Claudia's Swedish Adventure: Thesis process

OK, so now that I have just finished writing my thesis I thought it would be a good idea to write a post that helps to explain the process to future master students at the graduate school in Lund.

We were given a wide range of information regarding writing our thesis in the graduate school but to be honest most of the time I was confused until I was actually in full swing of writing.

The first thing you need to know is that in the graduate school you will likely not be writing your thesis in the same department as the one you have been studying at. For example I am doing a two year master program and I studied courses within the gender department as my degree is an MSc in the Social Studies of Gender. However, when it came to writing my thesis I wrote it in the Political Science Department.

The reason for this switch is because courses at the graduate school are interdisciplinary meaning that students learning the courses (this includes Global Studies, Gender Studies, and Development Studies) often have backgrounds in other degrees. For example I had an Honours (my Bachelour) in Political Science. This means that in total my degree is an MSc in the Social Studies of Gender majoring in Political Science.

Now back to the process. If you are doing a two year master programme you will spend your first year doing course work. There are certain courses you must pass in order to qualify to write your thesis, check what these are and how many points you have before writing your thesis!

After this year is up it is a good idea to start thinking about your thesis even though you will only start writing in six months - during your third semester you might take additional courses or do an internship - these will likely help your thinking towards your thesis.

Each department is different as to how the process begins. With me, attached to the Political Science Department, I had to send an abstract in during the course of the third semester so that I could be allocated a supervisor. However, for others they may allocated a supervisor during third semester or only during the fourth - you need to follow up with the department then see what their process is. That said - you should be reading up and gathering ideas on your topic long before your first meeting with your supervisor if your ever going to finish your work before the May deadline.

Once you have your supervisor and a topic idea you have roughly four months to get your work done. In the graduate school for two year master students your thesis should be roughly 20,000 words and has to fill several academic criteria. If, however, you are unable to finish by May because you have more to do (field work, etc) then you can hand in during the second round of submissions which is in August.

What is important to remember is that you only have limited hours with your supervisor. They are not there for you night and day (although some really do go the extra mile). Each is able to give only a limited number of hours (8 if I am not mistaken) to each student and these hours can be made up of individual sessions, group sessions, and even be taken out of email correspondence - This largely depends on your supervisor and your departments style. Be sure to ask how many hours you get with your supervisor at the start of the semester so you can plan your moves effectively.

Once you have figured out what you are writing and who is helping you it is always a good idea (something I wasn't particularly good at) is finding out the technical aspects of your paper. I largely ignored these when first given to me and paid the price dearly when I had to sit for an entire day just before hand-in reformulating my paper. What is your department's required format? Is there a template? What must your spacing and margins be? Although not sexy questions they can be time consuming to fix if you don't follow them from the start.

With your paper written there is a process you then need to go through which with the graduate school is this:

Submit your paper online (for us this is Live@Lund)
Submit two printed versions of your paper on deadline and sign that you have handed it in
Wait a few days to hear the seminar schedule
Defend your thesis
If passed upload it to LUP
Wait for your grade

This whole process happens over a three or four week period so prepare for that if you are planning on leaving the country or going on vacation after hand-in.

When you defend your thesis you will be required to give a ten minute presentation (probably using power point). Another student will then have 20-30 minutes to ask you questions about your paper. The examiner will then have some additional questions for you before (most likely) speaking to you alone for ten minutes. During these ten minutes you will get an indication as to whether you passed but will not get your grade. So your defence will take an hour in total and you should be prepared for it as it is not easy and the questions are tough!

You will, of course, also be required to read another person's thesis and act as an opponent. You will need to be equally prepared for this role as how you perform here could impact your grade.

LUP is an online database which has all students theses on it. It is a great resource while writing your thesis and you must put yours up before you can get your grade. You do, however, have control over how visible it is.

If, however, you were unfortunate enough to not pass the first time around you will have two options. One, you will have ten days to implement the changes required of you to pass or you can take more time and resubmit in August. The beauty of the Swedish system is that even if you fail in the May submission it has no bearing on how well you can do in the August submission. So that do not cap your pass rate - you can get an A in August if you follow instructions given to you by your examiner. That said, you will have to go through the whole process of submission again.

Lastly, I should mention the option to talk at the Graduate School Conference. This is an opportunity to present your work to a wider audience which is great considering how much effort you put into your thesis! I will be speaking at this years conference tomorrow and am a bit nervous but very excited.

I know this was a long post but I hope it was useful. Just to summarise here is the whole process in a nutshell:

Find out which department you will write your thesis in
Make sure you have passed the necessary course work
Start thinking about your thesis in the third semester
Be allocated a supervisor
Find our how many hours you have with your supervisor
Find out what the technical aspects of your paper must be
Decide if you will hand-in in May or August
Submit your thesis online as well as in hard copy
Defend your thesis at a seminar
Act as an opponent to another student's thesis
Find out if you passed
If you passed upload your thesis to LUP and wait for your grade
If you failed resubmit your paper in 10 days or in August

If you are about to embark on writing your thesis or are getting ready to do so next semester then good luck! It is a bigger process than you could ever imagine but if you plan well it can be a very empowering process where you learn a lot! Have fun and enjoy that hand in moment :)