Being in the final year of my bachelor’s degree at LSE is crazy enough to digest without the daunting D-word also looming. That’s right – Dissertation. Though I am still very much on a “dissertation journey”, I feel like I have learnt so much already! For that reason, instead of waiting until the end to compile the lessons I have learned, I figured I would write a signpost piece outlining how I’m finding the journey so far and what I’ve learnt about the early stages, worthy of highlighting.

1) Starting early alleviates your stress levels tenfold

All our tutors told us at the beginning of the summer to start reading in order to figure out the topic of our dissertation. But when you’re coming off the back of an exam season and into the glorious summer, it is very hard to put this into practice. That being said, if you do manage to squeeze in a few days to just figure out what areas you enjoy and might potentially want to write about, it really makes a world of difference. Your future self will thank you endlessly!

2) A little goes a long way

The word “dissertation” alone is enough to spark a sense of dread. However, one of the key things I’ve learnt is that a little really goes a long way! By this I mean that spending an hour on your dissertation actually does more than you might think. Faced with such a big piece of work, thinking about how much time you need to dedicate to it is enough to postpone a start. However, sitting down and breaking up the dissertation into little chunks is one of the best things you can do. It helps to see what actually needs to be done and what processes you can take to get there. Just like with anything that feels overwhelming, I find writing down everything that’s in your head is the best way to deal with the stress and actually rationalise the task. Particularly at the start, just doing anything related to figuring out a topic or area is productive, even when it doesn’t feel like it.

3) Don’t keep putting it off

To go hand in hand with my previous point, though the thought of a dissertation is daunting, putting it off only increases this feeling. Especially since there is no weekly tracking or any accountability besides seeing your mentor twice or thrice a term, it can be easy to keep pushing your dissertation aside. Having more immediate deadlines and expectations from other modules also makes it easy to keep ignoring the dissertation. But one thing I found so obvious was just how much of a difference spending even just an hour thinking about your dissertation makes to your progress.

4) Book in office hours

Following from the last point, one of the ways you can make time to just sit and think about your dissertation is by booking office hours either with the course convenor or with your academic mentor. This provides an opportunity for you to think out loud and brainstorm ideas with someone who will be able to prompt you. I cannot stress enough how valuable this is. Talking out loud with an academic, helps you figure out what you might want to focus on, any holes or gaps in your ideas and how to narrow down the topics you want to cover. It has been easily the most helpful thing for me, when it comes to figuring out what I actually wanted to write about.

5) You don’t need to have everything figured out before you start

Again, sticking with the theme of dissecting this huge assignment into more manageable chunks, a final lesson I would stress is the fact that you don’t need to have everything figured out about your dissertation before you start. It is built into us as students that we need to have a clear plan and structure before we can begin the more nuanced aspects of a piece of work. But in terms of the dissertation, starting is the most helpful thing you can do! Start where you feel you have interest and just see where things go from there.

As one of my teachers once told me, the dissertation isn’t meant to be your life’s work. Rather, think of it like three summative essays joined together. Ultimately, it is bound to feel overwhelming but breaking it down and spending time just thinking about it, it’s all you need to do to get started.

Remember that the dissertation is a marathon not a sprint!