4 Revolutionary Ideas That Came From Grad School Theses

By Emily Plummer on November 12, 2015

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For many of us undergraduates, graduate school may seem a long way off. And depending on your academic or career path, it may well be. But if you thought that grad school would simply be a continuation of the traditional education you have been experiencing up to this point, you may want to rethink your idea of it.

Graduate school is a time to hone your ideas and research to create a truly viable thesis that will make a contribution to academia or even the world. This is a time to focus in on the subject you are most passionate about and try to solve a difficult problem or present a new idea to the field. You get quite a bit of freedom (this also depends on the school you attend and the thesis advisors assigned to you) to make a contribution that will have a real impact on your field.

If you don’t believe that something you produce in grad school could have a real impact on the world, just check out these groundbreaking ideas that originated as graduate theses.

1. Marie Curie’s “Research on Radioactive Substances”

Image via rsc.org

Ever heard of her? In 1903 Marie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel prize, and she won it — alongside Henri Becquerel and her husband, Pierre Curie — for the very work she had begun with her PhD thesis.

This work details her discovery and interactions with radioactive elements including radium and polonium. Marie Curie’s work paved the way for further research into radioactivity throughout the 20th century as well as played an important role in the integration of women into the sciences.

2. Claude Shannon’s “A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits”

Image via kidscodecs.com

This one may be a little more obscure by the title, but I can assure you Claude Shannon’s thesis has had an enormous impact on each of our lives. Published in 1937, his thesis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology proved how Boolean Algebra could be used to simplify the relay arrangements that created the automatic telephone exchange system.

This was the new technology of the day that eliminated the need for human switchboard operators to connect phone calls. This idea applies binary properties of electrical switches to logical functions — the basic concept that runs computers. To put it more simply, the underlying concept on which all of our computers, iPhones, and tablets are built off of, was proven in Claude Shannon’s master’s’ thesis.

3. Karl Marx’s “The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature”

Image viahoodedutilitarian.com

If you have heard of Marxism, or read “The Communist Manifesto” in one of your history or philosophy classes, you know who Karl Marx is, and the impact he had on the world. Published in 1841, this thesis is Marx’s first outline of the differences he saw between freedom and determinism — concepts that went on to play integral roles in his political ideas of the class struggle, and eventually, Marxism.

This ideology had a lasting impact on the world that can be seen even to this day. And to think the origins of this were published publicly when Marx was only 33 years old.

4. Kim Eric Drexler’s “Molecular Machinery and Manufacturing with Applications to Computation”

Image via 33rdsquare.com

This man is responsible for popularizing and revolutionizing molecular nanotechnology. For his PhD work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Drexler detailed the possibilities of this type of technology including the groundbreaking idea of “nanofactories.”

While the details are complicated, these concepts open up possibilities like producing some type of “nano-robots” to  defeat cancerous cells in the body. Still relatively recent work in the engineering field, Drexler’s ideas have been expanded upon by many others to add to the field of nanotechnology.

Now it may seem intimidating hearing all of the incredibly groundbreaking ideas and discoveries published in the theses of graduate students, but this list is not meant to discourage or deter you from grad school. Just the opposite. If these grandiose concepts came out of the work of grad students, your work can be just as legendary when you attend graduate school.

I think the idea of graduate students as “students” may be a bit limiting. Though you are still learning, still practicing and improving your skills of methodology, research, and writing, you are simultaneously doing real work in your field. I say “real,” and what I mean by this is new, or your own.

Just imagine all of the incredible research going on this moment from graduate students around the world working toward master’s degrees and PhDs. Some of those will form the basis for the revolutionary discoveries, principles, and ideologies in the coming decades.

And one of them could be yours.

Learn more about Kaplan’s test prep options and start building the confidence you need for Test Day.

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