On Graduating

If only more exciting things happened to me, I would have more to blog about. But no. There are not. The last half year has passed so quickly and I have no idea where all the time went. At the same time, it doesn’t feel like I have done a lot of things. I didn’t go anywhere exciting except for a short trip to Berlin in November. So apparently I spent the rest of the time working and writing my master’s thesis. Which makes sense, because the thesis is now a document of considerable size. And in the last few months, all my thoughts evolved around it, so even if I thought I did nothing, in the back of my mind I was probably still working on it. I had this interesting idea that I could just sit down and write a thesis and graduate. I thought just because it takes other people long, it wouldn’t mean the same for me. In the meantime I found out that this was probably a little naive of me. I got very frustrated from time to time, by my own (what I perceived to be) inactivity, by not working in a team of highly motivated individuals like I used to and also by having nothing concrete to look forward to. Because, let’s face it: the world economy is still not waiting for me to graduate and finding a job will be much harder that it was two years ago. During the summer the faculty department where I am writing my thesis decided that students have to conduct two studies instead of one...so that did not help either.

Luckily, I have the most amazing friends who never get tired (or at least not show it) of discussing my topics and issues with me, who help me collect questionnaires and who assist me with their design knowledge and skills. I am very thankful for that. I am also lucky that I still like my topic and I am conducting a research that is not only interesting, but also fun. I managed to combine my passions for language, marketing and beautiful things and I obtained very nice results in my first study, the second is to come next week. By now I have realized that one of the most important things it takes is perseverance, so here I am at the library, day after day. And since at Christmas I told everyone I would hand in my thesis at the end of january, this is probably a wise thing to do. And a good reason to get back to work.