Disappointed and thinking of switching to non-thesis MSc?

[psych9]

Hello dear Grad Cafe members. I have been lurking here time to time since last year, so now it's time to post.

Ok so... I am about the finish my first year as an MSc student in Psychology (with a Cognitive Science emphasis). I was very excited and motivated at the beginning but now, after my experiment didn't work out at all, I feel like my research is useless. I have been thinking about ways to improve my research and conduct another experiment but whatever I come up with does not make me happy. And the worst is that I don't think it is going to work. I think the idea was flawed from the beginning. My advisor thinks that it's not important if I don't get a significant result in the end but that I should at least try.. Now, it's difficult to gather motivation for something you don't really believe in. I have to write my proposal in two weeks and I'm so stressed out, I can't sleep. I changed my design for the 6th time just today and I still foresee so many problems with it.

I started to wonder if there is a point of writing a thesis if it's likely not going to work anyways. If I cannot demonstrate some sort of effect, I will never make a publication out of it. I am going to leave with the MSc and go job hunting in the industry (research related). I am not considering to do PhD but I would still like that option to be out there. I am working as an RA this summer on another project and I do have research experience I acquired while conducting my own research. I am funded enough to cover my tuition (barely) but anything else, I'm paying from my savings. I am an international student so I'm not working elsewhere. I have 3 more semesters left to complete the program (including next summer).

So... I'm now considering to switch to a non-thesis option, turning my project into a "Major Project" and leave by the end of fall but I'm scared of the implications of this for the future. Will employers value a non-thesis MSc especially in a research-related field? If I want to go for a PhD later, am I going to have a hard time because I don't have a thesis? Should I just suck it up and keep working on the thesis anyways?

Please can somebody give me some insight?

Thanks.

[psychgurl]

Hi,

Take my insight for what it's worth, as I haven't even started grad school. I have to do a first year project that I have started planning out with my adviser, though. What I want to do is look to see what the underlying mechanism is behind a social phenomenon. The only thing is that no one has done work in this area. First, I am going to run a "quick and dirty" experiment on mturk for a couple weeks just to make sure I can demonstrate that a random sample will even do the social phenomenon using my study materials. If I find that they do (and I hope they do!), then I will run a "study 2" during the school year that is more in depth to try to isolate my hypothesized mechanism. This will optimize the chance that I get more than negative findings. Perhaps you could do this? Pilot an idea first that can be quickly tested, then build on that?

[emmm]

Is there anything useful that can be learned from your negative results? In other words, can you change your focus somewhat to try to salvage the situation. It's hard to speak in such generalities, but there must have been something of value that you were trying to determine when the experiments were first designed. It's hard to believe your negative results are completely devoid of any useful information -- again, I don't know details, but is there something you can grab onto, even if it's not as significant as what you were initially trying to achieve?

[abdefghijkl]

Hi Psych9,

I think you may not be getting good supervision from your advisor. I would never allow on of my grad students to proceed with research that we weren't sure would produce some kind of useful result. Your advisor may be trying to just keep you moving in the program and not thinking about your long-term future. (Sorry, but it happens.) You have two options: 1. get the degree done fast by doing the course work so that you can minimize your costs and move forward in life, even if you may end up with a different career path than you originally thought. 2. Ask for a meeting between your advisor and anyone else on your committee so that you folks can figure out if it is actually viable to rework your hypothesis and research as it is so that you can do a research-emphasis degree and move on to the next stage.

No one can make that decision for you, so talk it over with yourself and your advisor. Also, beware: if you want to do a PhD at a top program, I suspect you'll need to have shown you could execute your own research as an MA student, and you'll need the support of your advisor for letters, etc. From what you've posted it looks like he/she may not be in a position to give you that kind of recommendation.

On the other hand, a coursework MA may not keep you out of the PhD - but at what calibre of school? Ask around in your department about this to get the skinny on what your options will be with a coursework MA. I have heard of Humanities programs accepting candidates for the PhD who did quickie MA's if they have excellent grades. - Prof. Susan

Edited June 14, 2012 by Prof.Susan.Nance

[Gneiss1]

I agree with emmm. Research produces results, not necessarily the results you expect or wanted but results all the same and usually you can get something out of it even if it means changing your hypothesis or focus. Maybe you need to just step away from it for a few hours, go for a run or something and then come back to it and see if it says anything different or get with a group of friends and brainstorm.

If you want a PhD to possibly be an option later down the road and you are in research I would think you would want to have a thesis, but I could be wrong I am not in your field so I don't really know how they look at things there. I no in my field skipping out on the thesis option would be a big no-no.

[Dal PhDer]

i think you've been given some really great advice here.

For my MA none of my data was significant...I was upset, until my advisor gave me some really great perspective. Your masters is not about generating new data or finding something fabulous and new- it's about learning the ropes of research and taking on a project independently and completing it. This is to prepare you for future research and enable you to understand the many processes and steps that it takes to complete a project. Also, negative results are just as informative as positive- they really are...proving something doesn't work, is just as valuable as proving something does work. This may vary based on topics/projects, but in general, especially for a masters, negative results aren't horrible.

I think you should really consider what you want to do in the future and weigh the pros and cons. You bring up some great points about money and finishing early, but also the fact that a thesis-based degree will open different doors for you. In my field, you almost always have to have a thesis to be accepted...but I would research the potential programs you might be interested in, and see if it matters. I would also go to your career center at your university and talk to them about your choices and what avenues you can go down with each one. This may help you make your choice.

You may also want to look at this project as a pilot study....there is a lot of value in testing out a method and seeing if it works and what needs to be changed. It might not be a traditional question-answer type project, but it's still valuable. I would also talk to your advisor and your committee members and discuss your concerns. Your committee is there to add expertise and help you through this project, they've also probably seen a lot of students go through this process and can offer some great advice.

Good luck!

[TakeruK]

For my MA none of my data was significant...I was upset, until my advisor gave me some really great perspective. Your masters is not about generating new data or finding something fabulous and new- it's about learning the ropes of research and taking on a project independently and completing it. This is to prepare you for future research and enable you to understand the many processes and steps that it takes to complete a project. Also, negative results are just as informative as positive- they really are...proving something doesn't work, is just as valuable as proving something does work. This may vary based on topics/projects, but in general, especially for a masters, negative results aren't horrible.

Everyone has given good advice here, especially this paragraph above about what a MSc really is. I felt a similar way last fall -- 1 year into my MSc and not too much research/results (we were still trying to get our code to work) and I was actually still doing stuff from my undergrad thesis and that was moving along MUCH better than my MSc. So it was discouraging!

But then I realised that a MSc isn't a complete scientific study, it's just as DalPhDer described above. I'm writing my thesis now, on track for finishing this August, and my main result is a null result. I was dreading having to write it up since it was just going to say like "we tried all these models and parameters in our simulations and nothing worked" which isn't exciting at all!! But as I'm writing it, I'm realising that I really did learn a lot about the subject and developed a lot of good skills in the past 2 years. And although what we tried to do didn't actually work out, we worked on some stuff that could lead to other projects in the future! My supervisor is also talking about getting a paper out of our null result after the thesis, and I'm not too sure that would work out, but of course I will try and see what happens. So don't give up hope on not getting much results yet -- it seems like most of my current department didn't really start their "real work" until at least 1 year into their MSc.

However, Prof.Susan also brings up a good point about your advisor. A friend of mine just quit their program after 1.75 years into their MSc with no well defined project because of a lack of supervision, despite many attempts to get other department members to intervene. By the time it was clear that it wasn't going to work out, it was too late to switch to a course-based MSc (since the course requirement is double and there was only 1 semester left).

Even if you're not doing a PhD, a thesis based MSc will definitely give you different options in the working world. Maybe see how the summer goes -- without classes and TAing, the first summer is often when most MSc students actually feel like they've start to begin their research. In addition to deciding what you want to do afterwards (i.e. what kind of MSc will you need?) it might be worth talking to your advisor and/or getting a committee set up to ensure that you make good progress.

If you think the advisor is the main problem, then maybe you can consider switching to a different advisor if you still want a thesis. I can only recommend that you start sooner rather than later, no matter what path (thesis or course-based) you choose! (i.e. by September). I am not saying to give up on your thesis because it is still pretty early and you can still get a lot done, and a null result is still a result. However, last fall, my friend thought "sucking it up" was the right choice but no matter what they did, it couldn't make up for the lack of advising from their advisor!

Just wanted to give you some more similar stories, hope it helps you decide what's best for you!