The thought in the title occurred to me last week as I sat in thesis class.  At the time, one of our guest speakers was telling me that, “It’s not called thesis just because it’s the last class you take.  I don’t see a thesis here.”  This went on for some time, and at the time I thought the feedback was ultimately helpful, if somewhat eviscerating.  The problem since has been that the comments resonated so deeply with my own doubts about the project, and now I’m not sure what I’m doing at all.  I’m sure that some guests on American Idol get torn apart by Simon Cowell and never return to singing.  I can identify—I’ve barely touched any electronics since last week, and I’m not sure I can really see the point of what I was doing anymore.

The doubts about having a worthwhile thesis have also led me to wonder whether I’ve gotten out of ITP what I should have.  Sometimes I’m amazed that my classmates can’t wire up a motor when that was a basic assignment in one of the introductory classes, but then I realize that I can’t design a pretty web page (e.g. the page you are currently on, at least at the time of writing), and that most of my projects are in one state of failure or another.  Lately I seem to be failing even at the things I thought I was good at, and in addition to wondering whether what I’ve been doing can be turned into a real job, I’ve begun to doubt that it would be the job for me anyway.