Is Honours that Bad?!
Words by Jocelin Chan
Before starting my Honours year, I heard daunting whispers everywhere about it. Some postgrads claimed that their Honours year had been the toughest in their academic career. One of my mates, who did Honours the year before, discovered that she did not enjoy her field in the process. A student in the cohort before mine said, “My advice is… don’t do Honours.”
Thankfully, I did not take that piece of advice. There are a lot of stories about Honours out there and most of them are not too positive. My own experience was pretty different. I have just finished my Honours year—and I enjoyed it. So, if you are thinking about doing Honours sometime, it’s not all doom and gloom. Hopefully this story will encourage you to take the step!
For those not in the know, the Honours year is an extra year tacked onto the end of your undergraduate course. During this year (which is really about eight months), you complete coursework and a research thesis under a supervisor. Not every department conducts their Honours programme the same way; in Classics and Ancient History, we complete two seminars and an 18 000–20 000-word thesis. The amount of work is nothing to be sneezed at, given the short amount of time. It is considered to be a bridge between undergraduate and postgraduate work, perfect for those who want to dip a toe into what postgrad will be like or to add a bit more shine to their Bachelor’s.
Not going to lie—the year was tough. I had two concurrent seminars in Semester 1. One had an insane amount of readings and forced me to do history through lenses that I found onerous. Alongside this, I had to juggle the preliminary research for my thesis, which was proving more and more difficult as the topic I had originally intended to explore had a dearth of sources. I also had to seriously ramp up my productiveness during the final weeks leading up to thesis submission, putting in the various last-minute structural edits my supervisor recommended. Personal matters that cropped up during the year became real impediments to my learning as well.
On the other hand, the experience was much better than the testimonies that I had heard made out it out to be. The tougher seminar, at the very least, made me realise what kind of historical analyses I preferred. This would end up informing the new angle that my thesis would take. The thesis-writing process itself was fun. Far from being a nuisance, my ever-evolving topic ensured that I stayed interested in it over the year. It kept me on my toes. Even though I’d spent eight months on it, I still found the finished product an engrossing read. Obviously, writing a thesis was different to writing an essay—but I did not expect just how different it would be. There was room to elaborate and dive right into the nitty-gritty debates and details, then assert your own stance on the topic. The writing process for my thesis was less structured than how I would write an essay too. My argument took shape in a piecemeal form and the final weeks were dedicated to whittling it down into cohesion.
I enjoyed working with a supervisor as well. I would even go so far to say that I learnt more from her by just working on the thesis than I did from the two seminars. Everything that she has taught me about how to research, how to challenge myself and explore the extent of a topic, how to structure an argument, and how to use grammar and style to convey the argument are valuable lessons that will stay with me for longer than any of my research on the Roman equestrians.
Work-life balance, as it turns out, was pretty important to keeping up the motivation and boosting my mood in general. Amid the pressures of the year, I found myself letting off steam with other members of my cohort. Once in a while, we would go out for drinks or flop around and chat to take our minds off work. Nothing creates stronger bonds, it would seem, than whingeing together. I also started going to the gym this year. During Semester 2, I decided to keep a day for not doing any work (although this was not always rigorously enforced, depending on how much work there was left to do). Although I could have stayed at home for the entire second semester (both classes were finished in Sem 1), I would go to uni about twice a week to work or volunteer, keeping myself motivated.
I enjoyed my Honours year but that is not to say that it was easy to get through in any way. Still, I came out with work that I was proud of and I knew that I had made the right decision for myself. I’d heard more negative experiences than positive before starting, but I’m happy to report that these experiences aren’t universal! My advice is to make your own decision carefully, put in what you want to get out of the programme, and know your own limits. And if you do decide to try out Honours next year, I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.