diff --git a/_posts/2017-07-09-how-to-write-a-master-thesis.md b/_posts/2017-07-09-how-to-write-a-master-thesis.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..172a439 --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/2017-07-09-how-to-write-a-master-thesis.md @@ -0,0 +1,53 @@ +extends: post.liquid +title: "How to write a Master Thesis" +date: 09 Jul 2017 16:45:00 +0200 +path: /:year/:month/:day/how-to-write-a-master-thesis +--- + +2 years and 7 months ago I wrote [How to not write a Bachelor Thesis][bathesis]. +Back then I just finished my Bachelor Thesis. +I now finished my Master Thesis as well (with my final talk in less than 2 weeks). +Its title: + +
+"Network Function Offloading in Virtualized Environments" +
+ +I am so happy (and proud) that I finally finished it and with it my master study. +I could go on and again give you the tips I learned over the last 7 months on how to work efficiently and with less frustration on such a project. +Except I would just repeat what I have said back then for my Bachelor Thesis. + +So instead let me collect some statistics. + +
+![Contributions to master](https://tmp.fnordig.de/ma/commits.png) +Contributions to master +
+ +I created the repository for all thesis work just 2 days after my birthday in 2016. +Back then it should have been a completely different thesis topic, but due to some unexpected difficulties I had to drop the first topic before even beginning and went on to search for another. +I finally found my topic in the beginning of November, but it took me until the end of that month to finally commit the first few lines of code. +None of that code ended up in the final application of course. + +My commit frequency was quite different from back in my Bachelor thesis days. +A lot less night shifts, but still nothing early in the morning. + +
+![Frequency of commits by time of day](https://tmp.fnordig.de/ma/punchcard.png) +Frequency of commits by time of day +
+ +My application ended with about 4000 lines of C code, plus another 2000 lines of code in examples, tests and experiments. +I also wrote some small helper tools in Rust, e.g. [ebpf-disasm](https://github.com/badboy/ebpf-disasm/) and a library and another tool, which I will make public in the next days. +I only really started writing on 18th of May. That gives me just over 6 weeks for the final text, which I finished on 4th of July and handed in a day later. +The final _thesis.pdf_ has 73 pages, 56 of those are the actual text (and graphs). +According to a rough measurement with `wc` that's 25248 words. + +And of course I wasn't home for all of the 8 months of work. +I was in Norway in March for BoosterConf, and traveled to Amsterdam twice during the last 7 weeks (the time I should have been writing more). + +Now I am done with studying. In 5 weeks I leave Aachen for good. +The rest of the summer will be filled with catching up with work, so I can leave for an extended holiday trip in September and October. +And when I am back in the winter, I need to start figuring out what I want to do. And where. + +[bathesis]: /2014/11/15/how-to-not-write-a-bachelor-thesis/