Does a bachelor thesis have to contribute anything useful to the field?

[Rakanoth]

I have overheard a discussion where some people were discussing how someone's bachelor thesis does not contribute anything useful to the field. They were surprised that the guy could actually graduate with that thesis. This got me thinking. Is a bachelor thesis supposed to contribute anything to the field? I read the guy's thesis and I think it does a very good job in summing up what exists and analyzed things in a thorough manner. Again, does a bachelor thesis have to contribute anything to the field?
 

[2FA]

Mine was supposed to demonstrate our gained knowledge from the program, with the content not necessarily having to be new contributions.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, comander said:

Most PhD theses don't really accomplish much in the real world. Most research doesn't either. 

What matters is that SOME research does accomplish some big things. 

----

Think of it this way, if 10M people finish undergrad a year and 20% do theses, then there's 2M new theses a year by know-nothing 20-somethings with poor research skills and often with 0 relevant real world experience. 

Most PHD and Masters students are involved with research that’s currently being done by the university, and are allocated them by the HoD, so it’s not significant, but is part of something quite important. For instance I might be doing some RNA-Seq on laborotory mice, comparing how early immune response in the mother can cause autism in the mice, and potentially see if early development can be regulated to potentially correct the autism. 

On its own the RNA-Seq will just allow us to implicate the proteins active in the development and compare with the autistic mice, over their development (with different mice as you take brain samples to RNA-Seq). 

Whilst together we could potentiate a cure for autism due to the severe immune response in the mother (will cause a cytokine storm in the foetus), based on rodent models.

[Guest]

30 minutes ago, comander said:

For what it's worth I have a graduate degree and have actually laughed and joked about the nature of research with one of my professors (something mathematical). It's somewhat sombering. One of the "elite" schools mentioned in the recent college admissions scandal if you want context. 

Most doctoral-level research is never meaningfully used. Most receive 0 citations within 5 years of publication. 
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-08404-0

Beyond that a good chunk of research is literal bullshit. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

 

To be fair, the range of topics now studied at tertiary education is so diverse, it’s not surprising most of it is not used. (Not surprising this crisis affects social subjects oof).

 

In undergrad not to often ago I had to do a psych paper that involved participating in psych research. 99% of it I found to be obvious or complete bs.

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, comander said:

I think of research utility as being akin to a long-tailed gamma distribution with the mode around 0. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_distribution

Most papers have very little value. Most researchers would likely be more valuable to society in industry or even the correct governmental agencies. 
There are a handful of research papers which are truly world changing... think nobel prize winning work. 

I’m a geneticist, so idk about maths sorry. Don’t need it, all the computer thingies do it for me. 

It all depends on subject and what work you do. I couldn’t care any less about maths because I don’t need to, but on the other hand, the whole world appreciates Genetics a lot more. It doesn’t really matter anyway, what matters is the paper’s relevance to you.

[kotenok]

On 6/21/2019 at 12:26 AM, Rakanoth said:

I have overheard a discussion where some people were discussing how someone's bachelor thesis does not contribute anything useful to the field. They were surprised that the guy could actually graduate with that thesis. This got me thinking. Is a bachelor thesis supposed to contribute anything to the field? I read the guy's thesis and I think it does a very good job in summing up what exists and analyzed things in a thorough manner. Again, does a bachelor thesis have to contribute anything to the field?
 

Depends if it's humanities (languages, international relations, history, etc) or STEM

Myself, I just got some gibs and was offered publication that never materialized. In STEM you can make a thesis that will get you money and employment (university might be cooperating with potential employees that will use the solutions that you will prepare and will pass your thesis at the same time). At art subjects you might just submit a project that you did for employee but in all cases you need to know how copyrights work in your country.

[Teddy07]

No

[NineEyeRon]

Mine critiqued acceptable levels of heavy metals in lakes and ponds as they vary from country to country.

 

I even ran an experiment to simulate a range of levels of certain common pollutants, measuring the health using bio indicators.

 

I praised Canada but found the US and China to have levels that may have an adverse affect on standing water plant populations.

 

I don't think I had much of an impact though...

[aisle9]

The point of a bachelor's thesis is to prove that you know how to research, write and defend a thesis. You're not supposed to contribute anything to the world, just prove that you have the basic skills needed to do so in your doctoral and post-doc theses.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

On 6/20/2019 at 8:26 PM, Rakanoth said:

Is a bachelor thesis supposed to contribute anything to the field?

No.

There may be instances where Bachelor, or more likely Master thesis happen to make a minor contribution, but their main goal is for students to develop and show an ability to tackle a specific subject in more depth, and eventually familiarize themselves with the technical skills required to conduct research in the future. Making an actual contribution to the field is the requirement for Ph.D. theses.

[wasab]

On 6/20/2019 at 10:57 PM, comander said:

If you want some laughs
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/new-sokal-hoax/572212/

here's the original Sokal Affair (physicist got a leading humanities paper to say physical reality was a social construct - literally that everything is in peoples' heads)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

Publishing standards are awful. There's basically no repercussions for publishing "fake news"

When philosophers of meta physics critique on hard science, you get all sorts of nonsenses. I mean theologians ponder about the nature of God and demonlogist ponder the same thing about devils and demons. How can you argue that with science? 

[spartaman64]

i think the way a lot of professors and other similar types approach research is trying to know more about something just for the sake of knowing and satisfying their own curiosity and not concerned about whether or not its useful. a lot of the high end mathematics research is profoundly useless but thats the spirit of being an academic you want to learn and feed your hunger for knowledge. ofc its different if you are doing research for a company then they expect you to find something that will make money for them. also you never know if what you discover will become useful in the future when electricity was first discovered people didn't have much use for it either

[SpaceGhostC2C]

12 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

i think the way a lot of professors and other similar types approach research is trying to know more about something just for the sake of knowing and satisfying their own curiosity and not concerned about whether or not its useful. a lot of the high end mathematics research is profoundly useless but thats the spirit of being an academic you want to learn and feed your hunger for knowledge.

That would take you nowhere fast.

The academic world is ruled tyrannically by publications in peer-reviewed journals, which you won't get unless what you are doing is meaningful to at least a significant portion of the relevant scientific community. Some of it may inevitably be sterile and self-referential, but most of the times what sounds abstract and almost philosophical to the layman is the foundation on which applied research builds at some future point.

Getting a 5nm fabrication process operational is a drop of water in the ocean in the big scheme of things; quantum mechanics, contemptuously deemed esoteric for most of its centennial existence, is on the verge of bringing about a drastic change in the way we perform, and understand the limits of, computations, and that's just one of many areas where it's starting to bloom.

 

While academia is sadly prone to pettiness and dogmatism, as Pierre Boulle cleverly depicted in "Planet of the Apes", painting it as pure entertainment for wealthy, lazy men just breeds obscurantism.