The Big Scary Master’s Thesis
The last step for graduating and transiting to working life is the big scary master’s thesis. Truly, finishing the master’s thesis can be the most difficult and hardest part of your studies. The lack of motivation, self-control or weak gluteal muscles can lead to failure and many students get lost in the corporate world in the final stretch of their studies and don’t anymore find the time or energy to finish the big T. To get it done (REALLY to get it done) I decided to finish my master’s thesis before diving in to the working life. Therefore, I have been spending my summer and I will be spending coming Autumn working with my master’s thesis. At this moment, the graduation feels faraway and unlikely. Like many other students before me, I have been struggling to advance my thesis, but I promise, I will get it done with Finnish ”sisu” (means: endurance, resilience, tenacity, determination and perseverance).
I can admit that I had high hopes to finish the thesis already this Spring or latest this Summer. However, we figured out soon with Mari that it is very difficult to find the time or motivation to work with the thesis besides your studies when doing a double degree. The idea is of course that you would work with the master’s thesis while being abroad and finish your studies in the target time (master’s program is two years), but I know that many double degree students have been struggling to finish the thesis on desired schedule. However, we don’t think this is something you should stress about. At least, we wanted to enjoy our time abroad. We also believe that possible future employers will value our experience and time abroad more than how quickly we were able to graduate.
Otherwise, if you are not in a hurry to graduate, the master’s thesis process is no more complicated than in a traditional degree. You only must do one master’s thesis and both of the universities will accept the thesis as part of your degree. You also have two options: 1) You can do the thesis to your home university and the receiving university will accept it, or 2) You will do the thesis to you sending university and your home university will accept it. However in option one, you will have only one thesis supervisor from your home university, but in option two you will have supervisors from both universities. We think the option one is simplier as you basically only follow the thesis directions of your home university and you can choose the subject yourselves. Plus there aren’t time constraints, when you should finish the thesis. In the second option, you need to follow the instructions of the receiving institution, but also the instructions of your home university. It is also likely, that the supervisor from the receiving institution has a say in the topic and there might be some time constraints. So in option one, you only return the thesis to your home university and receive a certificate, that will state to your receiving institution that you have done the thesis with a certain grade. Then you only need to send this certificate to your receiving institution and they will accept the thesis as part of your degree to them. Whereas, in the second option you have to send and get accepted the thesis by both universities. We both choose option one with Mari, but we know that some students have chosen option two as you might get more guidance.
As a conclusion, master’s thesis is big and scary despite the double degree. The double degree might slow your graduation, but otherwise, it doesn’t have an impact on the master’s thesis process. And think about it; you will get two degrees with one master’s thesis! How cool is that?!
Sini & Mari
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