Do you know that there is no undergrad thesis in USA?
"Liberal Arts"
That's what I tell people when they ask me what I major in college.
Liberal Arts? What's that?
Oh, I study some stuff like history, politics, maths, geology, English...
*silence*
(It is a fancy name for "Undecided", really. I take the General Education requirements during the first three semesters, which is why I am allowed to declare myself as a Lib Arts major)
So....I am in the middle of a predicament here. My third semester is coming and by the middle of spring 2012 (or latest by May 2012), I should have declared a major already.
Some folks suggested not to fret about it, saying "you'll know it when the time comes", but I should know better.
Declaring a major is like getting a girlfriend. If you declare the wrong one, you can still break it up and take a major in another, but then you're stuck with wasted credits and may have to repeat a semester or two.
And if I didn't find the most suitable major for me, I would graduate with a degree that provides me a pathway to jobs that I disdain. By then it would be akin to having a annoying, bossy, jealous, hen-pecking wife.
Therefore, following my mother's advice, I explored several majors and their possible career choices...
4. Finance/Business. Dad suggested this one, due to my preference in not dealing with customer service in my jobs. I can become a financial analyst, accountant, economist, and the likes with this major. I am still not too keen on studying Economics though (it has always been my weakest forte amongst all Social Science subjects), hence I am putting this as a second-in-line.
5. Computer Science/Information Technology. True, I have neither experience nor knowledge in this subject. But so does most CS/IT students I know of. The one that allures me most is the very fact that people in this major end up graduating to take high-paying jobs (ranked No.5 most lucrative university discipline by CNN money). So I am thinking...what the hell, why not?
6. Business Informatics. This actually combines the two majors I mentioned above: Business and CS/IT. I would reckon that it would be more sought after than the last two, since it combines the financial acumen of its graduates with their fluency in programming language and software cognition. But I also would reckon that the level of difficulty would be high, since two different disciplines are meshed together to make a fiendishly tough stuff to study.
What about the final thesis? Do you think you can do the final thesis of CS/IT or Business or whatever tough stuff that you're gonna study? I bet it's gonna be a tough, tough one
Thesis? Art thou jesting me?
There are no such thing as thesis for undergrad students in USA, darling. In most Asian countries, yes, there is a thesis examination (or dissertation or "skripsi" in Indonesian language in case there is a term confusion here). On Asian undergraduate thesis, you have to write a 50-100 page research paper which has to be defended in front of a committee.
But not in USA. Thesis/dissertation in USA is only for those taking Graduate school or Doctoral schools.
There is a final paper for some US majors, yes. But even then, it is only practised at some private colleges and does not normally have to be defended in front of any committees whatsoever. Your paper is to be graded by one or more university instructors, but still, you don't have to defend it.
That's the best part of it, I guess. I would very much prefer making a speech in front of a podium. Defending a thesis in front of a committee, where four years of toil and sweats and $35,000 student loan sits on it, would make me (or anyone, for that matter) very, very nervous.
