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Thesis supervisor

This morning the whole class of MITIM '11 received an email from LUT stating our preliminary supervisors for our Master's thesis'. My supervisor wasn't a big surprise.

However, what really sucks is the timing of this email - now most of the professors are already on vacation and will be back early August. What this basically means is that a student who would want to start working on the thesis needs to wait until August before starting the writing process - otherwise there is a big possibility that the direction of the work will be off and a major part of the work done during the summer goes to waste. Which is obviously not cool at all.

Anyways, I will send email to my potential supervisor and try to arrange a meeting. If that can't be done I will take the risk and start working on the thesis already next week. During this summer I have lots of time, so it would be a waste not to use it for this project. Progress on the thesis means less stress about it later on - and more time to focus on studies and other activities during the fall.

Public defense for MITIM '10

The second year MITIM students have the public defense of their thesis's tomorrow at LUT. I'm planning to go to see at least a few of them so that I know what to expect in about one years time.

New structure for MITIM program

I just stumbled upon on the new structure of MITIM program, which applies to students starting their journey in MITIM next fall. It can be seen here. 


There are some changes in the courses, few are added and some are taken away. Examples of courses that wont exist to new students are Supply and Innovation management, Economics of innovation. Some new courses are Organizational behavior, Strategic management and Business processes management and information technologies.


In a way I like the new core courses, those are some of the topics that we did not cover in extent this year. Also, the structure seems to be a bit less messy and the topics more concrete in a way. Well, at least from course name point of view.... I am curious to hear/read about the experiences of new MITIM students on how those courses pan out.

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..