How do I pick a Masters dissertation topic? PANICKING

[wannabeestudent]

I need to send in a topic and have no idea what I'm doing!

I have a couple of areas that I am interested in, but so worried in case I choose the 'wrong' one. I need to choose the best one in terms of possibly doing further study, and worried in case the one I choose ends up a disaster...

Also not sure how specific my topic should be? I'm googling for examples to try to get a feel for how it should look but not finding anything useful.

I know in one way it needs to be interesting and fresh, but in another way it's just a Masters not Phd so nobody expects it to be groundbreaking and I'm so confused trying to get the right level

The guy who is my academic tutor has been away for a couple of weeks, so haven't had a chance to meet with him.

How did you pick your Masters dissertation?

What’s your field?

My MSc dissertation project was inspired by a field trip during taught part of my MSc, and is actually related to my undergraduate dissertation. My PhD thesis is s follow on, but I didn’t know I was going to do a PhD at the time.

What’s your passion? What subject do you enjoy reading about? Have you had any lectures or seminars that you’ve really enjoyed?

I chose mine as it was close to my heart, I work in this area too. But with all that reading and writing and researching... even I was getting fed up on the subject towards the end!

What are you studying? Is there a lecturer at your University whom you feel is approachable and you can have a chat with? They may help you put a Research Question together.

Read the newspapers for a feel of what’s current... and read the “further recommendations” sections in journals for ideas on what hadn’t been covered yet.

It was a lonngg horrific process for me,several misfires and disasters - deciding the topic was the hardest bit apart from doing it.

So feeling the fear is good Imo, as long as you work on it and dont bury your head you will be absolutely fine.

First off, subject matter you feel passionate about - dont think that you should do something new, use your experience.

Choose your methodology wisely, do not try something brand new or too innovative, try to stick with your strong suit - im a speed reader and very anal about sourcing and cross referencing so qualitative literature review was awesome for me.

If you have no clue, does your work have research questions or projects to evaluate? These are often harder as you have less factors i your control, but you can do some research and writeup in work time.

Good luck, and enjoy, once i was underway it was a fantastic experience for me, but i hated trying to get started with a passion!

Thanks!

I'm here trying to make a list to see what jumps out at me. The problem is I'm enjoying all of my classes and interested in it all! There are maybe 2 areas I'm particularly drawn to, but these are still quite large wide areas... I don't know how to pick one small question within a huge area.

The pressure to do something great is huge. If I don't do something good enough, I probably wouldn't have the option of going on to more study. I think this is why I feel frozen, in case I get this wrong.

I sort of went about it backwards and thought about methodology first (basically I didn't want to do interviews as I don't have enough childcare time and transcribing gives me migraines!)....do you have a favourite methodology/any to exclude because they are impractical?

If your tutor is away, do you have any lecturers with similar interests with convenient office hours?

(We don't get our dissertation tutors until we've decided on a dissertation topic)

I have a template on how to filter your ideas into an actual proprosal. Can send tomorrow if you pm me