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March 20th Workshop : Master Thesis Planning and Writing

Students from both IBMBA and GHRM MBA attended yesterday’s thesis seminar and most were first year students. The second year students are probably busy writing their thesis!  The presenter Jennet went back to the basics of how to write a thesis. There was a question posed to the audience at the beginning: have you found a thesis advisor?  Most students seems to have found one. Jennet explained both what a thesis is and its purpose.  All students must write a thesis to pass examination and graduate with their masters. One of the students asked about writing a business plan, and this is also an option that students can choose.  In regard to finding the right topic or advisor, the students were encouraged to go online and explore different professors’ respective fields of research, and then decide who they would like to choose as an advisor. Since most students have already found their thesis advisor, Jennet did not offer extensive remarks on this aspect of the thesis process.

Students were also provided with a thesis design hand-out which will be helpful in both planning for and structuring the thesis. Anyone who has a business background is probably familiar with the format, as it is adapted from the business model canvas.

The recommended timeline for starting to write your thesis is one year prior to graduation. Most students try to squeeze it into one semester, which will negatively affect the quality and potentially postpone graduation. Jennet also recommended submitting the thesis one month before the oral defense.

There are several questions one should keep in mind when writing a thesis: Are the methods and techniques adopted appropriate? Are they properly justified and applied? Are the results suitably displayed and accompanied by adequate interpretation? In short, we should think critically from the beginning of the process and plan our thesis writing accordingly.

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