Laker438

Hi all, I am in a tough bind right now. I am 6 months into my masters program and I am having second thoughts about completing a thesis. My program offers a capstone project option (summer research with a small paper) or a thesis option (100 page or more paper). I had trouble initially deciding which route to take and though that the thesis option would be more beneficial to me and honestly took a leap of faith when I told my advisor I would do the thesis option. However, I will note that have had trouble in my undergrad writing lengthy papers and still do in the last 6 months in the masters program. Therefore I am worried about completing the lengthy thesis. The reason I am thinking twice about the thesis option is because I was asked to write an abstract to a conference on research I had not even done in one weeks notice and do not foresee getting done in time to submit a draft paper in February. On top of that I am writing a literature review that I do not forsee getting done on time (next week) and the biggest part of all of this is that my advisor is re-applying for a grant for our project by the end of the month that had been previously denied. I also feel that I am getting depressed from all of the work that is being demanded of me and think that continuing the thesis will exacerbate this problem. I have to meet with the program advisor about my last semester’s GPA which was below a 3.00 because I just passed calculus (4 credits and not part of my curriculum but a required prerequisite). I am meeting with my academic advisor tomorrow and I am not sure if I just try to do the thesis option or just be honest with my advisor and tell him that I would be better off doing the capstone (summer research and small paper) as it fits my career goals better. I want to end up teaching or working in a management or upper-level position not in higher level academia or research. I am worried that my advisor will be mad at me as he is applying for this funding on the premise that I would be here for a year doing research and he is applying for a summer stipend in this grant as well. I would still like to do the research which I think I could do in the capstone but I am not interested in writing a whole thesis. Please let me know what your thoughts are on this issue. Thank you.