Pre-defense day

Pre-defense should start in a couple of minutes. Room is already full of people, some looking a bit nervous. Almost all are looking tired. The groups are different than in previous seminars, meaning I wont be able to see the presentations of some familiar faces, but then again I will see some that I have never seen before which is nice. Sooooo niiiice.

I am presenting after the lunch at 13:00. Pretty happy with my slides, although I must be a time-nazi to make it fit in to 20 minutes. During my last practice run my presentation lasted 20 minutes and 30 seconds.

There is no clock in the room....

Now I have reached intermediate level in Russian

...not really.

But that was one of the goals of MITIM for all students - to reach good level in another foreign language during the program.

And how many managed to do that? My guess from LUT students: 0.

Last seminar done from my part

The presentation was ok, but i really need to practice my presentation before pre-defense. I also got some good comments from the audience and our LUT professor who was present. A BIG difference between the quality of her comments compared to those of her GSOM colleague (LUT one being way better).

But there is one thing that I dont understand at all. Again, almost half of the students from GSOM side are missing from our seminargroup*. I don't really get the whole thing - these should be compolsory for all of us, but it appears not to be the case. So why on earth do we do these then if you can skip these without any penalty? Doesnt make sense to me...

Also, it seems that we dont have a lunch break today either, just as the last time... I will be one hungry hippo traveling back to Finland. Two words: Bad organization.


* Most of the students did turn up to the seminar at some point, but majority was late or spent only a part of the day with us. I think it is disrespectful to people who spend their whole day in the seminar as it should be as well as to people doing the presentation.

Its kinda close but still no panic

We have our pre-defence in just 3 short weeks. At the moment I still lack most of the analysis for my empirical part. And theoretical part would need some beefing up too...

But I am not worried. At all.

• Its only a presentation - you don't have to have the whole thesis written
• I still have 3 weeks to work on it (even though I will be spending one week of it in Hungary...). On Friday I analyzed one interview (added ~6 pages to my thesis). So, these can be done quickly.
• Analyzing and creating theories is actually fun. Much more than doing research...

At the moment I have conducted 3 interviews. I would still need a couple more to reach my target (5). I know that the sample would be very small then too - but enough to make some educated suggestions for future research and to get a glimpse how the reality is in small enterprises.

Thesis update

In 25 minutes I will have my first interview for the thesis. Kinda interested to see what kind of material will I manage to collect. The question-list is pretty good and I should be able to get all the necessary information that I need for my study.

This is when the real research actually begins!

I will be moving. Again.

Last weekend I applied for a flat from Lappeenranta and to my surprise I was offered one this Friday. So, most likely during next weekend I will be going there for one last hurrah until the end of May. After that... Who knows where I will be.

Things have been quite slow on the thesis front for a couple of weeks already. I kinda lost my groove for that, but yesterday I did some more research and now I have good material to continue plowing onwards. I also have a phone conference set up with my supervisor for next Thursday, but I will ask to push that a bit forward so that we could have it face-to-face after I have settled in LPR. I am a bit concerned about the empirical part, i.e. where do I find the companies for the interviews. I will go and ask around in the Technopolis Lappeenranta - I am quite sure that I will find success with my interview request if I manage to sell my idea to them. And that, I will of course do :)

First update from Finland. Well, during this year.

My time in lovely Budapest is over. Well, for this set. I am sure I will go back there. For the last 1.5 weeks I've been living at my home in Joensuu. It is kind of weird to be back living with my parents, since I haven't been doing this a lot in last 8 years or so. However, most likely I will move out here if I get a decent flat from Lappeenranta.

The main reason for going there would be to spend some time with the mitim-people. I don't see any thesis-related benefits at all if I do go there. The sad thing is that already this semester and especially after it, the roads of us mitim '11 students will go separate ways and we will spread around the world. So, spending time with some of the co-students would be cool - afterwards it will be harder and will most likely always require organizing. Bleoooh.

On a positive note, we will meet already this week since we have a thesis seminar at LUT on Friday. All of us needed to send the current copies of our thesises to our supervisors who should be at the seminar to give us some comments about them. I haven't worked on mine since the submission and do not intend to do so. A little break from that project is needed. But, starting next week its on again. At the moment I have approximately 30 written pages, all theory. Really should not be too much of a problem to get this project done before May.

Anyways, can't wait to meet other mitim people. Few more days to go.