Hej everyone, today I want to tell you about my experience in my last semester of my master’s degree where I am working on my master’s thesis. Knowing how this process was going to be made me curious last semester and I hope it is useful to you as a small reference of how I am living this stage.
First of all, I would like to say that the phase of searching for ideas for the thesis project began in my case last semester in the design research methodology course. In this subject, we were motivated to carry out a research plan so that we would have a base with which to start this semester and we wouldn’t feel so lost. Finding the idea, planning the steps to take, the methodology, and how to manage the weeks of work until the day of the project delivery were some of the things that we discussed individually during this phase.
I have to say that most of my colleagues and I looked for thesis projects with companies, to carry out real projects or paid projects. Although we regularly searched on Linkedin, our teachers offered us some thesis papers from companies, and during the first semester there were two thesis fairs offered by companies in Linköping and Norrköping, finding internships in my area (design) was not easy, and getting a response from companies was even more complicated, so most of us decided to take a topic of our choice to develop in the project.
In my case, I selected a topic related to research for the Ph.D. studies I have recently applied for. Once we have chosen the topic to work with, you are assigned a supervisor and an examiner. The examiner will be relevant during the project presentation day and you will have a couple of meetings during the semester with him/her, at the beginning, middle, and end. On the other hand, the supervisor will help you regularly and guide you during the project. In my case, I have weekly meetings with the supervisor. I show the current progress, discuss my work and raise points to carry out during the next week.
The work is autonomous and requires a lot of time during the week. You have to be motivated and aware of a good weekly schedule. In my case, I try to work away from home and come to campus every day to have a routine. Next to the thesis, I am doing my Swedish SFI courses and sometimes it is not easy to combine.
Finally, I would like to say that in some cases, to present your thesis, in addition to registering it on ladok, you need to have attended at least 3 other thesis presentations. In my case, it was not necessary but I attended a few during the last semester to get an idea of what they are like and the expected results. Reading the papers published by other students of my master’s degree has also been useful for me.
Are you also working on your Master’s thesis? I wish you all the luck!
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