There has also been a decline, beginning in 1971, in the number of Government Department theses.
"That old business where the thesis is a status symbol--you can't hold you head up unless you've written one--I think we've gotten beyond that," says Laurence D. Brown, head tutor of the Government Department.
If academic and peer pressure to produce theses is waning in many departments, [see page 1], the trend may be reflected in the advice seniors receive. One senior tutor says he advises those who come to him with doubts about their thesis to drop it unless they find it exciting. "I've seen too many seniors drag their ass through February and March, not getting anything out of it, because they didn't have the courage to drop it in January," he says.
It is hard to know how many seniors drag their ass through February and March wishing they didn't have a thesis to write. The most telling statistic is probably the number who drop their thesis (about 14 this year in Reyes's Government Department, for example), but that doesn't take into account the seniors who want very much to drop their thesis but don't. The discontent of thesis-writing seniors is apparent to friends, of course--thesis writers are wont to stumble bleary-eyed into a dining hall and gripe about their work--but often invisible to official Harvard. Seniors probably do not often complain to counselors and advisers when they have problems with their these or problems with courses because of too much thesis work. For example, William G. Perry '35, director of the Bureau of Study Counsel for the last 27 years, can't recall if he has counseled seniors for thesis-related problems. "None come to mind, but I'm sure I must have," he says.
***
George Reyes has not visited the Bureau of Study Counsel with a thesis-related or academic problem, even though he is falling far behind in his classes and recently asked for his first extension on a paper since coming to Harvard. There isn't much that the Bureau--or Room 13 or his senior tutor--could tell him. He will either finish his thesis or drop it, and whichever he does, he already knows the reasons, alternatives and consequences.
He will probably finish the thesis, though, because he wants to prove something by writing it. Since coming to Harvard, Reyes has felt academically inadequate, as though "I couldn't compete adequately with the folks here." Not just the "kiss-ass" folks who regularly attend professors' office hours, but also those who do well without much work.
Reyes figures if he can last another two weeks, grinding out about four pages a day (his maximum output so far), he will have something academically competent if not brilliant to show for his work here. He has a sort of "mystical" confidence that he'll finish the thesis on time, but he is often frustrated these days that so many friends ask how it's coming. He does not like playing the role of the bleary-eyed thesis writer talking about his opus.
"What I hate is going into the dining hall and friends ask, 'How many pages do you have?' And I tell them, and they say, 'Is that all?' I sort of get on edge, whether they're kidding or not."
But Reyes is constantly polite, so he does not seem bothered by thesis talk, Wednesday, for example, he was eating lunch in South House's Whitman dining room when a friend walked up, set his tray down at the table, and asked, "So George, how's it going?"
"All right," Reyes said. He smiled, and then added softly: "I suppose."