It was in the final year of my bachelor studies  I first found out how hard it is to find a good thesis topic. I was ready to work hard on my final coursework thesis and devote hundreds of hours and exceptional effort. Bigger projects always motivated me. I was glad to have something tangible to finish my studies.

The only thing I wasn’t sure about was what exactly it was I would devote so much time and effort to. Most of my classmates felt the same and there was almost no advice at hand.

In the end, most of my classmates ended up tackling easily accessible topics they haven’t thought about very much. I was lucky enough to roughly know which area I was interested in, but had no idea what the specific question should be. When I heard that one of the teachers specializing in that area offered ready made topics, I didn’t waste a second. I made an appointment with him and agreed to work on the topic he proposed. I didn’t know nothing about it, but I was ready to learn more. The feeling of not having to search for a topic for next several weeks was a relief.

When I reflect back, it’s hard to believe how little attention all of us gave to such an important decision determining where we invest hundreds of hours and huge effort over course of months or even years. When I finished my bachelor studies, I’ve decided I want to do something about it. I’ve found that people from the effective altruism community had done research into which world problems are most pressing. Still, mMany of these problems lack research attention. I immediately saw an opportunity to link up problems that needed to be solved with students looking for topics.

I came up with the idea of my website: effectivethesis.com However, offering students topics in need of research still didn’t feel like enough. I wanted to help more.

Another thing I hated about doing a final undergraduate theses project is that it was unlikely my thesis would get read, let alone used to make a difference. I had not invested hundreds of hours and huge effort just to put my thesis in the drawer. I reached out to organisations working on some of the most pressing world problems and asked them whether they have questions they would like to research, but don’t have the capacity to do it themselves. I hoped that would ensure students’ work would be read and, hopefully, used. I also asked the organisations to provide students with consultations, to give them research user perspectives and ensure that outcomes will be of highest quality and relevance to the organisation.

From questions brought by organisations, we have created complete research topics, including justification of why the topic is important and some introductory sources to get a head start to the topic. Students could be sure they are working on one of the most pressing problems and cooperating with organisation that will utilize their work.

However, that is still not the end of the story. During the first year of existence, we found our advice and topics are not suitable for all students. Some students were struggling to find a supervisor at their faculty for a topic they liked. Some topics we proposed were too broad and would require narrowing down. Some students were struggling to assess whether they are a good fit for the topic they chose with their skills and longer term career plans.

To account for these issues, we have decided to take more individual path and started providing individual coaching helping students find the best thesis topic. In the coaching process, we try to take into account factors like longer term career goals, supervisor availability, students’ interests, skills, experience and course requirements. The aim is to help the student choose a topic tailored to their circumstances in such a way as to help them have the highest social impact. During an online call, the student can discuss coaches’ suggestions and design the final form of the topic. If students don’t prefer any of the suggested topics, they may clarify their expectations and coach will try to suggest new set of topics based on their clarification.

The coach will not help students with thesis writing itself, but if students decide to work on one of the proposed topics, we will try to connect them with external researchers or organizations working on the same problem. And what is the best thing? It all comes with no charge to you! Our aim is to help students and researchers to significantly improve the world via researchhave research impact. The only expectation we have from you is to conduct high-quality research and we will support you in that.

We have just started second year of this project, already managed to connect 12 students with organisations, found a topic for another 20 via Thesis Topic Coaching and in total helped 32 high impact projects to come into the light. Want to be part of this project? Get in touch and make your thesis meaningful!

Author Bio: David Janku now runs the Effective Thesis project fulltime.