Short update about my current situation

In case someone still reads this - yes, I am still alive.

My situation:

• Currently living in Budapest. Moved here in August of this year. Will live here at least until January. 
• Last year lived in Düsseldorf for 6 months after graduation. Then back in Finland until August.
• Working as a freelancer for 2 agencies. Doing SEO & conversion optimization for corporate clients.
• Still awesome person. :) And modest.

Graduation days over

We had our graduation days last Thursday in LUT and Saturday in St.Pete. I was one of the few lucky ones who got the diploma also from GSOM (only 5 non-Russian students got it...). For the rest, they are now entering the nostrification process again with their freshly printed Finnish Masters. Graduating from Russia shouldn't be a problem, but it will take some time. I really do hope that everyone will get their double degree.

The ones who didnt get the GSOM diploma, got just a transcript of records. Lousy ones that is. For example on one student the contact hours during the course was according to the transcript something like 4700 which is obviously ridiculous. Also the grades weren't right for most courses and some courses were twice on the list while some where missing. Ridiculous.

Russian graduation ceremony was definitely more ceremonylike than that at LUT. Started well, before it collapsed in to pieces (because of taking photos, unorganized ending etc). All the graduates wore the gowns which was a cool experience. Kinda felt like Harry Potter - especially since we got also the school mascots which is an owl.

Good memories from that day as well as from the whole program. From academic point of view I am a bit disappointed, but as a life experience MITIM has been truly awesome.

Thesis evaluation

Today we got the final grades of our thesis also from LUT. Here are my results from GSOM and LUT:

• GSOM: 4/B (Best would have been 5/A. These are different numbers, other is Russian, other international. So from both I got the second best)
• LUT: Magna cum laude abbrobatur (3rd best out of 7 grades, basically an 8 in the scale of 4-10)

I am happy with both of those grades, especially since I really didn't spend THAT much time on the thesis. Basically this level was my goal and I achieved it. No complaints. :)

Last time i sit between these two in a seminar/classroom

I had my thesis defense yesterday. It went well overall and i am pleased with it especially considering my levels of tiredness during the whole day. Most of us LUT MITIM people have already presented, only 3 more presentations before we are all done and will hear our final results.

Currently I am sitting between Shot and Seb and just realized that this really is the last time when we are sitting in the same seminar/classroom together side by side. But definitely not the last time we will be in the same place at the same time together. Guaranteed.

Oh yeah, also got feedback about my thesis

..but not from my own supervisors, but another professor from GSOM. Still haven't heard anything from my LUT supervisor - will be interesting to hear what he has to say...

Anyways, I didn't quite understand how my work was graded, as on the scale from 2-5, I had on most criteria 2 of the grades bolded (no other way of separating the result). Also, didn't get any kind of recommendation for final grade (except "deserves a good grade" which would mean 4), which would have been nice to see.

Tomorrow I will be a bit smarter regarding the grade.

And I will also be tired since I decided to sleep one more night in Joensuu before heading to Lappeenranta. My train leaves after 6 o'clock in the morning.. Will be fun. But it just was easier solution to do like this.

All ready for public defense

I just finished my slides for the public defense. I am not completely sure about the balance of the presentation - i had to cut the individual case analyzes in order to have enough time for the other stuff. Not perfectly pleased about that, but i guess it will be fine.

I uses mainly my slides from the pre-defense, but made some changes in the order and content of them. Also added a bit of eye candy. :)

Tomorrow I will be done with the whole stuff. That's a relief.

After that: focusing on making money.

Final steps of Thesis and the whole MITIM experience

This Monday I handed in the final version of my thesis. I am satisfied with it, but its definitely not a remarkable piece of science. But, considering the amount of hours and effort I put in to it, I think it is fine.

So the paper version of it already left to Russia (with bunch of other documents), while today I printed 2 more copies of it and took them to be bound for LUT. Those should be ready next week on Thursday. 

After that, there is only the matter of thesis defense and 2 graduation parties. Not a lot of left...