Dissertation ideas

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Hi people, yet again i find myself baffled with uni work. We have to do a dissertation in our third year and rather than leav it till next year i want to get it done over the summer. Problem is i have absolutely no idea what to do, and to be honest neither has most of the other students.

For those people who have done one how did you come to decide what you did and did you get good marks?? I do have a broad idea of what i am interested in, it would be something on the lines of new or the latest technology. Like the idea of nano technology, using microscopic robots to fix the human body etc. Or just seeing how far mobile phone technology can go because i think that tere will be a cut off point where it gets to a certain stage with current hardward available??

Im really stucj so any pointers would be great.

Ed

 

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Examples of people who got good marks at my university included :-

An OpenGL library implementation in software written in C.

An 80x86 debugger written in 80x86.

Basically people I know generally made things (for electronics grads) or wrote applications in assembler, C or C++ (for comp sci grads).

I can't see how you are going to make anything on the nanoscale for a Computer Science BSc project !

You definitely need to start early and know what you are doing, if you can write an app during your second year summer thats the best bet in my mind.

 

As far as I'm aware, there is usually a reason that a dissertation or thesis is scheduled at a particular point in the course so it may not be a benefit to try and get it done earlier.

It is also a fairly major piece of work and is designed to show research skills, methodologies etc.

A tutor is normally appointed to guide you and the work may also be linked to businesses and other organisations the Uni has contact with.

I'd start jotting down some thoughts (like you have done) so that nearer the time these can be discussed with your tutor to see what is a good topic to pick.

 

Indeed- you normally get a lot more help in your final year. Pretty much agree with UKDarkstart, start noting some idea's down. The one thing I did was think of things that would interest me as a subject, since you have to write a lot about it ;)

 

I got 77% for mine.

Mine was redeveloping an opensource CMS (drupal) and Website for the JUnior School I worked at. The 'scientific' bit of it was improving user satisfaction and access times (I forgot most of it allready lol) but it was something like that. Through the use of an Excel measuring tool I did before and after tests and tests during the work to measure satisfaction and improve user interaction and access times. e.g. Instead of a user taking 1 minute to find a page it takes them 15 seconds because of the way the system is designed. I did hell of alot of research into kids, education and children using the internet. Ended up with 180 odd pages - alot being appendix. We also had to do a presentation, diary (marked) as well as regular meetings with tutor.

It did take me a hell of along time and others a worrying long time of anxiety and stress : /

Basically it had to have a 'thesis'.

E.g. All lamposts are red. Then you had to go out and proove it, evaluate, suggest future improvements etc etc.

Do something you enjoy, something you can actually do and won't be to big of a project is my suggestion.

I know some people did stuff on virtulisation, network management, developing an application which predicts websites you might want to visit. The person who won the vice-chancellors award of the year developed an in browser firewall/anti spyware type thing (not sure of the specifics). Needless to say it was pretty good for a one man band.

 

how the widespread adoption and implementation of communications technology during the late 20th century has affected international trade and relations and to what degree compared with pre 1950s.

that's just off the top of my head haha

 

Lol I like it

Heres a random one from a dissertation generator:
Edges and Discourse in the development of a computing methodology for the creation of linear based patterns of logins: western kings Suppressing Masculist Processes

 

They really do just generate some of these titles out of thin air.

 

I did my Bachelor's research (like a dissertation, but nowhere near as involved) on fermaldehyde bond angles derived through Computational Chemistry. I don't guess that'll help you much!

 

When writing a dissertation there are several factors that need to be nailed:

1. It should be very relevant to your degree, in that the subject matter should be based on what you have already learned.
2. It should not have been done before, at least to any detail that would allow you to plagiarise either off the internet, white papers or books. When you pick a subject you should check to see first if you can find a complete study of it.
3. You are not doing a PhD, so don't choose the absolutely toughest subjects for that level, or you will fall flat on your face.
4. Generally, computer science dissertations require some programming, so be prepared for this.

My project when I was a student was to develop a back prop neural net that could accurately diagnose the various forms of multiple sclerosis, written in C (not C++!) and using Matlab to analyse my results and describe my finding of the behaviour of the specific architecture. This project was actually chosen for me as the initial one (can't remember what it was) was too easily researchable.

Good luck!