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MSc Thesis

MSc thesis project is the last step of your studies. It is typically six months of full-time coding, building, testing and writing.

The thesis is about marketing yourself and therefore you should impress yourself, your family, your supervisors and your future employer.

It is advisable to produce Github pages for your code and data with nice Wiki how to replicate the results and link to the thesis PDF. Its even better if the page also contains a Youtube video of your amazing work.

Stage 1 - Find a topic

When your studies are almost finished (2nd year of Master studies) you should start looking for a job or intern position where you can do your thesis. This could be at your current position, a university research group or perhaps you find a better place!

You are young, full life ahead, so it is recommended that 1) you do something meaningful and difficult, 2) you learn a lot and 3) you impress people you work for.

You could contact your professors and ask them for open topics in their research groups (paid and unpaid positions are available) or if they know any companies who are looking for a master's thesis worker. Be active and search until you find a place that suits you and you suit that place.

Stage 2 - Agree about the topic with your supervisors

Important: You need to understand what should be done in this thesis! You need to understand why this is an important topic (motivates that it needs to be done)! You must understand how to evaluate your results (otherwise it will be unclear what is the quality of your work).

You should have two supervisors: 1) Academic supervisor who is a senior staff from university (professor, associate/assistant professor, lecturer etc. someone with doctoral degree) and 2) a technical supervisor from the company you work for (preferably someone with at least MSc degree so that they know what MSc thesis is all about). You may interview multiple professors to find who is the most suitable for you. You know, there is a huge difference between supervisors and how much they have time and interest for you.

Company pays your salary so you must make your technical supervisor to agree what you do, especially if you do the work during your working hours. You also must know confidential things that cannot be put to your thesis as MSc theses are always public.

Concrete action: Fill and agree the thesis supervision plan with your supervisors (official form)

Stage 3 - Do the thesis project (~5 months)

Important: There are three important things to bear in mind: 1) read what others have done (related work), 2) read what others have done (related work) and finally 3) read what others have done (related work).

Before you can find the related works you must know the correct terminology of your problem! Only with the correct terms search engines (Google, you.com) can provide correct links to the existing code, articles and books.

Steps:

  • Find correct terminology (e.g. "face verification" vs. "face recognition" vs. "face detection")
  • Search related works under this terminology - prefer recent works that have been published in good journals and conferences (ask your supervisor) and have been cited by others.
  • Search existing code you can use
  • Search existing data you can use
  • Play with code and data to get your hands dirty
  • Based on findings revise your topic and thesis plan

Work hard, be diligent and consult your supervisors often! Yes, talking with your supervisors is your responsibility, not theirs.

Stage 4 - Write thesis (~1 month)

This can happen parallel during stage 3, and its good to make notes all the time.

Check out this Latex template: MSc thesis template (Latex)

Examples of great theses (although your main supervisor may have different examples so ask him/her):

Actions: You must attend the MSc thesis seminar course of you major. The seminar typically includes: 1) watching MSc presentations by others, 2) presenting your work (at least once, agree this with your supervisor); in CS the presentations are available in budjetti.cs.tut.fi, and 3) participating information literacy training by university Library. All details you will find from the course Moodle page or ask from the seminar course instructor.

Stage 5 - Submitting the thesis

You must ask your academic supervisor comments for your thesis. Some supervisors comment multiple versions the manuscript, but some only the final draft i.e. the version that you think is pretty much ready. Ask your supervisor(s) what he/she prefers. Remember that you are evaluated every time you send something to your supervisor!

After the supervisors are happy to the current version:

  • Submit thesis to Turnitin originality test (your supervisor's Moodle space) official instructions
  • After the Turnitin if fine, then submit the final version to Trepo and let your supervisor know it is there for his/her evaluation official instructions

Evaluation criteria and evaluation templates can be found from thise official page

Freedom

Enjoy your life, You deserve good life!

However, keep updating your knowledge so that your knowledge and skills remain current for the future jobs and needs!