Senior thesis turn-in is never without a hiccup—inevitably, someone will oversleep and miss the noon cut-off, forget to bring a copy of the thesis title page, or neglect to bundle in their working papers, says Registrar Elizabeth Morgan.

By comparison, the actual prepping for turn-in—one of the most significant academic deadlines faced by undergraduates—is an exercise in detail management. The night before, facilities and campus services employees set up tables and chairs in the Founder's Room of Bauer Center. Then dozens of plastic bins arrive—to hold thesis working papers and to organize theses headed to faculty members and the Roy P. Crocker Reading Room.

To facilitate check-in, registrar's office staffers are equipped with their own must-haves, including check-off lists, grade sheets for the faculty, labels for the spines and covers of theses, and if, needed, occasional Fed-Ex shipping arrangements.

Combined with the tubs and tables mentioned above, the final scene bears a resemblance to airport security, including the long lines and the occasional frowning face (read: common thesis mistakes in paragraph one.) This year, for example, about 30 theses were submitted a week early, but the remaining 170 or so (discounting those who opted for first-semester turn-ins) arrived on deadline, says Assistant Registrar Kelly Hogencamp, who handles the bulk of turn-ins throughout the morning.

It's little wonder that seniors celebrate turn-in with barbecues and get-togethers across campus, and contemplate the value of the required project:

• Alexis "Alex" Nelson, a literature major, says her project (The Fall of Milton and the Triumph of Blake: A Comparison of the Fall and Christ in Paradise Lost and Blake's Illustrations to Paradise Lost) was inspired by a trip to the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. "Madly in love" with John Milton, she said, "It was a fun project—it made me want to go to grad school."



• Jonathan "Jon" Huang, a computer science major, says his thesis, The G2 Theme System: An Exercise in Open Source Development, was personally rewarding. "I like my projects, because they actually do something that will help people." (A separate thesis Huang said he prepared for Harvey Mudd College focused on a tool that helps insulin pumps talk to computers.)



• Daniel Taylor, a government/legal studies major, says his Separation of Church and Court was inspired by Justice William Rehnquist's dissent in Wallace v. Jaffree (1985). After submitting his thesis, Taylor, whose post-graduate plans included study at Oxford, said he felt sad. "It's my diary of the last year. I dreamed about it last night."



• Bitta Jansma, a French/international relations major, who will be teaching English in Paris, says she chose Rwandan genocide and its affect on humanitarianism as her thesis topic because it is "exemplary of modern Franco-American relations.
  
  "I feel wonderful," Jansma said, after submitting her paper, "like I just lost 50 pounds."



• Dee Dee Chan, who majored in French/Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, says her thesis was about literature and the poetry of women writers in a Chinese community on Reunion Island. It was inspiring that this group of women was not formally educated until the 1950s, she said.
  
  In conjunction with her thesis interests, Chan helped plan an Athenaeum visit last April with Edith Wong-Hee-Kam, author of The Chinese Diaspora in the Mascarene Islands (1996).

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Students don't just turn in their thesis, but all of their notes and supporting materials, too, as a measure of protection against potential plagiarism charges. And for anyone who happens to miss the noon cut-off, grading penalties—based on how late the product was received—are applied.