Tag: Senior Thesis

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Conduct Research Independent Work Present & Publish Findings Resources

My Experience at the 13th U.S. National Combustion Meeting

From March 19 to 22, 2023, I was at the 13th U.S. National Combustion Meeting presenting a research poster. My work was titled, “Deep Learning Modeling of the Filtered Generalized Progress Variable Dissipation Rate in Turbulent Premixed Combustion”. In my junior year, as I was planning what to work on for my thesis and what goals I hoped to attain, I determined that I wanted to go the extra mile in my research, enough to be able to go to an academic conference. With some hard work, the patient guidance of my adviser Prof. Michael Mueller, the support from my labmates at the Computational Turbulent Reacting Flow Lab, and the funding from several sources (MAE, CST, OUR, and ACEE), I was able to attend this conference! This was my first research conference, and I cannot overstate how valuable this experience has been to my growth as a researcher.

Agnes Robang standing in front of her research poster at a conference
Agnes presenting her poster at the 13th U.S. National Combustion Meeting
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Independent Work Present & Publish Findings Research Life

A Letter to the Juniors on the Senior Thesis

Students sitting in rocky dining hall working on their senior thesis.
Students working hard at thesis bootcamp

Hello juniors! 

Spring is always a rollercoaster of a semester. We have just about 6 more weeks of school before spring classes are over! Before you know it, you will be a senior and will have to start thinking about the big T – thesis. I recommend you take a little bit of time to think about your thesis – maybe you’ve already started after reading Ryan’s great post around choosing a topic. You don’t have to have all of the answers right away, but at least you would already have given it a bit of thought and let your ideas brew at the back of your mind. 

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Conduct Research Independent Work Present & Publish Findings Research Life

Senior Thesising 101: Choosing your Topic

Princeton building at night with light snow. Tree in center of frame and lights casting a glare
The first snow of the semester indicates that senior thesis season is upon us!!!!!

      Senior thesis. Senior thesis. Senior thesis. By this time of year, you have most likely heard seniors in the middle of the night at Firestone or at Coffee Club study breaks, thinking about, stressing about, and working on their senior thesis. In my last post, I wrote about one of the first and most important steps of the senior thesis process, choosing the right adviser (see here). Now, I walk through what I believe to be another pivotal moment for the senior thesis process: choosing a topic. For SPIA majors and presumably for many other majors as well, it may seem difficult to narrow down your project to one specific topic when the major is so broad and diverse. Throughout my time at Princeton, I have taken classes in law, environmental policy, psychology, economics, ethics and more, and I enjoyed them all. But, I eventually had to choose one topic to write a full thesis on. So, without further ado, here are some steps on choosing the right topic for you.

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Conduct Research Independent Work Research Life

Senior Thesising 101: Choosing Your Adviser

Image of night sky above a Princeton building with comet streaking overhead
Whether it’s to look at a comet in the middle of the night or to hang out with friends, you should always find time to step away from your thesis and take everything in during your last few months on campus. Photo Credit: Ryan Champeau

Everyone has heard of the spooky ~senior thesis~ since the second that they stepped on campus for their official Princeton tour. It may feel far away at the time, but trust me, coming from a second semester senior, it comes around quicker than you expect. I am currently in the writing process, but it has been a long journey even getting to this point. Surprisingly, though, I have loved writing my thesis. It does not feel like work because it is a topic that I am truly passionate about. My goal for my final PCUR posts is to walk you through my thesis journey to hopefully make you feel better about yours. This post will start with one of the first steps of the thesis process: finding an adviser.

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Independent Work Present & Publish Findings

PCUR Archives: Senior Thesis Planning

Two students sit at a table with their pen hovering over paper, working on their senior theses.
Students hard at work at a previous year’s Senior Thesis Bootcamp! (Photo Credit, Denise Applewhite)

As this is posted, many Princeton students are hard at work on their senior theses. Some are on campus right now participating in the residential colleges’ wintersession Senior Thesis Bootcamps. PCURs over the years have written extensively on this very important Princeton milestone. Browse through the posts below if you’ll be writing your thesis soon, are writing it right now, or maybe should be writing now.

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Conduct Research Research Life Resources

iFly and I Rest: Making the Most of Winter Break

Photo of hand holding a takeout container with mini donuts covered in chocolate and powdered sugar. A blue food truck is in the background.
The outdoor food festival takes place on Prospect at the end of Wintersession. From donuts to skiing to iFly, you should definitely check it all out!

Winter break is long and much-needed. It is a time to relax, rejuvenate, and reflect on the semester. In this post, I will give advice on how to make the most of the next few months, but I recognize that you know yourself best and should choose to spend your break in whatever way makes you happiest. Without further ado, here are my takeaways from the last 3 winter breaks:

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Independent Work Present & Publish Findings Research Life

How and Why to Use Firestone Special Collections

Hand turning page of a book of 13th century poems in Firestone special collections.
Hand turning page of a book of 13th century poems in Firestone special collections.

Where can you find trinkets Albert Einstein collected in Japan, diaries and manuscripts by Toni Morrison, and an autographed manuscript of The Great Gatsby? None other than our very own Harvey S. Firestone Memorial Library of course! Welcome to the wonderful world of one of Princeton’s coolest resources: Firestone special collections. Basically, it contains anything in the University’s possession that is rare, valuable, and/or too old and fragile to be removed from the library. I learned about special collections recently through my AAS 244 class on Pre-20th Century Black Diaspora Art in which we often check out art and related manuscripts in the special collections.

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Conduct Research Independent Work Present & Publish Findings

Submitted and Successful: 3 Final Steps Before Turning in Your First Paper

Photograph of Princeton University in the rain, with many students walking, biking, and scootering to class holding umbrellas or wearing rain jackets
These rainy, gloomy days are perfect for colorful umbrellas and cozy paper-writing sessions.

“Did I include a scholarly conversation? Where is the motive of my piece? Do I even have a thesis?!” The “Submit” button on Canvas can stir worrisome thoughts as it may seem permanent or stressful. The goal of this post is to walk you through a few final steps you can take to ensure that everything is in check and ready to go, so that you don’t feel like something is missing once turning in your assignment. These points are by no means the end all be all, but you may use them to help you feel more confident handing in your final product. Thus, without further ado, here are 3 final steps to follow before submitting your research paper.

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Present & Publish Findings

A Figure Speaks a Thousand Words

Example boxplot titled Boxplot of Magnesium, Ashwaganda, and Melatonin with Deep Sleep. The boxplot analysis indicates statistically insignificant variations among supplement types. The author describes the follow-up question after their ANOVA analysis: how does my sleep vary with a magnesium pill vs. without a magnesium pill?
The boxplot comparison accurately reflects the variation between different sleep supplements and their effect on deep sleep quantity. As seen above, the boxplot demonstrates the presence of a single outlier under the Magnesium group which could have easily skewed and misrepresented the data in another type of figure.

As anyone who has taken one of Princeton’s introductory statistics courses can tell you: informative statistics and figures can and will be incredibly useful in supporting your research. Whether you’re reworking your R1, writing your first JP, or in the final stages of your Senior Thesis, chances are you’ve integrated some useful statistics into your argument. When there are a million different positions that one can take in an argument, statistics appear to be our research’s objective grounding. The data says so, therefore I must be right. Right?

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Conduct Research Independent Work Present & Publish Findings

Get Your Independent Work Done Without Stress

As a B.S.E junior doing independent work for the first time, I am already anticipating the stressful cram at the end of the semester that comes with senior thesis and junior independent work deadlines. As busy Princeton students, we often don’t think that we have enough time in the week to work consistently on our independent work, and thus, a lot of it inevitably gets pushed off to the weeks (and days) before the deadline. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Putting together a comprehensive plan to organize and budget your time at the beginning of the semester can save so much hassle down the road. Therefore, I think it will be helpful to walk through how to create a plan for independent work over the course of the semester.

Inside Firestone Library, where many students will be writing the bulk of their independent work this semester.
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