It was March 2015. We faced the toughest stage of our college life... writing our thesis.
I will never forget how the devil in the details almost cost us our graduation.
"Okay, listen, everyone, you are now a few steps away from marching with your toga on," our professor announced. His tantalizing eyes with long lashes reflected his excitement. "You will have the chance to choose your members and your thesis title. Each group should have five members in it."
We buzzed like confused bees, not knowing what to feel. The class boomed with various reactions. Some were clapping, looking forward to having their thesis. Others were stunned and nervous because they didn't know what to do. Well, we all were. After all, it was the first time we would work on a thesis. It was a do-or-die situation for us. If we passed, we would graduate, but if not, it was the other way around.
I had already chosen two of my close classmates. Our professor said we need to be five. In my head, I was like, 'I can do this alone. If not, I only need two members.'
I was about to ask our professor if my thoughts were okay when Marie asked me if Faye and Jas could join us.
I was speechless.
Not because I didn't like the two girls, but because I wasn't sure how I would handle a group of five. Despite my brain protesting about the idea of having two more members, I agreed, remembering we needed to be five.
To cut a long story short, we began with the task at hand. We opted for the title, "Outcome-based Classroom Mismanagement..." and our title was approved.
We went through the steps to make it happen. From getting approvals to having some important personnel sign our request letters, we followed what had to be done.
When we went to the principal of the school where we should conduct the study, signed our request and title without hesitation. Her approval was our signal to commence thesis writing.
We visited several libraries, so we could find studies similar to ours and use them as part of our related literature. We scanned every nook and cranny of each library to look for sufficient references.
I spent weeks of sleepless nights just to compile the information we had, planning to ask my group mates to type on the computer what I had handwritten. I didn't have a laptop then. Unfortunately, the added two members to our group disappointed me. I had given them a simple task of just typing, but when they showed me their outputs, those were infuriating!
My hands and eyes were sore from writing and trying my best to keep awake just to make things easy for them, yet they didn't even know how to follow some simple instructions.
Frustrated, I asked Marie to take over, and Dally let me borrow her laptop so I could type the information we had gathered. And again, I retyped what Faye and Jas did. While my members were sleeping in their houses, I was wide awake cleaning after their mess.
Finally, it was almost the thesis defense week. We were having butterflies because we needed to survey a specific school. We met with the principal again, and to our horror she wanted our thesis title to be changed.
"Why did you go through with a title like this?!" she asked. Her pitch was a bit higher compared to when we first talked to her. She seemed mad. "Change your title. Whoever would read your study might think that our school is mismanaged."
"But, you signed our request the first we came. Did you read it before signing ma'am?" Marie asked.
"Of course I did! I just didn't notice that 'mismanagement' was the word. I thought it was 'management' that was written."
My world collapsed. My knees buckled; I almost slumped on the ground.
New title meant we needed to ask for approval to change the title. Changing the title meant conducting another study of related literature. And doing the rest meant more sleepless nights for me.
I wanted to scream with disappointment that time. Why didn't she read the request letter thoroughly before signing it? Why was she reacting as if it was our fault? Our thesis defense was in a few days coming.
When I went home, I cried my heart out. What happened made me question the capability of those in position. How could they be proper leaders when they couldn't even do simple tasks?
Wasn't the school principal aware of how she made things difficult for us?
I didn't waste a second. I began researching for new related literature for our thesis upon going home.
The day of the thesis defense came; fortunately, we pulled it off. Although I was on cloud nine after we had presented our study, I will never forget how one's careless understanding of details had almost stopped us from graduating.
Note: The images used in this post are created with AI and edited on Canva.
