Dear members, I and two of my colleagues got an offer to write our master thesis in collaboration with a private company. I think that it is a good opportunity to work on a real project for the master thesis but on the other hand, I don't know if there are disadvantages that we can't foresee now. Is there anyone who has written his/her master thesis on a private company?
I am asking for your guidance as a confused M.Sc. student. Thanks in advance.
RJ87
Apr 19, 21 1:00 pm
There are obviously a lot of avenues you can take & I'm not exactly sure what you're referring too. But I had two good friends in my graduate school class that got an offer to build something roughly the size of a hunting cabin. The "client" offered to pay for materials, the two students would design & physically build it. Everyone thought it was a great idea, how cool it would be to actually have a finished product, learn about real details & craftsmanship. Wonderful.
What no one thought about was that in school it's a very condensed timeline & working with a real client is a pain in the ass. They were constantly having to tweak & redesign things to appease someone else. Then on their "off" time from design work they had to actually go out and play contractor. They were essentially working two job titles & were miserable. The client ran out of money for lumber & the whole thing got called off about 2/3 the way in. The kids ended up throwing a house party because they could finish they project conceptually instead.
While I know you're likely not going to physically make something, I would encourage you to stay away from the real world for your thesis. There are a number of constraints that will make it far more difficult to manage along the way. Everything from client taste, code, value engineering, structure, MEP. Your thesis will likely be your last hoorah in the land of make believe, take advantage of it & do something fun.
SneakyPete
Apr 19, 21 6:35 pm
Hire a lawyer, otherwise you'll end up with a degree but none of the money that the project generated (through salaries or anything else.)
randomised
Apr 20, 21 3:43 am
Is it for a company you'd like to work at after graduating? It is quite common here (NL) that people graduate at a company, doing a real assignment/project as their final project/thesis, with people from the company guiding and supervising them along the way. You can end up with something that's applied in the real world, and with a job after graduation if you do it properly. Don't often see this in traditional architecture though. Will it be more in software, something digital or 3D printing, etc?
Ugur Yildirim Simsek
Apr 20, 21 1:47 pm
here I'll share a bit more detail:
I and two of my colleagues have designed a project in Mozambique on the scope of Final Design Studio E of Politecnico di Torino Master of Science, Architecture for Sustainability Design Department.
The project has been developed with evolutionary multi-objective optimization engine WallaceiX. The engine tries to find the most optimal solution for an urban layout of a plot that considers certain criteria such as: - Increasing people interaction - Increasing connectivity of alleyways - Increasing/decreasing solar radiation depending on the season. - Increasing ground shadow - Increasing urban density - Increasing connectivity between clusters - Increasing views from facades
A private company has reached that project from our LinkedIn post and ask us to use and evolve that technological approach on a real project and write our thesis on it. So more or less that is the case.
I am personally planning to continue on the academy and join a Ph.D. program. In that case, it seems a better idea to write a thesis on my own, not for a company on a real project I guess.
Thank you all for your answers,
randomised
Apr 20, 21 3:23 pm
I'd be a skeptical here, they basically want to use your idea/project. And if you don't even see yourself working there but in academia, try doing something a bit different for your thesis, you've already explored this angle, no? And otherwise might be a good basis for your Ph.D later on to push this further on your own.
(Once did a workshop/lecture for the Ph.D students of one of your instructors :-) )
uguryildirimsimsek
Apr 21, 21 8:34 am
Yes, I pretty much agree with your angle. I have already experimented with this method in two different projects and I am not planning to go further on in this topic. So it seems like the best choice is to change my angle and find my own path. Thanks for the great advice and your time.
On the other hand, I am very surprised to hear you know one of my instructors it is such a coincidence :)
Dear members, I and two of my colleagues got an offer to write our master thesis in collaboration with a private company. I think that it is a good opportunity to work on a real project for the master thesis but on the other hand, I don't know if there are disadvantages that we can't foresee now. Is there anyone who has written his/her master thesis on a private company?
I am asking for your guidance as a confused M.Sc. student. Thanks in advance.
There are obviously a lot of avenues you can take & I'm not exactly sure what you're referring too. But I had two good friends in my graduate school class that got an offer to build something roughly the size of a hunting cabin. The "client" offered to pay for materials, the two students would design & physically build it. Everyone thought it was a great idea, how cool it would be to actually have a finished product, learn about real details & craftsmanship. Wonderful.
What no one thought about was that in school it's a very condensed timeline & working with a real client is a pain in the ass. They were constantly having to tweak & redesign things to appease someone else. Then on their "off" time from design work they had to actually go out and play contractor. They were essentially working two job titles & were miserable. The client ran out of money for lumber & the whole thing got called off about 2/3 the way in. The kids ended up throwing a house party because they could finish they project conceptually instead.
While I know you're likely not going to physically make something, I would encourage you to stay away from the real world for your thesis. There are a number of constraints that will make it far more difficult to manage along the way. Everything from client taste, code, value engineering, structure, MEP. Your thesis will likely be your last hoorah in the land of make believe, take advantage of it & do something fun.
Hire a lawyer, otherwise you'll end up with a degree but none of the money that the project generated (through salaries or anything else.)
Is it for a company you'd like to work at after graduating? It is quite common here (NL) that people graduate at a company, doing a real assignment/project as their final project/thesis, with people from the company guiding and supervising them along the way. You can end up with something that's applied in the real world, and with a job after graduation if you do it properly. Don't often see this in traditional architecture though. Will it be more in software, something digital or 3D printing, etc?
here I'll share a bit more detail:
I and two of my colleagues have designed a project in Mozambique on the scope of Final Design Studio E of Politecnico di Torino Master of Science, Architecture for Sustainability Design Department.
The project has been developed with evolutionary multi-objective optimization engine WallaceiX.
The engine tries to find the most optimal solution for an urban layout of a plot that considers certain criteria such as:
- Increasing people interaction
- Increasing connectivity of alleyways
- Increasing/decreasing solar radiation depending on the season.
- Increasing ground shadow
- Increasing urban density
- Increasing connectivity between clusters
- Increasing views from facades
you can have more detail in the links:
https://www.behance.net/galler...
https://www.linkedin.com/posts...
A private company has reached that project from our LinkedIn post and ask us to use and evolve that technological approach on a real project and write our thesis on it. So more or less that is the case.
I am personally planning to continue on the academy and join a Ph.D. program. In that case, it seems a better idea to write a thesis on my own, not for a company on a real project I guess.
Thank you all for your answers,
I'd be a skeptical here, they basically want to use your idea/project. And if you don't even see yourself working there but in academia, try doing something a bit different for your thesis, you've already explored this angle, no? And otherwise might be a good basis for your Ph.D later on to push this further on your own.
(Once did a workshop/lecture for the Ph.D students of one of your instructors :-) )
Yes, I pretty much agree with your angle. I have already experimented with this method in two different projects and I am not planning to go further on in this topic. So it seems like the best choice is to change my angle and find my own path. Thanks for the great advice and your time.
On the other hand, I am very surprised to hear you know one of my instructors it is such a coincidence :)