Senior year at Yale means many things. It’s your last year being able to see that random campus celebrity and text your best friend about their new, questionable haircut. It’s the year when the Yale senior dance, or “Masquerade” takes place, aka the night when you can relive your previous high school prom glory (or for our COVID-19 gap year students, lack thereof). It’s a time when emotions are high, motivation to do academic work is low, and everyone is trying to knock those last minute goals off of their Yale bucket lists (which would merit a whole ‘nother blog post).
But perhaps most defining for many seniors’ final year at Yale, is completion of a thesis. As put by Google AI (just being honest here), a thesis is “a substantial piece of original research or creative work, often a capstone project, submitted to fulfill a degree requirement, typically for a master’s degree, but sometimes for a bachelor’s degree as well.” Yale College falls under that “sometimes” category. For Yale undergraduates, theses often take the form of a senior essay anywhere from 30-80+ pages long, but depending on your major or departmental requirements, one’s thesis might involve a year-long project, a creative component, or research beyond a traditional essay-format. All of the departments have more specific criteria for these theses (try saying “these theses” 10 times fast), and I’m definitely the wrong gal to be asking about those. However, I can speak on theses in the Film and Media Studies (FMS) department. That’s because I’m currently entering my eighth month of working on my own FMS thesis!
My senior thesis is part of a year-long class called Advanced Film Writing and Directing, in which students get to write and direct their own narrative short film. During the first semester, every student writes an original screenplay that is usually 10-20 pages long. Then, during the second half of the year, students produce, shoot, and edit, and their short films. If you’re coming into Yale as a first-time filmmaker, that’s okay! There’s a TON of professional equipment you can rent at no charge, as well as free editing software Yale provides.
When it comes time to premiere the films, they reserve a big screening room at the end of the year for our cohort, and we all get to feel like Hollywood directors for a night (before entering an industry where that might take a few years…). Not all film majors make narrative shorts for their thesis, though. Some write full-length screenplays or produce documentaries, some write critical essays related to film and media studies, and some do something entirely different! My friend is writing an anthology of film reviews for their thesis because they’re super into film criticism.
As I write this blog in March, I can certainly say I underestimated the difficulty it would be to complete my thesis. While I may be a blogger, I felt particularly lucky not having to write an essay (I like my tone to be informal, what can I say! #SorryNotSorryAcademicEstablishment). But doing anything over the course of a long time, especially something you want to be proud of, is difficult — regardless of what it is. So if at some point you find yourself entering your senior year at Yale, be ready for a few things: your thesis, the feeling of trying to climb a mountain with sticks of butter on your hands and feet, and that sense of joy when you reach the top. Hopefully I’m not speaking too soon. That thesis deadline is creeping up on me…
