Lillian was the first to enter the small auditorium of the university. She was very nervous. Today the 30 students pursuing a psychology degree will be assigned their thesis topic by a draw. It was the first year that the students didn't choose their own topics. The previous year there were a couple of cases of academic fraud. In both cases the students confessed they had proposed a subject for which they knew the existence of an unpublished research paper. There were rumors that the practice was frequent. That scandal leaded the college authorities to choose a draw to avoid such kind of plagiarism.
Lillian was nervous and disappointed, the uncertainty was killing her. She was used to carefully plan every detail of her career and her life. She was a very focused girl, even a single minded one. Everything she did she did it for a purpose, always putting little pieces together to build the future that she had envisioned for herself. At 21 she was the youngest senior student and her grades were probably the best of her class. She was a pretty girl, with a slim figure and beautiful legs, her breasts were small but perky and she had a beautiful, innocent looking face with green eyes and long red hair that made her very attractive. In spite of her beauty she rarely dated. As everything in her life she had planned ahead the kind of man that she wanted and won't date anybody that doesn't fit that profile.
She was trying to figure up how this random thesis will fit in her plans. Many of her classmates were interested in the clinical and sociological aspect of psychology but she despised those areas. She wanted to use her knowledge of the human mind to build a successful business career. She had planned to do her thesis about the traits that made women succeed in business and politics, as a matter of fact she was already familiar of previous research and theories and had made a list of relevant persons that she wanted to interview for her own research.
As part of her career plan, Lillian had applied for an internship at Johnson & Carter, a very important personal recruitment firm and she got the position in spite of her young age. Her plan was to acquire experience and become very successful at predicting people success, especially women success. Her thesis and her access to hundreds of personal files will help her a lot. She had planned that after 5 years she will write her first book and then she will start consulting human resources departments all around the country. At any time she will find a business man that would be wealthy enough and a true gentleman that respected and encouraged her wish to develop her own successful career. She wanted the man to be wealthy not to maintain her but as a measure of success and self confidence and as mean to contribute with the right connections to push her own career.
The auditorium started to fill with students, everybody was talking animatedly. Lillian was quiet and fidgeted from one leg to another while biting her lower lip, she looked cute. Today she had rushed to the university and wasn't dressed in her usual business-like attires. She was wearing a t-shirt, jeans, snickers and no makeup at all and looked like a high school girl more than a senior college student. She hated her childish looks. She was the youngest in her class and looking even younger than she was only contributed to make her feel like she didn't belong which caused her some insecurities, that was why she always wore serious clothes, high heels and expertly applied makeup, specially to cover the freckles that still decorated her cheekbones and nose making her feel like a school girl.
In the last few weeks every graduating student had proposed a research topic and had made the sustentations of why that topic was relevant. Lillian had debated with herself if she should propose her favorite subject or not. It was very unlikely that she was assigned it and the possibility of other girl doing it made her jealous, but at the end she resolved that even a tiny chance was better than nothing and she found some relief thinking that her subject could be assigned to a male student, specially the machos like John Wallace, "That will teach them some respect for accomplished women", she thought.
The teacher entered the room and without saying a word he waited patiently until all the talking and whispering ceased completely. He put 30 identical envelopes and a bunch of printed sheets on the desk, and then turning to see the students he finally said.
"I have this list with your names that was sorted randomly with a procedure approved by the statistical department chief to be as fair as possible. When I call your name, you will come to my desk and you will choose and envelope, any envelope, you will write your name and the number of the envelope in this form and you will sign it, then you will leave the room and only then, you will open the envelope. This form states your acceptance of the topic. You may reject the subject and try again next semester but the failed thesis will be on your record and remember that you have only two chances to accomplish your thesis. Is everything clear?"
After a few questions everybody got the procedure and the draw started. After just 5 students, Lillian was called, she looked at the envelopes hesitantly. "Which one is my proposal?", she thought, "Well, it is impossible to know, I just hope that I get a good topic, one that let me shine, a paper that could kick start my career".
"Please Ms. Gordon, hurry with your pick there are 25 students waiting".
Lillian picked the one in the center of the pile of envelopes and quickly filled her form. "Lillian Gordon, Thesis Topic: 23". Lillian signed it and filled with apprehension and curiosity she left the room as fast as she could.
Once outside the room she opened her envelope:
"Assessment and Identification of core psychological features of young females working for the pornographic industry using a case study approach"
Lillian was red with shame and rage. "This is surely the idea of a stupid bastard like John Wallace. He surely wanted to have the opportunity to interview a porno star with the excuse of a psychological research. This topic is stupid and a drag and .... And it will be a shame to show in my curriculum. And What will I get from talking with those low life scums? Nothing! Shit!".
Lillian went home and tried to plan a way out. She had her first thesis counseling meeting in a couple of days and she wanted to change her situation. She analyzed her possibilities.
"I can't simply drop the topic, I would lose a semester and my almost certain cum laude. I may try to discredit the topic so it is declared unprofessional or something but a panel had already revised and approved every proposed subject. I can't allege religious reasons because to be admitted to this university I already signed that I won't claim such a thing.", Lillian saw no doors opened but she resolved, "I will try to get some sympathy from my thesis counselor and get her help to find a method to change the subject, I will suggest all these options maybe she could find a way to twist one of them into a feasible argument".
But a couple of days later her counselor was talking calmly with her, "No Lillian, there is no way to change the assigned subject, the rules are made to that objective.", she was thinking, "Not to mention that I was the thesis counselor of one of the cheating students of the last year, and I barely avoided an investigation. Trying to change the subject of my pupil will look very bad".
Lillian was on the verge of crying she was trapped with that stupid topic. She opted for her last resource, "Ms.Barbara, may I at least change the research approach. I could make a very interesting meta-study, I already have several hypothesis that could be better proven by a meta-study than by and individual interview."
Barbara Smith made a hand motion signaling Lillian to continue. "I have the hypothesis that the girls in that industry have sociological drawbacks but psychologically are people with low self-stem, maybe low IQ and no academic achievements and lacking clear goals for their lives, promiscuous people that most probably initiated sex life at a very short age in relationships without love. They most probably have a strong tendency to exhibitionism . I also think that they are easily manipulated thanks to their lack of goals and sense of direction as well as their poor will power. They were surely rose by dysfunctional families"
Barbara nodded slightly, she was a good psychologist, she was used listen the other people until they finish exposing their ideas.
Lillian continued, "I could make an extensive analysis of other people's researches, a meta-study, to see if my hypothesis could be proven thru them". Lillian was satisfied with her exposition, if she could not avoid that horrid topic, she could at least do it in the most detached way. She knew that doing a lot of library work wasn't as exciting as doing some real field research, and she knew that people in the field didn't give too much professional value to this kind of research, they often called those meta studies "high school papers", but given the subject she considered it a lot better alternative than expend weeks interviewing some bimbo.
Barbara silently analyzed the possibilities for a few minutes then said, "It would be a disappointment that such a brilliant student as you do a lame approach to an interesting subject. I think that the case study approach could suggest another causes than the stereotypes that you described. A meta study will simply make you walk the same trails that everybody else walked before, a case study approach on the other hand could lead you to find some new avenues for studies and researches that other students could continue after you".
"But Ms. Barbara....", Lillian was pale, she never considered that she couldn't get even this little concession, and was about to argument in favor of her proposal but this time Barbara decided to interrupt her, "Listen Lillian, I know that you feel uncomfortable with sexual subjects. I noticed since the first semesters that you had always a very clinic, very detached approach to the classes regarding sexual matters.", as a Psychologist Barbara couldn't refrain from some speculation, "Maybe it is because since you were young your classmates were always older and more sexually mature than you", Lillian blushed with shame and anger, since she skipped a couple of years in middle school she was always behind in her development but even now as a fully developed 21 year old woman some of her classmates called her "the nun" behind her back and John openly called her "the ice cube" saying that she was as frigid as the north pole. Barbara continued, "I am not criticizing you, nor judging you, as a matter of fact there is nothing to be ashamed of, but I believe that this time you aversion is blinding you, because you surely understand that the case study approach is better for this thesis than the meta-study".
"What aversion? I don't have any aversion...",
"My mistake, I shouldn't have say that, I am sorry. But that is not what we are discussing here, the question is: Is the meta study a better approach or could it only perpetuate the same ideas forever? Wouldn't it be more interesting and more likely to break new ground if you use the case study approach? Tell me, do you really believe a meta study has more potential or are you simply avoiding the case study because you are still uncomfortable discussing sex in a direct interview?".
Lillian felt trapped. She didn't like to do lengthy interviews to some whore but she didn't like to look childish either. "You are right Ms. Barbara. I hadn't see the potential of the case study, the way you put it make it look a lot more interesting than the meta study...".
Before Lillian could back off, Barbara continued, "Ok. See you in two weeks, I would like to see you plan to develop this project and a calendar. Now if you allow me, I have to see another student".
Lillian left the office defeated. For the next few days she submerged herself in her internship job. Well, the real job would start in a few weeks, for now she had to attend only once a week for training and some reading assignments. It was a really good opportunity, the job offered a good deal of experience in her area and it paid $25 per hour, not bad for an internship job, and the best of all was that they were strong chances of making a career there. She wanted to make a very good impression that put her well beyond the other interns, she had hoped that her thesis would be her presentation card in the business world, she had many times dreamed that she would subtly let her coworkers know about her thesis, maybe 'forgetting' her notes where somebody could see them or something like that. And at some point she would openly let them know about every successful and powerful woman that she had interviewed. In her dreams she got admiration and jealousy from her coworkers. In the reality she made every effort to keep her thesis topic secret.
Three weeks later she was finishing her meeting with Ms. Barbara," ... so this was my script for the first interview, next week I will present you a more detailed script for each of the rest of the planned interviews...", Ms Barbara saw the need to interrupt her again.
