And while less popular research areas do not see as much competition, students who want to pursue a thesis topic not represented in their department can encounter trouble finding someone with the requisite knowledge.

“Professors want to advise on topics they know about,” says UPSO co-chair Kelly N. Fahl ’06. “If your interests lie outside the scope of the department, it would be practically impossible to do it with a Harvard professor.”

Particularly in the sciences, potential thesis writers must constrain their research interests based on the resources available in their departments. Science concentrators’ research topics must overlap with those of a faculty member in order to secure the use of research facilities and lab equipment.

Shaw says he holds sessions with juniors to ensure that students have “realistic expectations” and “some consideration of the resources that exist within the faculty and department.”

Currently among psychology theses, many are extensions of a professor’s research, says Fahl, who is also a Crimson editor. “So [the thesis] is less meaningful,” she says.

According to some department administrators, though, some of the difficulties of finding thesis advisers may encourage more meaningful theses to be written.

“I’ve not known anyone who has a worthy project who’s not been able to find a thesis adviser to work with,” says Economics Assistant DUS Robert H. Neugeboren. “We’re trying to weed out those projects that aren’t worth doing.”

“This system makes sure you want to write a thesis for the right reasons,” he adds.

“There are still too many who [write theses] and who oughtn’t because they just don’t have the skills and their expectations are all wrong,” says Williamson, who adds that these students comprise “a small number.”

ON THE ROAD...AGAIN

Often, the process of finding thesis advisers is complicated by circumstances beyond students’ control, such as faculty departures or temporary leaves.

Diana N. Fridberg ’05, an anthropology concentrator, says she could not finalize her thesis topic until last October because her first thesis adviser left Harvard.

“I was sort of at a loss for what to do, and I didn’t feel I had a lot of guidance during that period of limbo,” Fridberg says. “I was sort of on an un-doable project for a while.”

Temporary faculty leaves may be as disruptive of thesis plans as are faculty departures.

Romance Languages and Literatures DUS Virginie Greene wrote in an e-mail that in the process of finding thesis advisers, “another difficulty comes from leaves of absence...often, one doesn’t know whether one will be on leave until quite late in the semester preceding the leave.”