What was your dissertation about?

[Rdacsm]

What was YOUR dissertation on? Did you enjoy doing it? Did it make any significant impact in the field?

It was on, at the time, quite a niche topic in social/psy science. I loved it, and put everything into it. Very little interaction with my supervisor as I was just so driven as it was a topic I was really interested in.

Actually got published (this was an undergraduate dissertation), so I was chuffed with that. Since then has racked up over 300 citations so not too bad for an undergrad. Was very lucky to strike lucky with the topic, it's now widely recognised but it was niche at the time.

It actually wasn't particularly constraining because I was writing at such an early stage, in the three months immediately post referendum. So at that point I was really dealing in the theoretical, in terms of what the legal framework looked like and how it might work in reality, and what the pitfalls might be. The government hadn't really decided on a course of action at that point (for much of it they were still deciding who would succeed David Cameron as prime minister) so there was no real danger of me saying that a particular course of action would be unlawful.

It was only a couple of months after I had submitted that my supervisor called me and said, "Soooo I'm working on the Miller litigation and we've borrowed a few of your arguments from your dissertation, hope you don't mind!" So I said, "No, be my guest!" and he asked whether I wanted to be credited for it, and I was like, "No, I think that might make things rather awkward at work, don't you?"

BSc Physics and Geology - I designed, built and trialled a machine (The Swash Zone Transducer) to measure the impact of wave energy on a beach and how the stones moved on storms.

MSc Engineering Geology , in conjunction with Northumberland County Council, I looked at the effect that excavating sand from a beach (for construction purposes) was having on the stability of the sand dunes.

PhD Civil Engineering I looked at the longterm failures mechanisms in different geologies on coastal cliffs, and the timescales over which this becomes predictable. I correlated this to very long (decades) wind speed/direction and used this hindcast model to forecast coastal recession. There's now an app for this!

I enjoyed every second.

My undergraduate dissertation was on Parents perceptions of visual versus 3d gait analysis and how that might affect treatment outcomes in children with cerebral palsy
My postgraduate dissertation was on the effects of knee braces on the kinematics of a squat (didn't end up finishing it as hubby had a brain injury)

Oh god yes, so much maths. I used an Amstrad word processor to type it up and had to leave blank spaces to add the integration signs etc in!!! I still have it. Total gobblydegook to me now!!!

Just found mine, and the overhead projector slides (and my notes) from my presentation to the rest of the cohort!!

Mine was on Michael Barrymore and Stuart Lubbock, I have to say it’s not helped me in any way in my future life or career.

Urban renewal from a feminist perspective!

PLC control of a hydraulic rig. I suspect I’m a contender for the most boring dissertation award.

edited to add: And I’ve just remembered that I got offered a fast track graduate job off the back of it. Which I turned down.

The Salt Industry in Cheshire- enjoyed doing it. No idea if anyone enjoyed reading it😂

Mine was on how the French have tried (and generally failed) to protect their language from invasion.

Incidence of stress incontinence post pregnancy and if weight of baby had an impact

My undergrad dissertation was on an obscure aspect of the history of quantum mechanics. It was published, but I don’t know whether I was ever actually cited by anyone! I’m now a historian, but rarely do history of science any more.

Regional accents and people's attitudes towards them/preconceptions around them.

Not groundbreaking but extremely interesting.

Needless to say, no one cared at all about what I had to say about the question, but I believe I got a 2.1 for it.

Last time I came across it it was going mouldy in a cardboard box in the cellar. I didn't have the heart to throw it out. It's a souvenir of the days when going to the campus computer centre was a novelty, and is the only piece of work I did for my degree that wasn't handwritten!

Something to do with adolescent sexuality in Rousseau. Fun times!

Materiality and the Senses in Contemporary Art.

Loved it. Focus on female artists too. Ahhh nineties art school....them were the days.

The interplay between two different types of plasticity on individual neuronal synapses. Basically molecular mechanisms of memory formation.

Conceptually very interesting. In practice I had to kill a lot of mice and spend overnights in a microscope room which were both very unpleasant.

The paper does have quite a reasonable number of citations now but I definitely wouldn't say it changed the field in any way.

Mine was on 19thC Russian literature and I enjoyed writing it and got a 2:1 in the end.

Can't remember anything about it now and it did precisely nowt for me or anyone else!

My BA dissertation was about Shakespeare too, I massively regretted it as there were so many sources. I wrote my MA one on the reality television, this was 20 years ago so I then had the opposite problem 🤣

Nuclear fusion as a near limitless clean energy source.
That was about 30 years ago and we don’t seem to have progressed with it. China has taken the lead but any true progression will not be seen until around 2050 apparently. It’s a fascinating subject to follow though.

The geology of Mars. This was in the early 1970s, before the Viking missions, so it was based on the photos from the Mariner missions and wild speculation.
I always wanted to be an astronaut. Haven't made it so far😥

Radon gas hazard mapping. Had a lot of fun doing the fieldwork and it was actually published as a bonus.

Mine was on the application of gel electrophoresis in plant breeding. It was so long ago and I cannot remember the details now.

Did you do that at Lancaster uni by any chance?