Claim Ownership
Burn Your Draft
Burn Your DraftSubscribed: 1Played: 9
Subscribe
© All rights reserved
Description
“Burn Your Draft” is a podcast exploring the year-long senior thesis experience at Reed College, an independent liberal arts and sciences college in Portland, Oregon. Each episode showcases a senior or recent graduate and interviews them about their thesis: what is it, why did they do it, and what comes next. This podcast is a joint production of Reed students, staff, and alumni, and was made possible by a gift from Seth Paskin '90. New episodes released every other week during the academic year. Episodes may contain explicit language and may deal with sensitive topics. The views, information, or opinions expressed on this podcast are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of Reed College.
79 Episodes
Reverse
In this episode, we hear from Henry, an English major whose thesis journey took a few unexpected turns: from exploring Pacific Northwest regionalism to diving deep into the world of literary naturalism. Henry unpacks how authors Jack London and Frank Norris challenged historian Frederick Jackson Turner’s “frontier myth,” reimagining the American frontier not as a vanished landscape but as an evolving cultural, economic, and imaginative force.
Tune in to hear about survival narratives, Social Darwinist ideas, and what happens when you have to scrap half your thesis to start again (spoiler: it’s not fun, but it’s worth it). Henry reflects on the highs and frustrations of the Reed thesis process, the art of negotiating with an advisor, and the unexpected joy of discovering how to make seemingly unrelated ideas work together.
Reed community members can read Henry’s thesis, “Naturalist Afterlives of the Frontier Myth” online in the Electronic Thesis Archive: https://rdc.reed.edu/i/917eb624-f94d-453a-9638-4975c6123d5f
Explore more interviews with Reed College alumni on our website:
reed.edu/burnyourdraft
Arianna focused on the impacts of the closure of a Walmart in her hometown of Albuquerque for her thesis in the anthropology department. She also tells us about how Reed College's Anthropology Student Fund helped to support her research, and how her thesis adviser helped her re-work her initial thesis ideas using a concept from environmental anthropology.
Reed community members can read Arianna's thesis, “One Albuquerque? Crime, Security, and Dispossession in Albuquerque’s Sacrifice Zone” online in the Electronic Theses Archive:
https://rdc.reed.edu/i/ef189f1b-bd01-4124-a2fa-b3921222eea8
Explore more interviews with Reed College alumni on our website:
reed.edu/burnyourdraft
Amelie started out in the biology department at Reed because she wanted to study bacteria and living things, but then she got a chance to start learning from the biochemists on the faculty. They helped her build the bridge from chemistry to life, which led her to switch her major from biology to biochemistry and molecular biology.
Amelie was also the second student producer for Burn Your Draft, working with us from 2021–22, and it was a delight to get to talk to her.
Reed community members can read Amelie's thesis, “MntR: The Mastermind of Manganese Ion Homeostasis” online in the Electronic Theses Archive:
https://rdc.reed.edu/i/9e05e465-0d21-4fb0-9de1-e6d4d2bf1349
Explore more interviews with Reed College alumni on our website:
reed.edu/burnyourdraft
Emma's economics department thesis explored the effect that Tony awards have on the consumer demand for Broadway shows.
Reed community members can read Emma's thesis, “'It's All About the Green': The Tony Award's Effect on Broadway Show Demand” online in the Electronic Theses Archive:
https://rdc.reed.edu/i/2ec90330-430a-417d-ad4b-b724611a5c60
Explore more interviews with Reed College alumni on our website:
reed.edu/burnyourdraft
We're back for the 2025–26 school year after taking a hiatus last spring. Today, Ocean shares his thesis experience with us which was focused on studying writers from the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean, especially Édouard Glissant, and tells us why he thinks poetry and art is important.
Ace Lackey '27, our new student producer, produced this episode for us. Welcome to the podcast Ace!
Reed community members can read Ocean's thesis, “ rhizophora” online in the Electronic Theses Archive:
https://rdc.reed.edu/i/ba4917ec-7250-448e-976a-ac001f5b3edc
Explore more interviews with Reed College alumni on our website:
reed.edu/burnyourdraft
Juno Kerelis '24 was the third student podcast producer on Burn Your Draft, and we're so happy to get to speak to them on the other side of their time at Reed. If you've been listening since Juno hosted the podcast, you may have noticed little musical interludes during some of the episodes. Most of those were composed by Juno! Thank you for your work on the podcast, and for coming to talk to us about your year studying the Invisible Man.
Reed community members can read Juno's thesis, “Yams Extending Infinitely Across Time: A Blues Philology of Ellison's Invisible Man” online in the Electronic Theses Archive:
https://rdc.reed.edu/i/38b592a4-61fb-4d2c-8235-6901a7ff1820
Explore more interviews with Reed College alumni on our website:
reed.edu/burnyourdraft
Josie wrote a pharmaceutical development thesis about looking for a new way to develop antibiotics. She also tells us about her interest in biology and chemistry and looking for bridges between the disciplines, and how chemistry can be used to do things like examine snake poop to learn about snake evolution.
Reed community members can read Josie's thesis, “A Codrug for Resistant Coinfection: The First Clinically Relevant Antimicrobial-Antiviral Ionic Cocrystal” online in the Electronic Theses Archive:
https://rdc.reed.edu/i/e2a19aba-968a-4281-bd0b-bccc4dce68f5
Explore more interviews with Reed College alumni on our website:
reed.edu/burnyourdraft
Jordan spent a year writing an analytical thesis on Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, which Jordan calls a "psychosexual gothic romance novel" in the introduction of her thesis. She also talks to Avis about the surprising amount of time she spent learning about British estate taxes while studying this novel.
Reed community members can read Jordan's thesis, “Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca: The Poetics, Places, and Gender Politics of the Lesbian Gothic” online in the Electronic Theses Archive:
https://rdc.reed.edu/i/bb4eb631-dbdc-49fd-b99c-e74e410ba891
Explore more interviews with Reed College alumni on our website:
reed.edu/burnyourdraft
Aroon tells us a bit about airline economics under potential carbon taxes, wanting to become an entrepreneur, and deciding to come to Reed because it seemed mysterious.
Reed community members can read Aroon's thesis, “Airline Profitability & Fleet Strategies in a Carbon-Tax Environment” online in the Electronic Theses Archive:
https://rdc.reed.edu/i/3f32060b-6505-44c2-ab48-97984933931c
Explore more interviews with Reed College alumni on our website:
reed.edu/burnyourdraft
Courtland talks about her thesis work on the federal law called the National American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the controversies surrounding it, and the new regulatory changes to the law that just went into effect in 2024. She also tells us how a high school teacher helped her find Reed.
Reed community members can read Courtland's thesis, "Returning to Repatriation: An Examination of the Evolving Forces Behind the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act" online in the Electronic Theses Archive:
https://rdc.reed.edu/i/2723e27e-31e9-424c-b906-a849ff042ed8
Explore more interviews with Reed College alumni on our website:
reed.edu/burnyourdraft
He Bai '24 tells us about how she chose math and statistics as her fields at Reed, what drew her to Reed in the first place, and how the Squidward Constant came to be in her thesis.
Reed community members can read He's thesis, "Extending Targeted Function Balancing to Models without Linear Representations," online in the Electronic Theses Archive:
https://rdc.reed.edu/i/1cbbc623-aafc-4804-a88f-508edf824c69
Explore more interviews with Reed College alumni on our website:
reed.edu/burnyourdraft
Burn Your Draft is back from summer break! Check out this interview with Nina Gopaldas '24, whose thesis involved translating poetry by a Russian refugee named Olga Skopichenko who lived in a refugee camp in the Philippines for a short time after World War II. Nina also tells Avis about her journey to Reed as a transfer student and about how she started college as an applied math major specializing in mathematical finance and became a comparative literature major at Reed.
Reed community members can read Nina's thesis, "'Take a Hundred Lines for the Memory of Those who Lived on Tubabao': The Poetics of Exile and Displacement in Olga Skopichenko’s Verse," online in the Electronic Theses Archive:
https://rdc.reed.edu/i/519a8b2f-d4f6-4d6a-9ffc-99f295c51d78
Explore more interviews with Reed College alumni on our website:
reed.edu/burnyourdraft
We've got one last interview for summer and then we take a break until school starts back up in the fall. Check in with Tina about corporate ESG (environmental, social, and governance) and unwinding with rock climbing.
Reed community members can read Tina's thesis, “ESG Beyond Investing: Spillover Effects in Sustainability Signaling,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive:
https://rdc.reed.edu/i/80b0c796-2835-4f7f-a219-0ba77535bfe4
Explore more interviews with Reed College alumni on our website:
reed.edu/burnyourdraft
Do you want to listen to this episode? Or do you want to want to listen to this episode? Ashley tells us a bit about first and second order desires in her thesis studying moral responsibility. She also shares with us how she selected her major and shares some of her own struggles with mental illness in her time at Reed.
Reed community members can read Ashley's thesis, “How Mental Illness Impacts Moral Responsibility,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive:
https://rdc.reed.edu/i/57075318-72d1-4b40-a407-9a5231861249
Explore more interviews with Reed College alumni on our website:
reed.edu/burnyourdraft
Joray tells us about the joy of digging into academic papers in their fall semester, and the fun of using the software in the linguistics lab to analyze the trove of interviews they were working with. There was also a kitten.
We'd also like to welcome Avis Corea '27 to the team. Avis is our new student producer on the podcast, and this is the first episode she's produced for us. Welcome, Avis!
Reed community members can read Joray's thesis, “Linguistic Erasure Hertz; a post-binary discussion of F0 performance in read speech,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive:
https://rdc.reed.edu/i/4c352c75-6c02-45c7-a556-e02c704c6fb1
Explore more interviews with Reed College alumni on our website:
reed.edu/burnyourdraft
Producer and current senior, Juno Kerelis, talks about organization, and how being responsible for writing a year-long thesis differs from more structured, assignment-driven courses. Juno talks to other thesising seniors about how they're dealing with organization as well.
Explore more interviews on our website: reed.edu/burnyourdraft
Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/burnyourdraft/
Isaac graduated in fall 2023 as a spring/fall grad in the anthropology department. His thesis was titled "Aging in The Sun: An exploration of the Jewish Retirement Community in South Beach, Florida," and his work focused on how this community in Florida appeared and disappeared. He also talks about how he found anthropology, found his topic, and found Reed (he's from Australia).
Reed community members can read Isaac's thesis, “Aging in The Sun: An exploration of the Jewish Retirement Community in South Beach, Florida,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive:
https://rdc.reed.edu/i/8575a9a1-56ae-4511-b75e-9bac3cd03250
Explore more interviews on our website: reed.edu/burnyourdraft
We're excited to welcome Francesca back to the podcast! Francesca was our first student producer, named the podcast, and was integral as we were still figuring out what we were going to be and how we were going to do it. The voice of this podcast is largely Francesca's voice (along with the voices of all the alumni we've interviewed) and it would have been something entirely different without her. Thanks Frank! (Francesca went by Frank back when she was working for the podcast.)
Francesca's thesis examined Title IX implementations and student perceptions of these implementations at the level of the liberal arts college. Check out the episode to hear about institutional review boards, and why you should put your thesis into the library thesis template well before it's due.
Reed community members can read Francesca's thesis, “The Small Liberal Arts Experience: Title IX and Student Perceptions of Sexual Misconduct,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive:
https://rdc.reed.edu/i/ee929d9c-b4de-4985-b923-baefd1b68685
Explore more interviews on our website:
reed.edu/burnyourdraft
David studied archaeometry at Reed through an ad hoc major in the chemistry and classics departments (classics at Reed is now known as Greek, Latin, and Ancient Mediterranean Studies). He was introduced to archaeometry, the application of scientific methods and technology to archaeological study, by a research mentor after his sophomore year, and then went about petitioning to form his ad hoc program at Reed (it's not an easy process).
Reed community members can read David's thesis, “Hoping to Smash DNA with Rocks and Pickaxes,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive:
https://rdc.reed.edu/i/38fe0ef0-afa6-4cb8-b28a-2b988b231627
Explore past interviews on our website:
https://blogs.reed.edu/burn-your-draft/
Peri Joy planned for the work of her thesis year to center on race, religion, and the history of Oregon, and her writing focused on archives related to a 19th century congregation in Salem, Oregon led by Reverend Obed Dickinson. Dickinson’s decision to admit three formerly enslaved Black persons—Elizabeth Johnson and Robert and Polly Holmes—into his congregation marked the beginning of a six-year conflict between Dickinson, the white church members, and the broader Salem community over the issue of race.
Her thesis was titled, “Bringing the Truth to Bear: Obed Dickinson and an Imagined Community of Racial Equality in Nineteenth-Century Salem, Oregon.”
You can learn more about Obed Dickinson and Oregon's Black exclusion laws from the Oregon Historical Society's Oregon Encyclopedia.
Obed Dickinson: https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/dickinson-obed/
Oregon's Black exclusion laws: https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/exclusion_laws/#.Y02IQlLMIbY
Comments
Download from Google Play
Download from App Store
United States