Long story short.
When I was an undergrad, I had a research proposal before and my professors did not want me to pursue it. (2007)
So i ended up doing a different thesis.
Couple of years after, my mentor told me to update my literature so we can have my thesis published. (2012)
Along the way, as I searched our library again, I came across this dissertation that was exactly the same proposal I had in 2007. The idea was the same. The variables and even the usage of the grounded theory!
I was so confused. I wondered how this happened. Why? Where did he get he exact idea? Is it that "amazing" that people can actually think of the same thing? Exactly the same thing? Then it is amazing. But I had a feeling he got the idea from my department as well because the odds that students were doing a thesis/dissertation on procrastination was very low. There were only 5 in our archives that did procrastination.
So I didn't work on it anymore.
I tried to move and forget the idea of publishing my undegraduate thesis.
Last night, I had dinner with my professor and I found out it was him who told the PhD student to do the proposal I had years back.
Loss for words.
Blank.
End.
I'll just focus on my masteral thesis...
Hi Toni...thanks for pointing me to the post, gives a bit more understanding of the situation - it's hard to get too descriptive with tweets!
ReplyDeleteThe situation does still seem a little odd....was it that the prof deemed the topic worthy of a PhD (rather than just an u/grad research)? Even so, it might have been considerate for him to mention to you at the time that he had introduced the topic to a PhD ...as it could perhaps have given you the opportunity to work with the phd as part of your undergrad research - to give you a base for further research in this area.
Perhaps the issue is not so much that your idea was 'stolen' (...as not certain if I believe ideas can be 'owned' by anyone in particular in the 1st place...) but more a sense of betrayal that the prof didn't mention it to you at all...particularly knowing that it was an area you were keen to research in....