LGO thesis opinions two months into the internship

I wanted to take a quick minute to comment on the LGO thesis as I pass the two month point.  I knew a number of LFM 09s who were still writing their thesis up until the last minute, desperately trying to finish it.  At the moment, I cannot see why this happens.  Some quick background.

The thesis that we write has to satisfy both the Engineering school as well as the Management school, but if you read them you will see that LGO theses are often lacking in the Engineering side (I have the rare opposite problem with almost no management component).  From the number of recent theses that I have scanned, they range from about 45 pages to 100+, but are typically 60 pages long.  This includes the titles, bibliography, graphs, tables, etc.  We have a very specific format for the thesis (though it changes a little every year) and without writing a word, your thesis starts at about 15 pages.

[caption id="attachment_1448" align="alignnone" width="149" caption="The thesis structure is preset. Like putting the cover on the TPS report."][/caption]

You have your title page, acknowledgment page, table of contents page, table of pictures page, table of tables page, a page break for every new chapter, and a number of intentionally left blank pages.  This means that without writing a word, you are 25% done (15 of ~60).

In my opinion, most LGOs write backgrounds (both company and problem) that are way too long.  Nobody cares and no one is impressed with your extra long thesis.



Long background or not, you can write (or get it 95%) the background before you even learn what the problem is.  This means that the first couple weeks of the internship where you are sitting around not doing anything, can be a productive time.  You really have no excuse not to do it.

Next comes the problem definition.  Aside from a few projects that radically change a couple months into the project (it happened to someone this year, 2 months in the company decided to drop the project) defining the project scope (and in turn what you plan to accomplish) is due back to LGO about two months into the internship.  The paper you turn into LGO must be approved by both of your academic advisors (Engineering and Sloan) as well as your company sponsor and supervisor.  With this document being due, there is no reason you cannot complete this section of your thesis during the first two months of the internship.  Just write it as you are completing the LGO document, or shortly after.

After that comes approach and results.  I admit, all of this cannot be done during the internship for everyone, but documenting the approach as you do it can be useful.  It is useful to concisely write down what you did, why you did it, what you have planned next, and what you need to accomplish this plan.  Especially writing down what you plan to do next.  You should even try to anticipate what will happen and how you will respond.  As we learned in Papa Spears's class, you should write down what you expect to happen and why.  It always interesting to see what you wrote and then to think about why you were right or why you were wrong.

The key here is you don’t have to write the approach all at once.  Write it as you go.  I have my thesis open on my computer every day, and look at it every day to see if there is anything I can add during the dull moments.

Finally, results.  There are lots of reasons this cannot be done before the internship is over, but you should be able to construct a large portion of it.  This means that you should have most of your thesis done before you leave your internship.  I know I will have it done because I am two months into my internship and I already have everything but the last section of the approach and the results section are finished (ready for review).  The approach is documented through where I am now and I’ve already written the approach for the rest of the internship, but may have to modify it if things do not go as expected.

As a brief aside before I finish this post, I think many LGO theses are too long.  My goal is to have the shortest thesis this year but to still have something I am proud to turn in.  It takes skill and effort to say something with less words (something I do NOT practice with my blogs) and I hope to cut the fat out of my thesis.  I am aiming for 42 pages (last year's shortest was 44).

[caption id="attachment_1450" align="alignnone" width="192" caption="I just visited Paris so I felt this was appropriate."][/caption]