From Passion to Completion: My Thesis Journey

In my first year, I emailed my year tutor asking about our thesis. I had only been studying veterinary medicine for 2 months at the time of emailing him, but I already had a question I wanted to investigate. He emailed back, suggesting a supervisor for me. I didn't get a response until my second year, but my idea was accepted, and I began to work on my thesis. 

I wanted to investigate if there was a link between the colour of a cats' fur and the incidence of Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disorders (FLUTD). This topic is of particular importance to me, as two of my cats have suffered from FLUTD. 

I will be honest, I didn't work too much on my thesis for the first year. A little bit of literature review, a bit of thinking about how to design my study. I was very preoccupied at the time studying for the 3P's (Pharmacology, Propedeutics, and Parasitology). 

When I started 5th year, I knew things had to get serious. I needed to start collecting my data, but my literature review wasn't fully complete. Honestly, my literature review wasn't even fully complete in the last month before I had to submit the thing! I began collecting my control data from the university database, spending hours in the library trawling through all the cats that had ever gone to the clinic. I designed my questionnaire, and sent it out into the world. I began working on the theory portion in between classes, spending hours reading and rewriting sections. 

My thesis took a back seat again during my 5th year winter semester exams, and while I did start picking away at it in spring semester, it wasn't until halfway through that I really started working hard again. 

The biggest hurdle was the statistical analysis. Fortunately, I made a friend on twitter who very kindly offered to help me, and check my work. 

In the last few weeks before submitting my work, I started to have some serious wobbles. I was worried that my work wasn't up to par, that the question was pointless, and that I'd completely misunderstood what I was supposed to do. I was worried to the point that I considered postponing my defence, and completely redesigning my study. I do think there were some aspects that I could have done better, and probably will in the future, but after some reevaluation, I pushed through and finished. Following the submission, I had a month and a half of waiting for my tutors' and opponents' comments, and finally, a date for the defence.

On the day of my defence, I woke up at 5am (the earliest alarm I set was 6:30). I arrived on campus at 7:30, for an 8am start. We had a little introduction, and were told about how the day was going to go - my name was second to last on the list, which meant I didn't actually defend my thesis until around 11:30. 

I've had oral exams here before, and I even presented at the 65th Student Conference, but nothing so far has compared to how nervous I was before walking into that room. I stood in front of the committee for 10-ish nerve wracking minutes, talking about FLUTD and statistical analyses, and the genetics of colouration in cats. My opponent had given me two questions to answer in her evaluation of my work, so I gave my prepared answers, and what followed was what I can only describe as a shower of compliments. I could have cried right there, if I wasn't so nervous! 

One of the professors called my work "absolutely perfect", and said that she was jealous of my supervisor because she thought that my work was so interesting. She complimented my genetics section, which was lovely because that was the bit that I felt least confident on. Apart from the prepared questions, no one had any questions to ask me, and instead we had a lovely discussion about how coat colour could be a clinical indicator for some diseases. 

I was sent from the room for all of 30 seconds, before they called me back in, handed me my beautiful book, and said "congratulations, this is of course an A". When I left again, my supervisor said to me, "call your parents and tell them how proud I am of you".

I called Rob on the way home, and my parents to give them the run down. Very emotional, but I don't have too long to celebrate before my next exam! I wish I'd had my phone in my pocket to record it, and to listen back to, but I'm sure I'll remember the feeling of relief for a long time. So much work went into this, and I'm so proud and relieved it's over now. I'll probably end up writing another one.