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Every Emotion You'll Experience Handing in Your Dissertation
By Mathilde Frot
Updated May 23, 2017 Updated May 23, 2017You’ve spent the last three months living in darkness racking your brains to find something half-decent to write 10,000 words about. You’ve lived off instant noodles and coffee and seen the best minds of your generation destroyed by madness. You’ve come out the other side and survived and now, at last, you’re nearly done. You’ve finished it. The dissertation from hell.
You’d think handing it in would be the easy part, but we’ve got news for you. It’s not. You’ve got a few more nightmares to navigate before you can relax.
1. First, you have to frantically cut your word count
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You started off your essay thinking you’d never reach the required 10,000 words. Three months down the line, you now find yourself over the word count. How could such a thing be possible?
2. … and manage to forget your line of argument in the process
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Diss-what? Did I even write this?
3. You experience a very brief and satisfying sense of closure
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Bless the gods. You’ve hit save. You’re ready to take on new challenges. You’re a king! A queen! You’re the human incarnation of the fire emoji - no, you’re Beyonce!
4. Quick, to the dissertation printing and binding shop!
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Godspeed to you on this noble and courageous journey! Clutching your brave little USB stick, you dodge bicycles, buses and pigeons because - as God is your witness- you’ll hand in your dissertation or die trying.
5. Tears stream down your face, as you notice the length of the waiting line and the clock continues to tick
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Most of your friends printed their dissertation a week ago and had them bound yesterday, but you had to wait until hand-in day. Why? Because you’re irresponsible. That’s why. Your third-grade teacher was right; you’ll never amount to anything in life.
6. You find yourself gripped by despair at the last minute as you notice a formatting issue
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Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! You didn’t double space your essay, you utter imbecile. You fool.
7. Repeat steps four and five
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A sense of carelessness and exhilaration overcome you. Nothing matters in the end, does it? You’ll permanently live at home and fail to amount to anything, but so what? You’ll be alright as long as there’s food and TiVo.
8. You realize the world needs to bear witness to your dissertation selfie
It needs to exist. After all, if you don’t take a dissertation selfie, can you really claim to have done a dissertation?
9. You feel triumphant and glide across campus to hand your dissertation in
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Finally, at last, you reach your department ready to hand in the 20 or so pages of pure gold that you’ve spent the past three months carefully crafting.
10. You notice a spelling mistake on the first page
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It’s at about this point that you realize alcohol is the answer to your sorrows. Things will never be the same again, but you know what? It was worth it. Every minute of it.
This article was originally published in May 2017 .
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I'm originally French but I grew up in Casablanca, Kuala Lumpur and Geneva. When I'm not writing for QS, you'll usually find me sipping espresso(s) with a good paperback.
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