For most majors, you have to write a thesis (a very scholarly  and lengthy paper with a presentation about something in your field). For those of you who do not know, I am a double major in education and theater. For education, I have to do student teaching instead of thesis, but I have to write a thesis for theater. Since I was a freshman, I have heard all kinds of stories about thesis. You have to find this incredibly large number of sources, and the paper is really long. To freshman me, it sounded like an academic nightmare until I forgot to do a very big paper and wrote the entire thing in two nights. Then it hit me. When I got to thesis in my senior year it was not going to be too bad.

When I hit my sophomore year, I heard stories about seniors not knowing what they would write their thesis on. I had a slight moment of panic. What would I write my thesis on? Everyone told me to write about something I am very passionate about. What did previous people choose as their topics? One person did radio as an art form. Another wrote his on The Beatles as a creative process. I love the Beatles, but I did not want to copy someone else. But this had to be on something I am really passionate about.

As I progressed in my experience as a college student, I realized I had this ability to create really long papers out of absolutely nothing, so I became less worried. The only problem was finding something I found inspiring and exciting enough for me to research. Then I took Contemporary Issues with Fr. Shawn Clerkin. We had to write a paper on some contemporary issue. This was around the time “Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens” came out. So I found a way to tie that to one of the communications theories we talked about that class.

Now let’s go back to when I was ten. “Episode III, Revenge of the Sith” recently came out and all the other kids at the summer camp I went to brought toy light-sabers and we would play pretend with “Star Wars.” As I geeked out more and more about that classic saga, I became more and more passionately “obsessed” with it.

Back to college again. If I was passionately obsessed with “Star Wars” at ten, then what if I wrote my thesis on it? So there you have it, I am writing my thesis on “Star Wars.” You probably cannot do this in every major, but if you are majoring in something, there is likely something you are really passionate about that relates to it. If you are really curious and potentially passionate about something that relates to your major, I would recommend considering it as your thesis topic.