Ilyana Schwartz ’13 made this freakishly awesome print of Roald Dahl, and it could be yours for only $30:
Help out a fellow student work off her thesis debt by buying some thesis art pieces! Check out this website for the details and if you wanna catch the show in person it is up in Zilkha Gallery until Sunday at 5 pm.
Link: Fresh off the Press
Show: Zilkha Gallery between now and Sunday at 5
Self-identify as a raw foodist? Sam Januszeski ’13 wants your digits:
past/ present raw foodists! I need to talk to you. I am writing my thesis on the raw food movement and would love to hear about your experiences, feelings, frustrations, vitamix blenders, recipes, reflections, etc… Please message me at sjanuszeski(at)wesleyan(dot)edu if you want to chat (or just share some of your thoughts via e mail).
Deadline: Wheneva
Contact: sjanuszeski(at)wesleyan(dot)edu
And with that—a boisterous rendition of the “Wesleyan Fight Song,” a few loud champagne corks, a flurry of hugs, and a palpable sense of relief—it’s all over. Nine months of work, dispatched in one drunken hour on the Olin steps. (Special thanks to Charlotte, guys.) Not even the Open Container Policy can squash this storied tradition. It’s a good time to be a senior, eh? (You know. Except the whole “graduating in a month” thing.)
After spending two weeks interviewing writers and documenting Thesis-Land despair, it’s hard not to feel some vicarious sense of relief. I know where you worked. I know what caffeinated beverages you downed in your carrel. I know how many nights you slept in ST Lab. I know how many times you re-wore the same pants. (Well, no. I don’t.) And I am terrified for next year.
Consider this a hearty ‘grats to all thesis-writers, whether you were profiled on this blog or not. Scroll on for a full gallery, and click past the jump for a brief, shaky video clip of the “Wesleyan Fight Song.”
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“You’ll spend, like, three hours editing something and you won’t have gotten anywhere because it just keeps going and going and I don’t even know how I wrote all of this crap.”
It’s Sunday, April 8. Do you know where your senior thesis is?
With four days to go (4 pm on Thursday—mark the date), thesis-writers are hunkering down in Olin for the final homestretch, eyes bloodshot, caffeine (or Kombucha, as the case may be) at the ready. Once again, A-Batte and I crept through the storied halls of Olin’s cramped, foul-smelling thesis carrels, harassing writers at will to document their last week at work. “I don’t really care what happens,” one writer gravely told me, “because once this is over, nothing’s gonna matter anymore.” And doesn’t that say it all?
Good luck, guys. We’re with you in spirit. There will be another edition of THESISCRAZY between now and Thursday—hopefully featuring some science kids this time around—so hit us up at staff(at)wesleying(dot)org if you want to be profiled. Click past the jump for full interviews, and click here for past coverage.
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“I see the light at the end of the tunnel and I’m clawing towards it.”
There’s a silent army in Olin. You don’t see them, but they’re there—camped in carrels, from 9 AM to 2:00 AM, caffeinated and crazed, wolfing down microwavable Weshop dinners as they type away their undergraduate careers. And you thought you were stressed?
They are senior thesis writers, a cagey, fervent crew of unkempt, malnourished, sleep-deprived nutjobs, zealously trying to beat the clock. While you sleep, they write. While you eat, they write. While you read this post and then get wasted and wake up in your own vomit, they write. Theses are due April 12 (40s on da steps, yo), so it’s crunch time up in Carrel City. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
In accordance with a Wesleying tradition, for the third consecutive year, we sent a brave crew of post-millennial muckrakers (read: BZOD and myself) deep into the bowels of Olin’s thesis carrels to document these last two weeks of madness. What we found wasn’t always pretty: chronic sleeplessness, dangerous caffeine dependency, bitter self-loathing, foul-smelling carrels. April 12 can’t come soon enough—as one especially crazed writer offered, “It will be like walking out of an exploding building.” Scroll on for the individual profiles, and contact us at staff_at_wesleying_dot_org if you’re writing a thesis and want to be profiled in the next installment. Let us know where your carrel’s at and when we can come find you there.
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This week’s episode of Speak Your Piece, Wesleyan’s story-telling podcast, is devoted to senior theses. The show features works by Kira Akerman ’10, Hannah Kauffman-Skloff ’10, Alice Goldsmith ’10, Emma Drew ’10, Dave Wolovsky ’10 and Nina Wasserman ’10. Music for the show comes from the senior thesis recital of Ben Seretan ’10, as well as some Duchampion tunes (Ben, Asa Horvitz ’10, Jake Nussbaum ’10 and Will Brandt ’10). The episode also features the mob which gathered outside of Olin (’10 as well) last Tuesday as theses were turned in.
You can find old episodes of SYP on iTunes, by searching Speak Your Piece on the iTunes Store page. Piece out.
They’re so close. SO CLOSE. Theses are due in less than 24 hours.
On Sunday Sheek and I once again took time out of our thesis-free schedules to run around and interview some seniors powering through the final two days of thesis agony and/or formatting minutia.
We checked out the swanky new carrels in Albritton, potentially exposed ourselves to radiation in a cluttered sedimentology lab, and found an impromptu bed set up in a carrel.
[nggallery id=8]Profiles after the jump!
Three days left until theses are due! With the weekend almost halfway gone, thesis writers were sounding a lot more spacey today. Most of the seniors we talked with had already seen the first and second installments of THESISCRAZY, so Sheek and I didn’t feel quite as weird about sneaking around Olin with a camera and notepad.
Today we stumbled upon another pair of carrel neighbors, got offered more candy, learned that chick flicks can be analyzed using postmodernist theory, and spoke with a few seniors who had abandoned their carrels in favor of the often creepily quiet Smith Reading Room. (Sheek and I would like to offer an apology to the diligent Smith workers we disturbed with whispered interviews.)
[nggallery id=7]Check out the profiles after the jump.
With four days left until theses are due, Sheek and I decided to spend more time interrupting thesis writers in their carrels. Everyone was looking pretty shell-shocked and very determined to reach the end.
We explored the carrel village on the 4th floor of Olin (which we didn’t even know existed), discovered that stale kosher-for-Passover peppermint patties taste like toothpaste, and realized that every senior has a unique way of saying that they’re going to get really drunk come Tuesday.
Profiles after the jump:
In case you haven’t heard, senior theses are due this Tuesday, April 13th. We can be sure to see some hardcore celebration on the library steps after 4 PM, but until then senior thesis writers will be squirreled away in their carrels doing last-minute edits and formatting.
As slacker seniors who aren’t doing theses, Sheek and I decided to profile some of the seniors who haven’t seen the light of day since before spring break. We spent an hour running around Olin and Sci Li looking for these elusive seniors in their native habitat–the carrel.
Meet the intrepid writers we found today after the jump.
