Very OT:Desperate plea for help about MA

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Registered: 04-28-2007
Very OT:Desperate plea for help about MA
6
Sun, 07-22-2007 - 6:57pm

Right gals, totally tooootally OT, but I need input!

In case no one knows I have been plugging away at my Masters these last few years. I was 12 credits short when we had to move ls year. 3 credits =a history class I can find here in Atlanta, 3 more credits I can transfer from another school and the last 6 are for my final project.

The cool think about the final project is it can be whatever I would like ...within reason and with a professor from the college who is willing to be my advisor. The crappy thing is ....well see above.

I CANNOT for the life of me find anything I have the passion or commitment for to be my project.

Here are my intersests (or were until I became special needs Mom 2007)
* reading
* movies (Ba in Media and Cultural Studies)
* Anything cultural or cross cultural
* Women's studies/feminism

Lately.....
*HF Autism...duh
* Early intervention
* being Mom, caretaker, lover, puke wiper, night waker, ass wiper, laundress, housekeeper...etc etc

Now what I neeed is a project I can sink my teeth into: the beauty is it doesn't have to be a coventional thesis, or paper; a survey, collection of literary work, play, art collection....ie: anything a professor in the school is willing to supervise. For the 1st time in my life...I am lost.

Please help!!!

Dee

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Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 07-22-2007 - 8:34pm

Masters in what first all? I think that makes a difference on what your thesis is. (Mine has to be related to special ed for instance)

Looking at your interests I think you should combine the 2. How about something to the effect of the history of autism in literature in the last century? Autism just came into being really in the 1940's. I wonder how the topic was treated in literature then compared to now if it was even treated in literature. Perhaps you would have to look towards special needs in general for the older stuff. I think that often our art reflects our times and the oppinions of people of those times so it would be interesting to look at the progression of autism from a literary standpoint.

Renee

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Registered: 11-28-2006
Mon, 07-23-2007 - 1:28am

I was thinking of the same thing that Renee was. For the life of me I couldn't comment until I knew what your MA was in.

If it can be in anything, I would do the same thing. Combine the two. You like woman studies? Thats so cool! When I was about 13 my oldest sister (who now is an Assistant Professor at an Ivy league college in PA) gave me a copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves, and taught many classes on woman studies :).

Anyway, I would think of the things I have the most passion with, and go from there....

Lainie

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Registered: 04-28-2007
Mon, 07-23-2007 - 8:20am

Opps, duh, my MA is Liberal Arts (MLA).

Dee

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Avatar for nutmegspice
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Registered: 03-27-2003
Mon, 07-23-2007 - 9:48am

Dee,

You got some good ideas so far. I like the idea of compairing how autism is represented in lit/film now and then. That sounds like a challenge - just finding examples could be a hunt for me personally. But definately fun and worth it. You could expand on that and include charatcters that exhibit ASD traits but aren't specifically described as having autism. Or you could do something on historical figures suspected to be on the spectrum.....but that could be too much speculation, I suppose.

My first though was how mothers are represented in lit/film throughout history. I have an art degree and one of my art history classes was Feminist Perspective on Art .......I loved that class. My Prof. suggested I minor in art history - I got an A+ I loved comparing how women were represented in art to the time period, how it related to events at that time and how it changed throughout history. It was challenging - there was an essay to right every week on a different topic. I'm pretty analytical when it comes to cultural stuff.....I can't watch tv commercials without commenting, much to my family's dismay. You could choose one piece a decade 1900-2000 that would be alot of reading. But you could probably find some short stories to represent a decade too. OOhh........I'm such a geek - that sounds fun to me....LOL I'm sure there were women's magazines in the early 20th century......maybe a look at parenting techniques through time....something about how the advice the "experts" gave and how that has changed with parenting attitudes and family dynamics. I did do a book summary once for a history class on the role of fathers in kids lives in Victorian times - to make up for a test I had to miss because of a family wedding. That was an interesting book.

HTH! I was one of those kids that loved school. I actually hated history in public school, but grew to enjoy it more in college. You can see I'm particularly fond of this topic!

Good Luck!!

Chrystee

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Avatar for toryanna
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Registered: 03-27-2003
Mon, 07-23-2007 - 2:04pm

Well, I just did a paper last semester on Autism and the way it affects Interpersonal Communication. ( was for speech honors class). I learned some very interesting things about Victor that I was completely unaware of such as the reason why he ALWAYS laughs, even when no one else does. Just another idea to toss out there.

Alexis

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Registered: 12-22-2003
Mon, 07-23-2007 - 3:42pm

Adding on to what Chrystee said...

I did a search on IMDB and founds tons of movies with autism as part of the plot.(Of course, you'd need a subscription to Netflix, LOL!) Even if you narrowed it down to say, the last 20 years, I think it would be fascinating to research and document the media's portrayal of autism...compare fact to fiction???

Not sure that I'm expressing myself very well...but hopefully you know what I'm getting at. :-)

Amy

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