Thesis project

Today I sent my thesis proposal to LUT, hoping to get an answer quite soon. I hope I will get to know my supervisors soon so I can discuss the topic with them and then start working on the thesis during the summer. I would have June and July at least to work on the thesis before I will go to Budapest for exchange period. I am not planning to do that much thesis-wise while in there, so I try to do as much as possible during the summer since I am not working either.


The topic is proposed is "Business partner selection in cross-border collaboration". More detailed research questions will be formulated later, but the idea would be to study how SMEs make decisions with who to partner. This includes also research on what are the success factors of partnerships and what kind of methods can be used to support those decisions.

Academic year over!!

The first academic year is now pretty much over for us. Yesterday we had thesis seminar which wasnt that bad actually. Some people have ideas what they are doing and some not. I guess I got a bit better view to my topic based on the comments and feedback. At the moment my topic is something like "Business partner selection in international expansion". The idea would be to investigate how SMEs make decisions with who to partner and what are the success factors in partnering. Also, I would be interested in finding out what kind of methods or tools can be used by SMEs on the selection. I will still have to think about it a bit more and go to talk with a possible supervisor at LUT.


We also had an exam on international high tech marketing, which was kinda similar to last years. I was well prepared and could have answered all the questions of the exam. Unfortunately for me, I slightly misread one of the essay questions and thus went off-topic. Luckily, it was worth only 10/100 points so I should not have ruined my chances of good grade because of that. I hope. 


Later in the evening we had a sauna + bbq session by the lake. That was by far the best party of this semester! It was fun and very good to see (almost) all the students of our class there together for the last(?) time before graduation next year. Somehow it was and is unreal that I wont see many of my friends live again this year, because they are leaving Finland for their internships and then going on exchange, some of them really far. I will miss them for sure.

Things to do this week

Tue - marketing 10-14, exam preparation for Growth (resit...), reading articles for marketing

Wed - marketing 10-14, exam, reading articles for marketing

Thu - marketing 10-14, exam preparation for marketing, writing a thesis proposal

Fri- research seminar 9-15, marketing exam, FREEEEEEEEDDDDDDDOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM

I seriously wonder how on earth I can find time for all this. No time for procrastination I guess..

Zen zen zen.

Our zeacher pronounzez zome zoundz whiz ztrong ruzzian axzent. Zen (then), zey (they) and zo on. Zounds a bit ridiculouz.

Bike ride

Today, thanks to a good idea by S and P (not salt and pepa) we went for a looooong bike ride. There was 9 of us taking the journey in the Lappeenranta region. The overall ride was something like 60-65km's which obviously resulted to some sore asses :D So, to overcome with that we needed to get some anesthetics - in the form of beer, vodka and grilled food. Yummy. Overall this was a very, very good day and I am very happy about all the happenings of today.


Special thanks to H for the lovely chicken and rice. And congrats to K for her master thesis topic :)

Phew, that was an exhausting day!

So this morning I had first exam of the day - Quantitative methods of business research. Yes kids, it is as boring as it sounds, if not even more boring. At that time I was still asleep I guess which did not make the exam easier at all. Overall, I found it kinda difficult since success in that exam required so much detailed and menial knowledge about things that I am not enthusiastic about. Expecting something like 30 +- 5 points out of 50 from that exam. Not the best of grades then... Maybe 2 or 3.


After that exam I had the joy of beginning to prepare for the afternoon exam. Or continue, I read the material once yesterday. The topic was economics of innovation and actually it is not as shitty as it might seem to be. Not the most interesting topic either. We finished doing our "tips/model answers" to the exam 1 hour before it which was way too late to learn and digest it all. Well, could have been worse I guess. 


Speaking about worse, the exam was amazingly exhausting!! 3 professors, 3 sets of questions, 3 answer papers and 3 hours to complete it. And it was not like the question sets were short or easy, no no no no. I would say that each of them was like 75% of a normal exam (2 sets included 3 essay questions, one had 15 smaller ones). And compared to previous exams, those were a bit wider in content, well at least some of them. And previously this course was worth more credits.... Anyhow, that is now done and I guess it went okay. Awaiting something like 80-90 points out of 100.


Now some rest and ice hockey :)

Yeah baby yeah!

Finland managed to win USA 3-2 in Hockey WC. So the tournament continues..

SHOT! STOP SPAMMING ON YOUR BLOG!!! 15 posts within 24 hours is more than enough :D MORE THAN ENOUGH!

Finance exam over

The exam was surprisingly not difficult :D I can't say it was easy, but definitely not that difficult that I feared. I am awaiting 60-70 points out of 80.

Lets see how it actually went when we will get the results at some point in June.

IIIIIIIIIIIKS, it's finance!

My first ever finance exam is today. I have no clue how well I am prepared, which is kind of a worry. I know that I could have put more effort on studying yesterday,  but overall I think that I understand the main topics. I think :) 

I live in this cool company called Finland

....the lecturer keeps on referring to countries as companies. Annoys me to no end.

Exams, exams, exams..

Next week I have 3 exams - International Finance Management (IFM) on Wednesday, Quantitative methods of business research (QMBR) and Economics of innovation (EoI) on Friday. I have surprised myself by already reading through the material for IFM during this weekend. Well, the lecture slides... There is still 750 page book waiting its turn.


Luckily Thursday is national holiday so I can dedicate that for studying. From Mon to Wed we have a new course, International high technology marketing, which requires quite much reading it seems. We have like 3-6 articles per one lecture... And since the lectures are daily, it means that burying your head to articles is needed every day. Does not make my exam preparations easier at all.

That's what she said!

The flights have been booked to Finland. Best news in a long long time!

Yey, being a good nerd again!

We had the presentations for the consulting project today. The best team was awarded and I am very happy to say that our team won!!!! Very happy about that, but seriously I kinda knew to expect that since we had a great group and we did very good job on this.


Out of these graded and rewarded presentations during this academic year (Consulting project and Knowledge management) I have been in a winning team both times. Thank you all the smart people I've been working with. Also, thanks Shot.

Consulting project done

Consulting group "A-fish-in-sea Ltd" gave the presentation about GISdim3 today. Really pleased with our work and presentation as a whole. Go us! Also the jury and the company liked what we came up with.


I am expecting a very very good grade from this :)

Busy busy week coming up

Monday: Russian exam
Tuesday: Consulting project final presentation + meeting (8 hours)
Wednesday: Supply and innovation management exam
Thursday: Economics of innovation classes + Spanish exam
Friday: Economics of innovation classes (7-8 hours) + deadline for QBR assignment


Will be so so shitty.