Potential Thesis Topics

A few ideas of potential thesis project topics:

1). After working on the PE fit project, I thought it might be interesting to play off this same idea and create a study as an independent research project focusing on some of the same measurements of personality, values, goals, life aspirations and perhaps job perceptions to to assess employees fit into a company. This research might include following a a specific or maybe a few local companies. While I enjoy the concept behind something as this, I feel as if to create an entire project would be highly difficult at my current level of knowledge about this type of research and study. I've watched professors build upon the PE Fit study for several years, and I feel like this would be hard to duplicate in a semester.

2). I've noticed myself having a difficult time through my collegiate years, truly finding a place within academics, choosing majors, and in some ways even struggling to develop my own individually designed concentration as well. School hasn't seemed to have been the component of where I feel a sense of achievement. Maybe come may (crossing my fingers for graduation) I will feel this, but as I enter into the "real" world, I worry often about how I will attest to what I have accomplished in the last 5 years. As I have said in the previous entry, a place that I did feel accomplishment was in some leadership positions outside of the classroom. In some ways, I believe that achievement shouldn't be recognized merely on GPA's etc, but be looks upon more collectively as a whole. I would title this as the Collective Collegiate Intelligence. Academics alone, do not reflect or yield performance and capabilities. I think it would be interesting to highlight to importance of experiences. Experiences can truly shape us into the individual we have become, and through they we also learn valuable life skills and lessons which in some ways can be bigger assets to our future endeavors. Perhaps a helping new creation of a system should be developed to measure this collective collegiate intelligence, whereas a GPA just measures one's academics. The University uses a small program referred to as SDR, called Student Development Records which is fashioned in a similar matter to add specific club, activities, and positions involved with to student's transcripts, however most students I believe do not know of this feature and I don't think it currently has a heavy value. Perhaps if society wholly viewed higher education more collectively a different perception could be made about students worth outside of the classroom in their experiences. I would want to tell my own collegiate experience as a background autobiography to this topic.

3). Fall 2010, I completed the Creativity Seminar. Articles which sparked most interesting to me was within Remarkable Women focusing on creative women and on other topics of group creativity. After reading an article from msnbc.com titled, "Good Decision- making Groups Need More Women", I was intrigued with the idea of inclusion of women in to groups, business, corporations etc. Women have been noted as having high social sensitivity- perhaps groups which include a higher proportion of women may perform better. I feel as this topic is the best to truly tackle. I would like to examine the personality, and perhaps biological development and make- up of a woman to why they better social sensitivity, intuition, and how this can effect decision making, performance, success. l also, thought it might be interesting to follow trends of some top companies in which the position of CEO is filled by a woman versus a man. I am currently reading, It's Not a Glass Ceiling, It's a Sticky Floor, by Rebecca Shambaugh. This book focuses on the skills a women possess to truly drive bottom- line performance, and I hope to use some of my prior research and this publishing to start what I find to be an interesting present day topic for a thesis.

Individually Designed Concentration

My individually designed concentration is Organizational Studies specifically focused within the business field, but studied topics can relate back to just about any social group, company, club, team, corporation, or organization. There are many aspects which play into the functionality and development of an organization, and I think its important to understand the broaden spectrum of subjects which relate to this. Relevant coursework includes: Organizational Psychology, Interpersonal Communication, Environment and Human Behavior, Social Psychology, Human Resources, Organizational Behavior, Public Administration. Cultural perspectives are drawn from Spanish courses and Intercultural Communication. With a general business minor, other relevant subjects were studies such as: accounting, economics, and finance.

I decided to make Organizational Studies the focus of my concentration after taking Organizational Psychology. The class focused on topics such as: leadership, motivation, performance, job satisfaction etc. I felt like, finally I had found a course of interest. I've focused a vast amount of hours outside of the classroom, in specific positions which have helped me learn valuable skills to hopefully take into a job after school. Some of these list: resident assistant, vice president and treasure of the Residence Hall Association, President of Theta Nu chapter of Alpha Phi Fraternity.

I've also dedicated the past year to working with two undergrad psychology professors and heads of the i/o psychology master program on a research project called PE FIT. The purpose of the study is to examine how perceptions of student-instructor fit impact learning and classroom outcomes. Specifically, the study will examined if students’ initial perceptions predicted the fit between themselves, the instructor, the classroom, and the classroom environment. Primary interest is to inform educators of the degree to which student-fit may impact continuation in the department and performance. Measurements were assessed on personality, personal values, goal orientation, life aspirations, perceptions of their course and instructor, and familiarity with the discipline.

Ultimately organizational development consulting is a path I might wish to pursue in hopes of utilizing the materials and skills I've learned and acquired throughout the course of my academic career.