Computer Science BSC Graduation Thesis help.

[Dragonatorul]

Hello.

First of all I know this is not a typical thread for a development section, I am sorry.

I am a 2nd year BSC student at a Computer Science Faculty and will be graduating next year. I can’t say I am very gifted in this field or math but I enjoy programming and I find having the ability to create a whole new world at your fingertips amazing. I have two interests: video game development and operating systems engineering and maintenance, though at this time I’m frankly not quite sure what the two really imply as I have barely begun to scratch the surface of the wonderful world of Computer Science.

I have one problem though, I have yet to chose a topic for my graduation thesis and don't have many ideas as the ones that I came up with until now have been rejected on account of either being too bold or not bold enough. The deadline to forwarding a thesis topic is drawing close and I have one idea left: A visual programming application: a game builder, but there already are a couple of quite advanced applications out there and I'm not quite sure what I could contribute to them at my current level. Also, the professor I will be working with is mainly interested in Operating Systems and secondly in Distributed Systems. So I would prefer a topic more along the lines of Operating Systems.

I have been browsing the web looking for inspiration on coming up with an idea but have had little luck. Operating Systems is a huge field and finding a particular topic in such a large sea of interesting topics is quite difficult for a ... newbie. Some ideas were looking for a way to improve the Linux kernel or try to fix some issues that are low on the priority list of the main kernel developer community. But again, there is a lot of information to go through. So I decided to resort to asking for help.

If anyone knows of any interesting particular topics in the Ubuntu or Linux development world that could fit a bachelor graduation thesis please tell me. I welcome any suggestions. Maybe some applications that need further development or could use some new features, anything.

Thank you.

P.S. I am not asking for my paper to be written for me or for any work to be done for me. All I am asking is for some guidance to finally get me started on some track. I can pick myself up from there but I need a direction in which to head. Right now I feel lost and drowning in a sea of knowledge.

[stefangr1]

I advice you to take a topic that is not too broad and ambitious. It is good to have ambitions, but "developing a game development suite" gives a high probability to end up with a work that is good, but not as good as your research plan proposed. It is always better to have results that outperform the goals of a project.

[wrtpeeps]

I'm going on a slight tangent here, but you use the word thesis with regards to your BSC degree.

Are thesis not normally meant to be original (or close to it) research (ie exploring something new) that is generally associated with a Masters or PHd?

I'm just curious.

[simeon87]

I'm going on a slight tangent here, but you use the word thesis with regards to your BSC degree.

Are thesis not normally meant to be original (or close to it) research (ie exploring something new) that is generally associated with a Masters or PHd?

I'm just curious.

Some universities do have a bachelor thesis in their curriculum. It's more commonly associated with a Master's degree or Ph.D. yes.

[run1206]

agreed. my school does senior projects for B.S. students, but they may go into doing a thesis like the Master's and PH.D. students do.
Make sure you decide on a project that's doable and understandable to others. Leave enough time for error checking and handling as well. For my senior project, we did something similar to OnStar with C#.net, but finished the code two weeks before the presentation.

[nbo10]

You have a 100% better chance of finding an answer if you talk with the professor you will be working with.

[Dragonatorul]

@wrtpeeps
Yes, you are right. I don't how it is at other universities but here we have to write a paper (70 page minimum) on either some researched topic or an application you created. Preferably something original (or close to it).

But the point is I have to chose a subject soon but have no idea what that might be. I was hoping someone in this forum might know of some Ubuntu application that requires some work that a BSC student might be able to help with, or something concerning the kernel. Anything.

[stefangr1]

Can't you first pick out a very broad subject, and ask for a professor you like? This still gives you some options to choose your subject later on. Choosing a topic is something different than choosing a specific research question. In fact, on my university the initial choice of the students is only meant to make a match with the specializations of the professors. As the work proceeds, and you become more familiar with the subject, you probably find out what's really interesting about it and then rephrase the topic of the paper a little.

My experience is that people (actually especially those higher in the tree) find it flattering to be asked by a student, you can choose a supervisor that you like, and it shows that you are the active kind of student.

[run1206]

true
if you enjoy the topic alot, 70 pages will be easy.

my HSS senior paper was on bomb detecing robots. i got in trouble for writing 16 pages (text) more than the required 20