosophy program. It is pretty simple, around 20 pages or so.

Just wondering if anyone is working on one right now as well? Grad or undergrad!

I just finished the section that contains the main argument and it came out to 14 pages, combined with another section I am already at 20. I still have another lengthy section and potential objections to go.

I think I will be hitting 30+... Anyhow? How is it coming for everyone else?
 

stridemat

Moderator
Staff member
Apr 2, 2008
11,364
863
UK
Not strictly a thesis but Im doing my dissertation in the UK. It has to be about 15,000 words long :eek:. Im doing it on how the UK recession affect Sustainable Construction.

Good Luck!
 

nanvinnie

macrumors regular
Feb 23, 2007
180
0
they make you do those for undergraduate courses? a 20 page requirement isn't too bad. i'm sure it will get a lot longer with references and so on.

i'm finishing my graduate degree in aerospace engineering so we get to use a lot of diagrams, graphs, pictures and so on, so it gets to be pretty long. usually in the 100-200 page range.

good luck in your studies.
 

calderone

Cancelled
Original poster
Aug 28, 2009
3,743
352
they make you do those for undergraduate courses? a 20 page requirement isn't too bad. i'm sure it will get a lot longer with references and so on.

i'm finishing my graduate degree in aerospace engineering so we get to use a lot of diagrams, graphs, pictures and so on, so it gets to be pretty long. usually in the 100-200 page range.

good luck in your studies.

It isn't very common to have a thesis req. for an undegrad program. My fiancee had to complete one for her history undergrad, but she had a course that was dedicated to it. In my case, I have an advisor, but I am on my own for the most part.

20 pages isn't bad at all, especially considering that is double-spaced!

Good luck to you in your graduate program!
 

DarkHeraldMage

macrumors 6502a
Oct 5, 2007
878
0
Fort Worth, TX
It isn't very common to have a thesis req. for an undegrad program. My fiancee had to complete one for her history undergrad, but she had a course that was dedicated to it. In my case, I have an advisor, but I am on my own for the most part.

20 pages isn't bad at all, especially considering that is double-spaced!

Good luck to you in your graduate program!

Double-spaced? Man, talk about a lucky break. That's definitely an easy paper to knock out. I didn't have to do a thesis per se to graduate my undergrad, but I did have what's becoming more common and that was a "senior project". As an IT networking major, we had to theoretically design and implement a wired/wireless mixed network for our entire campus and discuss the security protocols and so forth. So it was a paper of sorts (and quite lengthy), but it was more of a project to prove we'd learned than a simple research paper.
 

Demosthenes X

macrumors 68000
Oct 21, 2008
1,954
5
Twenty pages is hardly a thesis... maybe a medium-length paper. My buddy is writing an undergraduate thesis in Economics, he figures it'll wind up being about 100 pages before references and that. :eek:
 

ergdegdeg

Moderator emeritus
Oct 13, 2007
1,628
0
I'm working on my undergrad thesis right now. Has to be done by Jan 13, 2010. It has to be 8 000 to 10 000 words long and at least 40% of the text has to be about the empirical study I will have to conduct as well :(
 

instaxgirl

macrumors 65816
Mar 11, 2009
1,438
1
Edinburgh, UK
20 pages is noting, my intro classes are requiring 10 after the first semester.

Yeah I had to write something way longer than that last year as a warm up for the paper I'm meant to be writing (in Spanish) next semester.

But as it turns out I'm dropping out instead :eek: Wish I hadn't wasted so much time on last year's warm up paper (which was all about tuition fees throughout the UK, big yawn)
 

sammich

macrumors 601
Sep 26, 2006
4,305
268
Sarcasmville.
It's interesting that they call it a thesis. Especially for an undergrad degree in Psych. How many years is it? A thesis usually is a usually a document you create in order to gain a honour's degree/masters/doctorate (dissertation).

they make you do those for undergraduate courses? a 20 page requirement isn't too bad. i'm sure it will get a lot longer with references and so on.

i'm finishing my graduate degree in aerospace engineering so we get to use a lot of diagrams, graphs, pictures and so on, so it gets to be pretty long. usually in the 100-200 page range.

good luck in your studies.

Hey, I'm doing Aero too. Thesis won't be due for another 2 years. Phew!
 

calderone

Cancelled
Original poster
Aug 28, 2009
3,743
352
Twenty pages is hardly a thesis... maybe a medium-length paper. My buddy is writing an undergraduate thesis in Economics, he figures it'll wind up being about 100 pages before references and that. :eek:

I agree, this is probably why it is only worth 1 credit hour. The purpose of it is to leave the program having worked on an original piece of philosophy.

I would actually say 20 pages is too little, but clarity and conciseness are important factors in philosophy which is why 20 is used as the minimum. I could easily take this to 50+, but when I am told 20 it makes me work harder to get to the point.

The thing with philosophy is you are creating original ideas, for the most part. This takes much more effort than simply gathering some facts and talking about a subject.
 

nick1516

macrumors 6502a
Sep 21, 2008
564
0
I thought my 8 page research paper for my english class is long! :eek: I am going to be screwed in college lol.
 

r1ch4rd

macrumors 6502a
Aug 5, 2005
980
1
Manchester UK
My final year project at university I worked with two other people to build an air space simulation. One person worked on the simulation, I worked on visualisation and control and the third person worked on flight scheduling. Each of the aspects of the project had to take a minimum of 200 hours with a 15,000 word write up at the end.

In the end, the lecturers went on strike when they were supposed to be marking it. Nobody ever saw it working (which was probably good as it was glitchy as hell) but I still got a good mark for it.
 

GfPQqmcRKUvP

macrumors 68040
Sep 29, 2005
3,272
514
Terminus
Longest paper I've had to do at my university was 10 pages. I'm a business major though, so it's not as if I've skated through a super writing-intensive major without doing the necessary work.
 

Jay42

macrumors 65816
Jul 14, 2005
1,416
588
My undergrad econ thesis will likely end up around 50 to 70 pages. Welcome to small liberal arts education....
 

AngryApple

macrumors 6502
Dec 25, 2008
342
0
I thought my 8 page research paper for my english class is long! :eek: I am going to be screwed in college lol.

Tell me about it. I can get stuff to 3-4 pages front and back easily ..but 20...gosh golly. Them profs must not have lives to have to read them papers. :eek:
I just realized that when people talk about how many pages something is, they don't mean front and back... :p
 

nick1516

macrumors 6502a
Sep 21, 2008
564
0
For anybody who went through college with either a biology/chemistry/computer science degree, what was the longest paper that you have had to write?
 

Demosthenes X

macrumors 68000
Oct 21, 2008
1,954
5
It's interesting that they call it a thesis. Especially for an undergrad degree in Psych. How many years is it? A thesis usually is a usually a document you create in order to gain a honour's degree/masters/doctorate (dissertation).

An Honour's Degree is an undergraduate degree... it's a step above a regular Bachelor's Degree, but still an undergrad degree. Honours simply means you've studied a major concentration and taken more classes than someone with a BA.

In my experience, theses at the undergrad level are possible, but not widely undertaken. It depends on the field, though... it's a lot easier to find a topic to write on in Psychology than it is Economics, for example, at least where I am.

Tell me about it. I can get stuff to 3-4 pages front and back easily ..but 20...gosh golly. Them profs must not have lives to have to read them papers. :eek:
I just realized that when people talk about how many pages something is, they don't mean front and back... :p

Technically speaking, one page is one fraction of a sheet of paper. There's no such thing as "back and front" of a page - that's two pages, on the front and back of a single sheet. You can put as many pages as you like on one sheet. :)

These are the sorts of things one learns working at a copy centre... :cool:
 

gibbz

macrumors 68030
May 31, 2007
2,701
100
Norman, OK
I finished my master's thesis a year ago (135 pages) and will soon begin preliminary writing on my dissertation. No real minimum, just as long as I satisfy my advisory committee.

Good luck with yours!!
 

Zombie Acorn

macrumors 65816
Feb 2, 2009
1,307
9,132
Toronto, Ontario
For anybody who went through college with either a biology/chemistry/computer science degree, what was the longest paper that you have had to write?

If you are going into computer science writing a paper is going to seem like fun compared to what your final project will most likely be. :D
 

nick1516

macrumors 6502a
Sep 21, 2008
564
0
If you are going into computer science writing a paper is going to seem like fun compared to what your final project will most likely be. :D

I'll probably regret asking this, but what is the final project for somebody with a computer science major?
 
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