This article is based on the self-reflection of a thesis supervisor and a student after the successful completion of a bachelor’s degree thesis project. Many of the insights could potentially be useful in other cases throughout our university and beyond, so we have decided to share them. In addition, we hope to refute myths like “you can never get an excellent grade on your thesis” or “thesis is just an assignment I can forget about once it is done”. We present our perspectives through practical tips from both the student’s and teacher’s perspective. This particular thesis was on the topics of cultural heritage and cultural tourism, and it was a part of the Tourism Management degree programme, however, many of the tips are valid for the thesis process regardless of its context.
The student’s perspective
From the student’s viewpoint, thesis evokes the feeling of dread. How cumbersome it is, has created the scare attributed to the process. In truth, it is a process that demands time, research, creativity, and dedication. It doesn’t help that we try to juggle the thesis process with other school tasks and tend to approach it like any other assignment. There also is the patch work relationship that exists between students and the thesis project supervisor. It is approached at best, as asymmetric communication where we give reports and expect generic guidance. Whereas it can be a continued dialogue where we tap into their knowledge and experience as researchers and pick up good practices that can help our thesis process.
Below are some practical tips from my experience as a bachelor’s thesis student while working with my thesis project supervisor.
Have a structure
Structure in this regard refers to a personalized plan which includes realistic steps to take and small milestones to achieve towards the thesis project. The Jamk thesis resource as well as its thesis plan guideline provides an excellent template for curating the structure needed.
In my experience, having structure can be taken steps further to creating outlines for chapters and subchapters, research timelines with time frames attached, a list of research terminologies and academic writing tone that serve as a word and phrase bank for writing, the list can go on. The time frames are not intended to build anxiety but condition our minds to achieving the set goals and operate more like guidelines rather than unbreakable rules.
Lean on your supervisor
As said previously, communication with our thesis supervisors can be so much more than mechanical. They have been where we are now as students, and they have a wealth of knowledge we can learn from. A practical example of this is a trick I learned from my thesis supervisor, which I later named ‘thesis backend’. It is the system of having a separate document during the research phase for all the resources or phrases we find curious and can be useful to the thesis or project process. It becomes a bank where we take what is useful and have reserves if the need for them arises. This was most instrumental for me in navigating through the bulk of resources I found and read during the knowledge base part of my thesis.
In summary, dialogues with open communication during the guidance sessions proved very useful in my case. The supervisors cannot and will not tell us what to do, but they can prob and question our rationale to reform our thinking to achieve the best results, as was the case with my supervisor and me.
Eat your elephant one day at time
The elephant in this regard is the thesis we fear so much. It’s been said in many ways by many people; ‘show up’ every day emphasized by Woody Allen (Faldin, 2020), or ‘the only way to eat an elephant [is] one bite at a time’, attributed to St. Francis of Assisi or Desmond Tutu (Beck, 2023). What this implies is that the fit of thesis can be eased by doing a task at set times however little.
As cliche as it sounds, reading at least a page from a research resource puts you one step closer to writing the bulk of your knowledge base than the vague hope of the perfect time. The perfect time for us as students is not assured, not while we have other academic tasks. For me, this meant an extra two hours after school in the Jamk library or at home. In essence, find a time frame that works but be accountable for doing the task. I find that accountability is key in research, being accountable to self, partners (when writing in pairs), and supervisors over the project.
The supervisor’s perspective
From a supervisor’s point of view there are certainly thesis projects that are easier to advise on than others. Any supervisor would be enabled to give good and focused advice by the transparency and honesty of the student. In addition, a student should not think that their thesis is only meaningful to themselves, but it is meaningful in many ways to their supervisor as well. At its best, it is a platform for discussing research and developmental issues surrounding the field in question, not technical implementation and referencing style. Also, it refreshes and enriches the teacher’s knowledge by raising perspectives and contexts that haven’t been previously explored. A thesis supervisor is not a machine that automatically grades the student’s work, nor a watchdog devoted to proving you wrong and exposing your shortcomings. Before reading the following concrete tips, I would like the student to understand that we as supervisors are also human beings and the graduating student’s soon-to-be colleagues.
Get your desired grade by understanding the assessment criteria
The thesis process is surrounded by a variety of misconceptions. I hear quite often from students that an excellent grade is unachievable. If it was so, it wouldn’t be included in the scale of assessment criteria . And it certainly does not require the student to be perfect – just good enough. But what is good enough? Luckily, we all know what it means because we have clear, agreed on, and published assessment criteria for both students and teachers to refer to. They could typically be found in the thesis guide (e.g. Jamk University of Applied Sciences, n.d.b). A good way to start thesis process is by reviewing them and answering the questions:
- Where are my current knowledge and skills positioned on the assessment scale?
- What is the grade I would like to get?
- What does it take for me to get from my current position to my desired grade? Which are the aspects that I need to learn or improve?
The thesis is not just a topic or final product but a journey of learning and developing oneself. Once the student has identified their own development needs, it would be easier to invest their time and effort in them in a focused way, as well as ask for help from the supervisor. This was the starting point of my collaboration with Faith as well.
Don’t skip reading
The thesis is a complex task. Complex does not necessarily mean difficult. It just means that there are many stages and stakeholders involved, as well as a level of uncertainty. One way to decrease the uncertainty is to read – and this is not a function that could be outsourced to someone else or to a technological tool. There are two tips here:
- Read before you ask. It is always allowed to ask from the supervisor, however, my experience is that most of the student’s questions could be answered by the information on the thesis guide. At Jamk, we have a very detailed and useful thesis guide to lean on (Jamk University of Applied Sciences, n.d.a). The student can save plenty of time and sleep better at night instead of waiting for a day or two for their supervisor to eventually refer to a page on the thesis guide. In this way the dialogue with the supervisor could be focused better on judgement calls, not basic inquiries.
- Read before you write. The student is not expected to know everything at the beginning of the thesis process. In fact, no researcher knows as a start where their work is going exactly. Research and development are based on previous knowledge – provided to us in academic and professional articles and books. Usually, good ideas come from reading what others have already done instead of digging one’s own head for answers. And while we have plenty of technological tools at our disposal to find or summarize information for us, they cannot develop our thoughts on our behalf. I particularly remember how Faith found a discrepancy in the definition of terms related to her thesis while reviewing relevant literature – a moment of true enlightenment.
Make the research or development work your own
The student’s thesis is their first attempt at research or development. One might not be planning to become a researcher or to innovate in future, but similar activity will be performed, formally or informally, many times in any future career. But even if the student’s research and development career ends here, this thesis will be published and will contribute to the global body of knowledge (see Chidi, 2018). Others will read it and refer to it, so it will drive knowledge creation one step further. For that reason, I encourage students to make this work their own. It should be something that they will be proud of, showcasing their progress as students and as people. Moreover, it should be something that they can stand behind, containing their world view, their analytical thoughts, their criticism of a current state, their way to make the world a better place, while maintaining a matter-of-fact, emotion-free scientific language.
Content-wise, this can be ensured by choosing a topic one truly cares about. But the technical implementation should not be underestimated either: don’t let the artificial intelligence-based tools lead the thought while you follow. With Faith, we had this conversation early in the thesis process, and she took the challenge of doing “old-fashioned” research, embracing her own perspectives and humanly errors for a meaningful outcome that she can now proudly own.
The beginning of a future collegial partnership
Following the forementioned tips, among others, was the basis of our collaboration on the thesis process and it produced meaningful results: not only Faith’s thesis that we recommend you get acquainted with (see Osunde, 2025) but also a professional partnership that could potentially last. Because today we are still in the student-teacher dynamics but tomorrow Faith will already be Rositsa’s colleague. The world, although global, is small, and trust that is already built could be used in future.