It's dissertation season!
Just like Hay fever, I knew it was coming but I was trying not to think about it too much. Last week, just as my hay fever kicked in, I handed in my final assignment and dissertation season officially kicked in.
This is going to be my life from now until September and I’m going to try and make it as enjoyable as possible. I’m from an architecture background, so I haven’t really written a traditional dissertation. A final design project was always the ‘dissertation’ with a supporting insubstantial document. So, in that sense, this is my first dissertation.
I’ve changed my dissertation proposal so much that I’m still not quite sure what I’m doing, but the broad idea is looking at projects which have received Heritage Lottery Funding, from massive multi-million-pound projects, to the very smallest projects at a local level.
It sounds boring on the surface, but I’ve decided I don’t want to do a dissertation based on desk-based research, instead I want to get out and about and meet lots of different people and undertake lots of interviews at different heritage sites. I’ll be kicking it managers at a several of castles and stately home. By taking this approach, I thought it might make the dissertation process quite fun and give me the opportunity to meet people within the heritage sector.
Beyond this, I’m not quite sure how I will approach it, or even what it is really going to be about. It’s going to be quite organic in nature and something of a learning curve, but I’m kind of looking forward to it. I must be getting old, as there is no way in this world I would have said I’m looking forward to writing a dissertation a couple of years ago.
I’m going to post regular updates on the experience of writing a dissertation, good and bad between now and submission in September. I’ll also keep you posted on my hay fever.
