Master’s thesis paper

It’s been more than two months since I turned in the fateful thesis paper to Anita in the basement of Margaret Morrison. It was a bittersweet feeling to finally finish the paper, since I wrestled it for so long. During and after the work, I sometimes have a hard time describing my paper, especially since I found it more of a personal exploration into topics that I wanted to resolve. I was exploring ideas of perception and the self that lingered from undergrad with the design of interactive products and the increasing context we consider as interaction designers.

Having nearly a year to craft a paper means that there is a lot of time where you are secluded in rooms full of books wondering if you still have an ounce of sanity left. With Dick Buchanan as my advisor, our meetings usually consisted of nudges and strategic questioning about the ideas involved. He helped me to look at things differently and explore sources I never would have, and generally gave a broader perspective of whatever we were talking about.

Anyway, I was inspired to write something about my paper because of a recent Adaptive Path post that had some web tools that analyze writing. I thought I’d throw my paper in and see what came out:

One of the things that happened to me, and I’m sure happened to a lot of people, is the discovery of so many more ideas and topics than you first start out with–via readings, discussions, classes, etc… So it almost turned out to be too much time as I had to fight to scope things down. Overall, it was a good experience, and made me a lot more confident in my writing and research process.