I got a first on my dissertation. I don't brag often but I genuinely believe that this project was (and until my poetry collection is published, still is) the hardest I've even worked on a single text and I'm still pleased with that work. This isn't going to be a reflection on how my work was actually terrible and how I regret everything, but more of what the process was like and how I benefited from it. I studied English Literature and Film but my dissertation had to be on a film topic, because that was the priority of my degree. Beyond this, I had the complete freedom to write whatever I wanted. So I picked something specific and close to my heart: I wrote about the representation of angry women in the thriller genre. I chose to write about angry women because, at the time at least, I was one. I really struggled to get excited about things that I didn't have a personal connection with, so when I picked this topic, it was because I had personal stakes in trying t...