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On a DatesShow, when a student majored in agriculture finds his thesis project gobbledup, it's time toask, is the undergraduate thesis still bearingfruit, or is it ripe forretirement?
From vanishing veggies to academicangst, let's dig into the great undergraduate thesisdebate.
Should we keep this scholarlytradition, or toss it like a rottentomato?
And AI could write your termpapers, come up with fabulous PowerPointpresentations, and give you sound traveladvice, it also offers groundbreaking solutions to climatechange, but it's a massive energy gusslertoo.
As Shanghai hosts the 2024 World AIConference, let'sdiscuss, can we tap into AI's potential without depleting our planet'sresources?
For today'sprogram, I'm joined by Yushun in the studio and Josh Cotterrell on theline, first on a DatesShow.
InChina, the culmination of a bachelor degree program typically involves a significant research and writingproject, often in the form of a thesis ordissertation.
This assignment is generally considered one of the most crucial components of an undergraduate's academicjourney, andnaturally, students aspire to excel in thisendeavor.
However, the process of producing a graduation thesis can present uniquechallenges, particularly for students in certain fields ofstudy.
Forinstance, those majoring in agriculture may encounter unexpectedrisks, but go beyond the typical research and writinghurdles.
Recently, an agriculture student found that the cherry tomatoes he had carefully cultivated for his thesis research had been eaten byothers, potentially jeopardizing his project and by extension his timelygraduation.
While ratherunfortunate, this situation highlights a long-standing challenge faced by agriculture students in their thesis researchendeavors.
So, walk usthrough, tell us what's happeningnow, and in the recenthistory.
Yes, so it's graduation seasonagain.
So there are more news and stories related to graduation going viralonline.
And this video of a student majoring in agriculture sadly found some of his cherry tomatoes he planted for his graduation thesis were eaten byothers, and morespecifically, two of his 14 cherry tomatoes weregone.
And the formation of the planting his expectation wasdestroyed, and he had to put a notice board besides to protect his remainingtomatoes.
I had seen such videos before and thought they were just humorous videos about their maybe experiment or results are gettingdestroyed, but now I realize that they might actually be related to their graduation andthesis.
And it's not a rare accidentfor, especially for agriculturalstudents, experimental results to bedestroyed.
Forexample, test samples might be eaten likethis, or animals they are raising myescape, and perhaps establishing separate experimental areas to protect their results could solve theseissues.
But because I think of the large number ofundergraduates, it's kind of hard to actually enclose and protect everyone's experimentaloutcomes.
So as a result some schools use public areas on campus for students to conduct theirexperiments.
Right, andfor, let'ssay, undergraduate students of animalhusbandry, a lot of them need to raise farmanimals, and then onepig, a very naughtypig, ranaway, and this poorguy, youknow, so he has nothing to prove before his thesisnow.
Josh, you got a feel for thesestudents, don'tyou?
Yeah, I do feel forthem, but I do wonder specifically with thisexample, if the protection of thesespecimens, or when you're talking aboutlivestock, forexample, or plants and fruits and things that yougrow, I know I'm playing devil's advocatehere, and I do feel sympathy forthem, and I'm sure that it wasn't their fault atall, but isn't the sort of protection of those specimens and the various factors that may contribute to theirdestruction.
Part of the process isn't that partof, youknow, youknow, I didn't see thatcoming.
Youknow, Imean, shouldn't you take really good care to protect themmaybe, and maybe that's not the studentsfault, maybe that's the institutionsfault, maybe they should have better apparatus in order to protectthem.
When they go into the realworld, when they're actually growing thesethings, they're also going to be subject to invasive species andtheft.
Yeah, and pigs runningaway,huh?
But I don't think that is thecase, youknow, especially when you are researching and studying these specific maybe species and trying to see whether they can be mixed orhybrided, that's different from you actually being a farmer and cultivating a whole farmland ofcrops.
They have a certain number of samples togrow, and they really just need these specific number of samples to beprotected.
They should be better protected than Ithink, because I think there's a difference between surely there must be a differencebetween,say, growingfood, growing vegetables and fruits to beeaten, and very specific samples that are beingresearched,right, in a laboratory or something likethis.
Imean, mostlaboratories, they have restricted access and soon.
Imean, I just have a lot ofquestions.
I would like to see more evidence that these tomatoes weren't just out in theopen.
Youknow, I wouldn't go and justeat, walk into a laboratory and eat sometomatoes.
Wouldyou?Well, you might not walk into a laboratory to dothat, but you might walk into a field and dothat.
And thenlike...Exactly.
Well, I suppose with these undergraduatestudents, majored inagriculture, a lot of their hard work has to happen onfarmland.
It's been pretty tough for some of these agriculturalstudents, and then we've seen on the internet that a lot of them haveshared.
They've done everything they could to sort of guard their fruit oflabor, so tospeak.
Andactually, in recentyears, there's been a larger discussion about the necessity of writing undergraduatethesis.
Well, we've seen that a lot of this discussion has been surrounding maybe more of the liberal artssubjects, as opposed to maybe the science and engineeringdisciplines.
So what is officially stipulated in this country as to the significance and necessity of these undergraduatethesis?
Since China passed its interim measures for implementation on the academic degree regulations in1981, the bachelor's degree has been highly connected with the undergraduatedissertation, the completion of their thesis or graduation design or other graduation practice sections indicate that they have a good grasp of the basictheory, specializedknowledge, and soon.
And the Ministry of Education published the notice on strengthening the work of graduation designs or thesis in ordinary higher education institutions in2004.
It was believed that graduation thesis have played an irreplaceable role in improving the social awareness of universitystudents, cultivating their pursuit oftruth, improving their comprehensive practical abilities andqualities, and conducting scientificresearch.
So there aresome, wesay, regulations on the connection between this thesis andgraduation.
And mostly I think in universities you need to present a thesis or graduation design to be able tograduate.
Right. And in Westernuniversities, it's actually kind of rare to ask undergraduate students to write graduationthesis.
Yeah, it's not aprerequisite.
SoJosh, do you know what are some of the possible reasons tothat?
Yeah,no, you're correct that a lot of subjects in Western countries aren't based solely onthis.
One of the reasons forthat, Ibelieve, because I think there areseveral, is that a lot of Western universities in comparison to China's universitysystem, and also similarly to China's university entrance examsystem, are slightly more varied in their subjectmatter, and also give students a lot more choice throughout their undergraduatestudy.
So forexample, you mightbe, and ofcourse, if you take a liberal arts university where you can almost study anysubject, that's a differentcase, but most universities aren't likethis.
But even if you're studying onespecific, saynormal, quoteunquote, normal undergraduate study in the UnitedStates, or the UnitedKingdom, or in a Western Europeancountry, you still have the opportunity to go outside of your specific subjectarea.
And get credit in thatrespect.
So I think that's one reason why a lot of the time your grade isn't so heavily reliantupon,say, a finaltest.
And then if you take something like medicine where there are several big tests throughout that undergraduatestudy, and also it's not really just an undergraduate study with something likemedicine, it will go on for say seven or eightyears, and you also have to do a lot of practical work aswell.
So assessments are also based on your practicalwork, and you are given assessments and grades from ahuman, from a teacher or from a colleague or something likethis.
So I think maybe this is onereason, but I do know that inChina, that it can also be similar in subjects like medicine aswell.
But it seems to me from readingthis, and also from my experience here that there is more of a focus on this graduatethesis, right inChina.
Yes, I believeso, even for the bachelor degreelevel.
And in theWest, often I suppose the undergraduate program is typically emphasized breadth of knowledge across various subjects in thatdiscipline, rather than deep specialization in one singlearea, which is more common at the graduatelevel.
And my gut feeling tellsme, inChina,well, you're at thatage.
You also spend four years inuniversity.
I kind of doubt how deep you cango, but it is definitely the default arrangement that for the last year of yourdegree, you're going to be focusing on coming up with that big piece of paper called a thesis at the end of yourgraduation.
Andalso, this is a lot of work for teacherstoo.
And because they need to grade yourpapers, as well as they need to sort of talk withyou, maybe throughout the year or maybe just for the finalterm, whoknows, by giving you advice and telling you to howto, some people need to rewrite the thing or adjustthings.
And that is what Chinese teachers and professors will need to do for undergraduate students aswell.
And in theWest, I think there might be this sort of consideration of resource allocation aswell, and supervising undergraduate thesis requires significant faculty time andresources, and many universities prefer to allocate that to graduate levelinstead.
Soactually, there are a lot of factors in playhere, and it's interesting to see there are these differences in thesesystems.
Yeah, I think maybe that is the reason why a lot of people or even experts and professors are saying that we should cancel the undergraduatethesis,right?
And given that the content of undergraduate thesis islimited, they don't have that much of time to research and actually study that specificsubject, and also it may be energy and time consuming for both students andteachers.
A professor from Capital University of Economics and Trade has also stated that he supports the cancellation of undergraduate thesis thinking that undergraduate students who want to pursue graduate studies are necessary to writepapers, but those who don't plan to pursue further study face the hardship of finding a job and are not interested in writingpapers, which does not reflect the significance of writingpapers.
So there are ofcourse, are some controversies on whether we should cancel undergraduatethesis.
I am actually on the side of we should keep this kind of atradition.
Yes. Andwhy? Ofcourse, we know that that is something that is really difficult or hard and time consuming and you need to do and put a lot of effort intoit.
But should we just choose not to do something just because it isdifficult, I agree that many undergraduate thesis might not contain extensiveresearch, but I believe that the process of writing a thesis is a valuable learningexperience.
So from basically formatting the article or structuring the content and the ability to gather information and write a formal written piece to even manage to even managing your stress of writing something that is reallyimportant.
So there are a part of the learningprocess, Ithink.
One point I really need to mention is that the process of writing your final thesis is also an opportunity for college students to learn how to use MicrosoftOffice.
In a properway.Yes, in a properway.
I am always enraged when I see somebody who does really sloppy footnoting and youknow, I'm just really aboutthat.
Okay,Josh, so where do you stand when it comes to the necessity of keeping the undergraduate levelthesis?
Well, I think that it depends on the discipline and it depends on thesubject.
Forexample, I studied politics and history and a bit of law during my undergraduate and master'scourse.
And I think that those subjects and socialsciences, they do require you to be able to read and write a big body oftext.
And so it makessense, Ithink, to have a thesis that demonstrates your knowledge in that subject area and your ability to write well and your ability to organize research and processresearch.
And I think that it makessense.
But I think in otherdisciplines, maybe itdoesn't.
I think that really what we're talking abouthere, I think thepurpose, we have to think about the purpose ofthis.
Right. I think that there should be a greater purpose than just graduating with a goodgrade.
Right. I think the original purpose of a university is to contribute knowledge tosociety, to bettersociety.
Right. So we have to consider the best way in which thesestudents, especially master students and above can actually contribute tosociety.
Sometimes that's with a research paper and sometimes that's with somethingelse.
So I think that it really depends on thediscipline.
I think for somedisciplines,really, you don't needone.
I think that it's not always relevant to careergoals.
I think that some of the skills that you need in order to contribute tosociety, forexample, with something morepractical, maybe something like medicine or evenlaw.
But law wasn't my actualmajor.
It was kind of like a minor that Idid, but I know that I probably would havedone, gotten a lot more knowledge if I'd have actually gone and done something practical rather than just writing aboutit.
Right. So forme, I know that's a bit of a new onstancer, but I do think it depends on thediscipline.
And we like nuancedanswers, but I also like very starkpositions.
It's just goodfor, youknow, I know that's why Iapologize.
That'sokay. That'sokay.
But certainly I see the merits that you guys have brought into thediscussion.
But inreality, this is sort of like a casual quote from an observer looking at the average time that students spend on these thesis writingprocesses.
And we're still talking about the bachelor'sdegree.
Okay. And apparently according to Labor Daily based inShanghai, this was from2015.
Some college students were surveyed and90% of them spent less than 30 days to finish theirthesis, half used even less than 10days.
Wow. Ofcourse, we don't know how big the sample pool is and a lot of the details aremissing.
Maybe they just sort of rounded up all the not very hardworking people orwhatnot.
But I was a little surprised by the findings ofthem.
Yeah. And also you get people saying that this is aformality.
And when you're at undergraduatelevel, nobody's expecting you to have any groundbreakingdiscoveries.
Nor does anybody particularly expect you to add anything new to this specific field in yourresearch.
So what's the point of doingit?
Thenyes, maybe it is giving you a good chance to exercise all those skills and learn all those skills that you shouldn'tmentioned.
But it's taking up so much time for both the faculty and thestudents.
Inreality, when it seems like at least some of these students are not really putting in that mucheffort, but theycan, Isuppose, stillgraduate.
Then it might point to some of the deeper issues of thisformat.
I wonder if you see it thatway.
What I can see is that there are still some meaningful aspects for undergraduate students to actually write their own papers because some professors are alsosaying, ofcourse, we don't actually expect you to have any groundbreaking ideas from yourthesis.
But the academic writing as an ability that both undergraduate and graduate students need to master is something not only about output of apaper, but also a deep connotation of the cultivation ofstudents' creativity and the criticalthinking.
That is how these aspects are reflected among thesepapers.
Andalso, some people could be very critical about the quality ofeducation.
And they would argue that if you scrap the dissertation or thesiswriting, then there aren't really many criteria left to judge the students in an equal and sort of meaningfulway.
That might be a little bitradical.
Andalso, ofcourse, I think most of the tutors are saying to their studentssaying,OK, I don't expect you to have many output in thispaper.
Butanyway, what if there are some excellent students that they can have some goodideas, even in their undergraduateyears?
Right, at least we need to offer them an opportunity to presentthemselves.
Oh, that's sooptimistic.
I likethat. Butseriously, what the tutor or thecounselor, whoever this person's conducting this one-on-one with thestudent, what actuallysay, we don't expect you to come up with anythinggood.
Imean, you could thinkthat, but please don't sayit.
That is like the least puraging thing from aneducator.
But that is basically the way that you relieve the student'spressure, because they've been spending so much time on thinking about a title of theirthesis.
Oh, Isee.Yeah.Oh, I haven't been a student for way toolong, Iguess.
Josh, so what do you think aboutthis?
Andalso, do you think there are ways to tackle thisissue, headson, which is a little lessstressful, but still produced a goodthesis?
Yeah, Imean, I think on your firstpoint, I think that the job of the teacher of what both of you justsaid, I think the job of the teacher or thelecturer, especially at undergraduatelevel, it isn't to belittle thestudent, because I'm sure that many of the students do have excellentideas.
Infact, I'm sure many of them have the best ideas that are then a lot of theteachers, but maybe what they need help with actually help in honing their researchskills, their writingskills, their ability to articulate themselves and then actually put their ideas intopractice.
And I think that takes sometime.
So I think that it's not so much that they'rebelittled.
It's that they need someassistance, some of thetime, which I think is veryfair, at least in my experienceanyway.
But to answer your second question about what maybe can bedone, I do think that dissertation writing can be less painful for a lot ofstudents, but I think that the goal again should be that they'reuseful.
And I think that'sthe, that should be the goal ofthem, although I think that universities are basically just businessesnow, especially at master'slevel.
Anyway, I think that things like having things like ethics training can besomething.
So providing research ethics and things like talking to students aboutplagiarism, also training teachers better to be better supporters and have like mental health resources as well atuniversities.
I know when I was atuniversity, many of my classmates were suffering from mental health issues because our subject really was built on this final thesis because of our subjectarea.
And a lot of people were super stressed out byit.
And there was just no support atall.
It was justnonexistent,basically.
It had to be something extreme for you to have anysupport.
And there were even a lot of terrible cases where people never got help in theend.
So I think this isimportant.
Yeah, I think better institutional support to make the students feel morevalued.
Yes, also maybe other evaluation methods could beimplemented.
I remember that Xinghua Academy of Fine Arts holds a graduation design exhibition everyyear.
This I think not only gives students the opportunity to showcase and provethemselves, but also allows the public to gain more awareness of contemporary art creation and what is going on on these undergraduatestudents.
And perhaps provides more commercial opportunities aswell.
Fantastic. And I like to leave you with thisquestion.
Are we cultivating critical thinkers prepared for real worldcomplexities?
Or are we simply perpetuating an academic tradition that may have outlived itspurpose?
