{"id":3706,"date":"2019-04-23T23:10:52","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T23:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/?p=3706"},"modified":"2019-04-26T01:10:26","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T01:10:26","slug":"your-thesis-could-take-you-places-before-you-even-write-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/2019\/04\/23\/your-thesis-could-take-you-places-before-you-even-write-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Your thesis could take you places before you even write it!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Zachary Pinard<\/p><\/div>\n

Throughout my time in the Honors College, I had been refining my thesis topic into something I knew I wanted to pursue after graduation.\u00a0 I loved studying abroad as an undergraduate, and developed a love for exploring other countries\u2019 cultures.\u00a0 As an environmental science major, I am naturally interested in mitigation and adaptation to climate change.\u00a0 Therefore, it made sense that comparing the strength and achievability of various countries\u2019 climate change commitments would be the perfect project for me!<\/p>\n

This past fall, I set out on the normal thesis route: finding a mentor, building a timeline, and starting the first draft of my proposal.\u00a0 Through this process, my mentor casually mentioned that the next Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change would be in Katowice, Poland that coming December.\u00a0 The 2015 iteration of this conference took place in Paris and concluded with the world famous Paris Agreement, so these conferences are very meaningful and take place at the highest level.\u00a0 Now, they focus primarily on implementing and adopting the rulebook for the Paris Agreement.<\/p>\n

He said I should see about getting there myself.\u00a0 I appreciated his enthusiasm, but I thought there was no way I could get there.<\/p>\n

The Conference took place over two weeks, one of which was finals, I didn\u2019t know people who were going, and I had heard you needed a badge to even be allowed into the negotiations.\u00a0 Nonetheless, when my mentor pointed me in the direction of an<\/p>\n

application for YMCA Camp Climate, I looked into it.\u00a0 After submitting an application past the deadline in November and explaining my reason for going would be to research an Honors thesis project, I got back to my schoolwork thinking this was unlikely to happen, but worth a shot.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Zac and a friend at COP24 in Poland<\/p><\/div>\n

To my surprise, YMCA Camp Climate accepted me with open arms and all of a sudden, my plan was to miss finals week and fly to Poland for the biggest climate change conference in the world.\u00a0 I remember explaining the news to my mom, whose response went something like \u201cOh!\u00a0 Poland!\u00a0 Well, alrighty then!\u201d\u00a0 It felt both a little random and a little miraculous that things had worked out so last minute.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t even started my thesis yet, and it had already taken me across the world to a country I had never thought twice about, for perhaps the most important conference of my career.<\/p>\n

In Poland, everything moved 100 miles per hour.\u00a0 First I struggled to find a badge to get in, but once I did, I filled every second of the day with meetings, exploring, networking, and press events.\u00a0 I took pictures with Greta Thunberg and Al Gore, saw some of the tensest parts of the negotiations firsthand, and most importantly, I met a multitude of professionals who guided me into the thesis project I am currently working on.\u00a0 After being connected to Costa Rica\u2019s Vice Chancellor and practicing my Spanish with the Mexican youth delegation, I decided to compare the climate change commitments of Costa Rica and Mexico, to compare how a large and small country in the same region address the issue.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Zac takes a photo with Al Gore.<\/p><\/div>\n

Going to COP24 in Poland was probably the coolest thing I\u2019ve ever done so far, and it all started with my thesis project.\u00a0 When they say your thesis will take you places, listen to them, because for me it did so quite literally!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m currently working on my thesis:\u00a0<\/strong>Comparative analysis of the Costa Rican and Mexican Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to climate change mitigation and adaptation<\/b><\/em>\u00a0under the mentorship of Professor Gregg Walker from the department of Speech Communication. I\u2019m planning to defend my thesis and graduate in Fall 2019 \u2013 Zac Pinard.\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Throughout my time in the Honors College, I had been refining my thesis topic into something I knew I wanted to pursue after graduation.\u00a0 I loved studying abroad as an undergraduate, and developed a love for exploring other countries\u2019 cultures.\u00a0 As an environmental science major, I am naturally interested in mitigation and adaptation to climate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9506,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1205,213021,1306],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories","category-hc-ambassador-blog","category-student"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9506"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3706"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3753,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3706\/revisions\/3753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/honorslink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}