Writing my thesis- Effective Means of Reducing Prejudice

Of all the challenges I've faced in the past few years, writing my thesis was perhaps the most difficult. There was a time when it felt as if my life was literally defined by the status of my thesis, I was either working on it, avoiding it, waiting for it to be sent back to me, writing a song about procrastinating working on it (check out my FB for that video!), proposing it, researching it or defending it.  I can picture myself a few short months ago, working on my thesis at 3am, eating copious amounts of candy and watching reruns on TVLAND. I would procrastinate for weeks (months a couple of times) and then spend three crash-n-burn 12 hour days in a row researching, writing and editing. I amused my fellow cohort members with stories of how I was avoiding it, I suffered innumerable mental breakdowns because of it and came to see it as the very bane of my existence,

The Result? 93 scholarly pages addressing a very important problem in American society.
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"Contact Theory: A Multi-Model Comparison of Effectiveness in Reducing Prejudice Among White Professionals in a Single Interaction."

Scholars and researchers have expressed alarm over the under utilization of mental health services by Blacks. Scholars speculate that one reason for this under utilization may be the expectation of prejudice from White mental health workers. The most widely studied method for reducing prejudice is Contact Theory. This study compared models of Contact Theory to determine which model would be most effective at reducing prejudice using White professionals. Results of the study indicated that none of the models effectively reduced prejudice and none of the models was more effective than any other. That was the unfortunate outcome. The fortunate outcome of this study was a stellar historical account of Blacks in the field of psychology from 1700's to the present, a detailed look at the holes in the current literature regarding Black underutilization, a massive amount of suggestions for future research. Most importantly, the discussion portion of this study explored how society has changed since Contact Theory was first proposed and proposed methods for reducing prejudice by addressing the evolution of expressing prejudice in America.

The very last thing written in my thesis:

"Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away, and that in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty." (MLK jr., 1963)
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The bound copy of my thesis arrived this week. At first, it just sat there and I thought "All that time and money and that's it?" But today, I realized how proud I should be of the work I accomplished. I read 120 studies, I designed a true experiment, I ran stats and wrote 93 pages of intelligent words. I reflect on all of this to remind myself, as I always tell my clients, that we MUST take time to celebrate what we have done. Big or small. Whether we paid our bills this month, or finished the laundry or wrote a thesis, we should CELEBRATE  that accomplishment. There are plenty of people who chose not to fulfill their responsibilities, who chose not to love their kids or their spouse, who chose not to use the gifts that God has given them to their fullest extent. Let's not take being a responsible person for granted. Celebrate what you've done well and  celebrate the ONE who enables us to do it! Whatever we have done alone, he has done it with us.

Colossians 3v23 "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men"