Be prepared when going into a meeting with a supervisor. Make a list of questions you had/where you got stuck, and show clear examples.
Agenda & notes: send your supervisor an agenda for the upcoming meeting at least 24 hours ahead of time. This ensures that the supervisor has time to prepare answers to your questions or feedback. Take notes during meetings to avoid duplicate discussions.
Getting feedback: If you would like feedback on a specific item, albeit a scientific experiment, a framework, or something that you have written, please send those at least two days before the meeting, so that the supervisor has time to read about that item.
Communication
Be clear about your expectations, and about what motivates you/what doesn’t.
Communicate clearly when you don’t understand something or don’t agree, remember that you are doing the coding and experimentation.
Planning
Make a plan for your work when you start, and revisit the planning before every meeting. Communicate the plan and the revisions during the meeting
Check what you need to submit and when (for instance, handing in a project plan after one month). Any other deadlines concerning your graduation need to be planned in and communicated to your supervisor as well.
Supervision meetings can/should be used to discuss progress with respect to your planning.
If you have a date in mind for when you would like to graduate, keep track of that date by yourself. Remember that getting feedback and grading takes time.
Start with a small literature study by reading the recommended literature from the topic you have chosen. Make use of the topic description if available, as it provides a good starting point and leverages the effort that was already put into the definition of the topic by your supervisor.
Method/experimentation
If you want to communicate your idea with your supervisor, use figures/process diagrams to explain the workflow. This helps your supervisor understand what you are doing, and you can use these for your thesis too.
Start programming early on, and document everything you do!
Thesis writing
Before you start writing, have a look at the writing tips document that you can find on the canvas page.
Before you start writing, discuss with your supervisor the structure that you have in mind, to avoid having to redo a lot of work.
Start writing early on, don’t wait until you have done all the experiments! Writing helps you structure and formalize your thinking and can give insights into the methodology as well as experimentation!
When you read a paper, keep notes on the paper in your thesis document already, even if you don’t use that paper later.
When you are designing your experiment, write it down as a draft in your thesis, make a diagram and keep track of all the discisions you’ve made and why.
When coding, keep track of descitions, packages etc. that you make use of. If a major part of your theses is a new algorithm, describe it in pseudo code in your theses before you start programming. Revisit the description as your implementation changes.
When you have ideas about analysis or additional things that would be interesting to look at, write it down as a list item in your future work section. Maybe you will get to do some of these in your analysis section, if not you can integrate them in the future work section.
Keep track of limitations of your work, e.g. problems with data like missing information or features, problems with packages that could not be overcome.
Every supervisor has different standards on giving feedback for writing. Discuss this with your supervisor early on and establish what type of feedback you would like to receive. Keep in mind that supervisors have many students and limited amount of time.
Grading
Both the first reader (supervisor) as well as the second reader should have three weeks to read and grade the thesis.
