Thesis Lessons

This is my first letter after 50 years. My senior thesis was not fun. It was on hydrogen bonding in substituted amino alcohols. I felt it was a failure because I couldn’t make some of the alcohols to test. My thesis adviser recommended finding out what mistakes I was making in the preparation, which I never could do although I spent hours in the lab. I regretted not doing a library project, because it would have been easier. As a result of the unsuccessful thesis, I chose not to continue in chemistry but became a patent attorney. Many years after graduation and discussing the thesis failure with some classmates, I learned that my thesis was not a failure, but an adventure into science.