History PhD Candidate Realizes Zachary Taylor “Not Interesting,” Starts Thesis from Scratch

CHICAGO – PhD Candidate Mary Lowell decided Thursday to scrap her history thesis and start anew after realizing Zachary Taylor was “shockingly dull.”

Lowell says the epiphany came to her during a visit to the Adler Planetarium, where she marveled at the mysteries of the universe that had been unveiled through astronomy. “I thought to myself, ‘Wow, I wish I knew more about black holes.’ That made me wonder if anyone had ever wished they knew more about Zachary Taylor. And then it hit me: No. No one ever had.”

“Probably the most important thing he did was get killed by a bowl of spoiled cherries sixteen months into office and make  Millard Fillmore president. Not even, like, Teddy Roosevelt or someone cool. Millard fucking Fillmore.”

Lowell says she tried asking her best friend for advice on what to do if you realize the subject of your doctoral thesis is tedious and irrelevant. The friend, a philosophy PhD student, didn’t understand what the problem was.

After a great deal of soul-searching, Lowell resigned herself to scrapping her thesis and writing a completely new one. “It sucks to have to throw away six years of painstaking research on the 1848 Whig Convention, but it is what it is. If I’m dedicating a good chunk of my life to writing about someone else, they should be someone who didn’t lose the party’s nomination to John J. Crittenden.”

At press time, Lowell was desperately searching for a more interesting pre-Civil War president to write about. “Did you know Franklin Pierce was really good friends with Nathaniel Hawthorne? That’s interesting, right? Right? Right? Please say right.”