In just a few months, people will start handing in their final projects. Months, if not years of work, will culminate into one assignment. It’s emotional, thrilling, and relieving, and you’re bound to go through these 10 stages of handing in your dissertation.
1. Excitement
So, the day is here. You’ve written it all out. You’ve double, maybe even triple-checked your footnotes. Your spacing is spot on. Your contents page is in order, and you’ve read through the entire thing so many times you’re pretty sure you can recite it. At this point, you’re just grateful to get it out of your hands. Anyone can take it!
So, you get the thing printed and bound, and off you go to the submission point. Then voila – it’s handed in. You’ve done it. Your dissertation has officially been submitted. Your entire body buzzes with excitement, the thrill that you’ve managed to actually do a dissertation. Go you!
2. Panic
And then… you get home. You try not to but you can’t help but think about it. And maybe you think too much. Did you spell hypothalamus correctly every time? What if you got the amino acid names wrong? What if the spacing wasn’t correct? Every little mistake you could have made runs through your head at a thousand miles an hour, and you feel like you’ve been hit by a freight train.
Breathe. It’s alright. Whatever will be, will be. At this point, it’s too late to worry. So no, do not open the document again and check through it. You will only regret it.
3. Relaxation
Maybe you force your relaxation upon yourself with a glass of wine or two, or perhaps after a while, your mind starts to slow down. Either way, the third stage of handing in your dissertation is relaxation. You realise that there’s nothing you can do either way and that it’s time to enjoy yourself. You’ve spent months (or maybe just one week solid) locked away working on this project. Now you can go and do all those things you’ve been wanting to. Go on that night out, binge-watch that Netflix series, sleep all day. You’ve earned it!
4. Mourning
After a little while, you enter the fourth stage of handing your dissertation in. You suddenly realise that it’s done. 3 years or more worth of work and it’s finally all finished. Your degree is done- that’s it now. Or at least, it’s pretty much done – you might have a few assignments left.
Either way, the project that surmises all of those years of study, all of that hard work, is complete. There’s a sense of something bittersweet to handing in your dissertation. A sense of mourning for all the hours of work you put into it.
5. The waiting
And then, after it all, you have to sit and wait. Twiddling your thumbs idly whilst examiners and tutors read and scrutinise your hard work. What is really just months, it feels like years, constantly counting down to grade releases. And whilst time passes, it feels like it just gets longer – even in the last few days. What should pass like no time will feel like weeks. All leading down to that one moment where you sit refreshing Turnitin again… and again… and again…
