Clearly the main player in this adventure is YOU

• YOU: as student you plan to work hard for building a good thesis and achieve a good graduation. In the end the thesis is suppose to be your work so, unlikely what happen with most of the courses, you will have to do the heavy lifting and count on yourself.

One or two main figure(s) will be there to support you during this journey:

• Your supervisor at the University: he/she follow your work, mentor and nourish you, sometimes working with you, sometimes sharing with you his experience and/or his ideas. If you are curious this is my mentoring style.
• (Optional) Your external supervisor: he/she has facilitate your networking at the company/institution where you did your thesis and has given you access to the corporate resources.

Marginal figures that will interact with you in a formal,informal direct or indirect way includes:

• The Administration at your University. They need to make sure that you are following the proper procedures that are required by your program. Sometimes a “thesis coordinator” is responsible of this task and sometimes the student office take care of that. They are also responsible to check your thesis for plagiarism and to keep it on record once is finished.
• The Second Reader (or graduating committee). Is a person or a committee that will assess your final thesis in order to provide a fair and unbiased evaluation of your work. Your supervisor(s) will mentor you and follow you during all the journey. The second reader has the role of bringing objectivity in the equation.
• The Previous Generation of Students: they where there before you and they probably did a thesis on a similar topic. You probably will not interact directly with them. However you may read some of their works and/or you may continue the work that they initiated. Your current supervisor may have mentored them and will act as bridge between what they did and what you will do.
• The Next Generation of Students: they are students like you, just younger. They will do a thesis one or two semester after you. As they haven’t done a thesis they are interested in learning from others. They could be involved in advancing/extending/improving/replacing the ideas of other students before them. You will probably will deal with this aspect at the end of your thesis. In that context you will answer to the question of “what can you pass to the next generation”.
• The Library at the University. you may use its services for performing literature reviews, access to data or receive some support regarding your academic writing.
• Scientists around the world. they have publish in scientific journal and conferences works relevant to your topic and you will use it in order to critically assess what you are doing.

You will probably spend the majority of time with your supervisor and, eventually, with your external supervisor. Consequently you can consider them the major players around your thesis. However, you should not underestimate all the other people that will have an interest in your thesis. In particular your second reader that is “the gatekeeper” of your final evaluation.

Let’s spend a few more words about your supervisors, both external and internal as they are going to play a key role in your thesis.

Your supervisor at the university as academic is interested doing research in order to complement his teaching activities. He probably mentor several students at the same time and would like to use your work as part of his/her publications as well as pass it other students that will mentor in the future. In this way he will have some continuity among the work done by several students and maximize the chances of having it published. In short: he will help you in thinking scientifically and would like to use part of your work for in his/her scientific endeavor.

Your external supervisor has different interests and goals in mind. He/she probably work at a company and is focus in less narrow then your official thesis supervisor. The role that he will play can vary a lot and depends on the what he is doing in the company where you will be an intern. Probably is a a combination of the following aspects. He or she:

• Would like “to test you” before deciding to hire you, he is curious of exploring new ideas.
• See your work as a way to bring into the company “fresh knowledge” from academia.
• Is seeking possible new ways to produce products or services or to evaluate existing before putting them in production.
• Would like to increase the efficiency of some activities that the company is currently doing.

Now you know all the people involved in your thesis and what their role is. All the players around your thesis have an interest in your success and a set of tasks/roles to cover. If you interact with them in a wise manner you will be able to take the most from your thesis. Nevertheless, please remember that is your thesis. Therefore, you need to show a proactive and independent attitude towards addressing the problems that you will face.

The people and the institutions that will #help you in doing your #thesis at the #university .
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This article (The Players Around Your Thesis: Who is going to help you) is part of the miniseries on how to do a good thesis, you can see the full list of post at the following links:

The post The Players Around Your Thesis: Who is going to help you appeared first on Francesco Lelli.

Now we got that out of the way, we can talk more seriously. I am honored and humbled by this request I will be happy to support you in the last mile of your journey towards your graduation.

Before we continue further and discuss the topic of your thesis, I would like to share our “rules of engagement” that will be in place as long as I will be mentoring you:

• (i) “School is over“: you are the master of your time. I am not going to push you or remind you of what you have to do in any way. You know your deadlines and you will organize yourself accordingly. If you want, we will discuss your time table but you will be in charge in deciding when we are going to have the next meeting and what we will discuss.
• (ii) “You are not allowed to be blocked“: at any moment, if you feel stuck for any reason, just get in contact with me and we will find the best way to proceed.
• (iii) “In any case and any circumstance, I will never do your thesis for you but I will remove every possible obstacle for you to succeed”. This is exactly how it reads; do not ask me to do your thesis. I already have a master degree and I am not interested in having a new one. Share with me your problems and your difficulties and I will help you in solving them.
• (iv) “I am going to be your worst enemy and your best ally“: I will always challenge what you will be doing in order to help you in making it better. I will do that until the very last moment of your final submission. However, once the thesis will be submitted I will become “your lawyer” and I will advocate for the maximum grade that you can possibly get.

These are the rules that will guide our relationship until the end of the thesis. If you are motivated and you are looking for a good grade, your thesis will have a good chance to be in nomination for the best thesis award (track record available upon request ). I will be happy to be the mentor for your thesis and I am committed to do my part if you will do yours. However, please think careful at the “rule of engagements” and if you are willing to accept them. In the case they do not resonate with you, just talk to the thesis coordinator and ask for another supervisor. This will save time to both of us.

If you want to move forward with me, during our first meeting be ready to answer the following questions:

• Why you are proposing this particular topic?
• What do you expect from this thesis?
• What are your plans after the graduation? Are you interested in academia, industry or start-up? See this post that explains how to take the most from your thesis.

If after reading this you are still motivated in having me as the mentor for your thesis drop me a line when you are ready for scheduling an appointment.

This article ( Mentor for Your Thesis ) is part of the miniseries on how to do a good thesis, you can see the full list of post at the following links:

The post Mentor for Your Thesis appeared first on Francesco Lelli.