Other winners wrote their theses only after living with their subjects for months.

Nitzan Shoshan '00 went to Israel to study how politicians use mystics in local campaigns. He observed the distribution of 400,000 magical amulets in one local election.

Although Shoshan said "Widener has an amazing collection of Israeli election materials," he said he was most inspired to write his thesis when he stood in Israel at midnight, amidst a crowd that had gathered around a single mystic.

Nisha S. Agarwal '00 spent three months on the Bombay pavement with a group of impoverished women. She studied their success in constructing their own homes and their mobilization for electricity.

She said the secret to thesis writing is discipline from the very beginning. Because she started the writing process late, she said, most of her year was consumed by her thesis.

Agarwal spent three months in Bombay, but Randolph A. G. Bell '00 also spent three months away from his bed for his award-winning film thesis: "It's Only a Tattoo."

He was exiled to his common room because his bedroom was transformed into a studio that captured the symbolic time-lapse rotting of a tattooed melon. The film was inspired by Bell's desires and fears about defying his straight-laced father and getting a tattoo.