Time to get on track

Hey guys,

Sorry I've been super busy over the last month. A lot has happened regarding my thesis.

Books:
I spent all of the first two weeks of the semester checking books in and out of the library. I changed my topic one more time to corporate governance, so I had to start researching all over again. Luckily, there is a LOT of literature on the topic, and a good amount if it is really recent. For those of you who don't know, Rutgers libraries are really good at keeping their collections super up-to-date. A bunch of the books I got were even from 2010.

Proposal:
About a week and a half ago, I finished skimming over all of the books and drafted my proposal and my literature review. last wednesday, I went to speak with my advisor (Professor Lehne) who marked it up and suggested I further narrow my topic into subcategories that I want to look at. I anticipate focusing on four major subcategories, but I came up with 6 just in case some of those categories don't work out. I left the revised version of the proposal with my advisor today.

Tip: Choose an advisor who you are certain you will click well with. Every time I go to my advisor, even though we're talking about my thesis, I feel like we can converse for hours. My advisor is also super thoughtful, and from time-to-time, he will email me book suggestions. Also, when I went into his office, he had an inch-thick folder full of recent articles on corporate governance that he let me borrow (He is writing the third edition of his textbook called "Government and Business" and chapter 4 is on corporate governance. It's a great book, and it's one of the major reasons I settled on Corporate governance as my topic).

Topic: A Love Story
As I mentioned before, I changed my topic again. In case you haven't been following me too closely, I had changed my topic from a case study on Societe Generale (it involved too much economics) to the American regulatory structure (too broad, and also too economics-heavy) until finally I settled on corporate governance. After the second topic, I was feeling baffled and discouraged, wondering why I had chosen this field when it was seemingly really difficult to focus on policy in an economics-heavy field (I have never taken a college-level econ course). I decided to talk to my advisor who knew me and my strengths very well. The reason I chose him was because I took two of his classes, did really well in both of them, and was really interested in his field of expertise. I even enjoyed writing a term paper for one of his classes. Anyway, back to the story: I went to his office hours and he suggested several topics he thought I would be interested in. Finally, when he suggested corporate governance, the gears started turning in my head (the academic version of love at first sight ♥ ) Anyway, after I left my advisor's office hours, I went to the library and like the little nerd I sometimes turn into, I checked out fifteen books on my topic. After having skimmed though all of the books, I decided that this was the topic I would stick with till the end ♥ ^_^

One thing I recommend is that you finish your proposal by the summer before your senior year, because even if it's your senior year, you will be super-busy with applications for grad school, fellowships, jobs, etc., not to mention the senior seminars and otehr upper-level classes you will be taking. It'll also allow you to get a head start on writing it, so that you have less to do at the end of the year, during "crunch time."

That's all for now, For next week, hopefully I will have a clear timeline and maybe even an outline that I can start writing from. Realistically, I'll probably only have the timeline done, but I will still make a deliberate effort to at least start the outline. Until next time!

-A