Ambassadorial Scholar in Ghana: What I Learnt Writing A Master's Dissertation

Unlike a term paper you cannot “punch out” a few pages (or a chapter) in a few hours or a day. This was a bit shocking for me because throughout my undergrad I consistently completed term papers of 10+ pages the evening before the paper was due. With my dissertation, I could sit at my desk for an entire day and type, delete, re-type and re-delete three sentences.

I have always wondered how people write books. It seems like so much WORK! This dissertation process has not cleared the subject for me. I wonder, even more, how people write books.

You should really like your dissertation topic. Don’t pick a topic that you’re a bit familiar with and assume it, therefore, will make the work simple. To me it seems that students with an interest in their topic have a much easier time writing a dissertation than those who picked a topic for the fact that it seemed “easy” but had zero interest in the subject. Writing a dissertation is a lot of work – a lot of reading literature, a lot of thinking, a lot of analyzing, and a lot of writing. This is all a lot easier if your subject is of some interest to you.

It’s likely that your coursework for your Master’s will have little to do with your dissertation topic. This can make the coursework seem like a big waste of time considering the dissertation is worth almost as much as the classes. Try not to think like this. Strangely, the classes probably weren’t a waste of time (okay, its possible 1 or 2 were).

Ambassadorial Scholar in Ghana