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Adding my bits of thesis history:

It took me about 10 months to even start working on it. I managed to blast through it by locking myself in the public library for 2 weeks. Most of the first week was screwing around anyway. Funnily enough, I accidentally submitted a rough draft as the final for my committee. They never read it anyways. The final draft has all kinds of errors and 'insert here' kinda stuff.

My SO had to do basically the same thing, only they procrastinated for ~2 and a half years because the grant was really really good. Their thesis is the only published place for some important things in the field, so it's actually been cited a few dozen times.

A friend of mine took about 14 months to get his thesis done. His description of it was: Imagine you're on a green grassy hill, curled up in the fetal position. And on another hill, just a little hill, there is a bar. You have to get over this bar. It's only 6 inches off the ground. So you look at the bar on the hill over there for months, still curled up in the fetal position. And eventually you kinda lump over at the other hill. And you hork, and sprot, and froll at the other hill. And eventually, crying the whole time, you kinda move at the other hill. You repeat this, in spurts mostly, until you kinda pour yourself over this tiny little bar on a green grassy hill. That's writing you thesis.

Just remember, no one except your SO and hopefully your advisor is ever going to read it anyways. Literally no one.



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