What's Your Diss On?

The dissertation is often framed as the climax of the undergraduate experience, the crowning moment when four years of knowledge, skills, and ambition are finally channelled into a single, bound piece of work. For many students, it becomes a symbol of intellectual achievement, the chance to prove oneself a respectable academic weapon. With that pressure often comes the desire to write something ‘impressive’ — something ground-breaking, controversial, or difficult. A piece of work so original and sophisticated that it could rival the philosophers or theorists we studied. After spending four years writing essays criticising the theories of Silver Professors and PhD scholars with our honours student knowledge, it’s unsurprising that we have built a sense of inflated confidence in our own theories. 

But here’s the honest truth: your dissertation does not need to make you the next Voltaire.

In fact, it shouldn’t. What it should do is reflect you — your interests, your values, your curiosities. No matter how exciting your thesis is, you’re going to live with this project for months. You will talk about it in seminars, bring it up at dinners, dream about it and spend countless hours tweaking, editing, questioning, and restructuring it. Remember how frustrating the question “what do you study?” was by the end of our first year? Well, “what’s your diss on?” is the fourth-year equivalent. You will not escape the topic anymore. So, the least you can do is choose a subject you genuinely like.

A common trap students fall into is picking a dissertation topic because it sounds clever or particularly challenging. We think about a project that will be respectable or ‘impressive’, and often forget to prioritise something that we are interested in researching, even if nobody else seems to care. Actually, the more niche and precise the topic is, the more it might be interesting to supervisors, who certainly find themselves reading similar topics every year. The best way to do that is by picking something you’re already passionate about –– ideally something you’ve already built towards in your past university years.

Speaking of supervisors, I was surprised to notice how much the university pushes us to find a topic more than a fitting supervisor. From my experience, I would do it differently. Pick a broad topic, then research the supervisor that specialises in that topic, and then the narrowing down of the broader topic will be done with their help. Most people who wrote their dissertation proposal in their third years ended up doing something completely different. That is not a problem. The actual problem is when you choose a supervisor who specialises in the Impacts of British Colonialism, for example, and then suddenly decide that you would rather write your dissertation on Ancient Greek Burial Rituals. 

Let’s be clear: this doesn’t mean you have to pick the easiest topic. It means you have to be realistic. Choose something you can manage, something that aligns with your skills and the knowledge you’ve been developing, and trust lecturers you’ve found chemistry with. If you’re interested in feminist philosophy and you’ve taken three modules on it, don’t force yourself to write about metaphysics because you think it’s “more serious”. If your degree has been circling questions of political resistance, cultural memory, or queer theory — follow the path. These three years have not been preparation for a sudden leap into something else. They’ve been building your unique (and deeply personal) academic identity.

This is not to say you won’t be challenged. You should be. But there’s a big difference between a challenge and a dead end. When you choose a topic that feels natural to you — one you enjoy and understand — you’re not limiting yourself. You’re giving yourself the best possible foundation for original thinking.

So, no, your dissertation doesn’t have to be revolutionary. Trust that your genuine interests are good enough. If you’re still not sure where to begin, ask yourself: “what topic could I spend six months talking about and still be excited by?” and “what kind of work have I already done that I can build on?”

Find that intersection. That’s your starting point.