To be scared to do a master's because of dissertation

[cowsoy]

I really want to do a particular master's degree which would tie in perfectly with my job and really interests me but the prospect of doing a dissertation (compulsory in the master's I want to do) is really daunting me.

On the one hand, I feel like I should just go for it and the dissertation won't be that bad once I actually get down to doing it.

On the other hand I don't want to spend a load of money and time on a degree then get to the dissertation and not have anything to write about and fail :/

(my undergrad degree didn't have a dissertation so I've never done one before).

Any thoughts?

I thought all undergraduate degrees had dissertations.

When I did my Masters degree, I found the thought of the dissertation quite daunting. I had a fairly helpful supervisor, but what really helped me was to go into the university library and look at some of the previous dissertations that had been done on my course.

That way I gained a better idea of what a finished dissertation actually looked like - how many words, how is it structured, how does it flow from idea to literature review to research to analysis to conclusions etc. and gave me the confidence that it could be achieved.