Back to Maastricht for Thesis Defense

Thursday, 31^st January 2013 – University – permalink

After a few months I am coming back to Maastricht to defend my master thesis and finish my Infonomics master studies.

Rotterdam, source: my picture

My defence is scheduled to take place on Thursday January 31, 2013. Wizzair no longer flies from Prague do Eindhoven, thus I had to book the flight with Transavia to Rotterdam and take train from Rotterdam to Maastricht. The whole journey is longer and more expensive, but at least there is some cheap flight from Prague to the Netherlands. I could fly with Wizzair from Brno, but I had an exam on Monday so I preferred the Tuesday's flight from Transavia.

It's around zero in Prague and it's raining. The board at the airport reports that in Rooterdam it's warmer. Flight is on time and the plane is not full at all. Soon after the take off I and falling asleep and when I wake up, I can see the sun and dense white clouds under us. How beautiful compared to the grey and depressing weather on the ground.

We landed in Rotterdam around 11 a.m., and I am not wasting the time and go to the bus stop. Last time I paied 2,5€ for thus bus, but today I have to pay 50 cents more. Quite an inflation after since last year. I have like 20 minutes on the train station, so I have a small sandwich as I am quite hungry. My train to Eindhoven leaves at 11:48. I wanted to work a bit, but most of the time I am just listening to music and looking out of the window. My mind goes back in time and I enjoy the memories from my stay in Maastricht.

The train was delayed in Rotterdam and we also arrived with a short delay to Eindhoven, but my train to Maastricht didn't wait. At least the train is going every half an hour. I do not remember the places along the rail road, but they just seem so familiar. The weather is rainy as almost every time when I am approaching Maastricht.

Back in Maastricht

I headed to my friend who offered me a shelter and bike for the next few days. As I am walking through familiar places it seems like it was just a while since I left Maastricht, not half a year. To get something to eat for next days I stopped by in Jumbo. Funny, how it feels. Strange is, I have never felt it in GMHütte, maybe I got old and more sentimental

Until Thursday I spent most of the time at my friend's place, I had to prepare presentation for my defence, it was raining almost the whole time and we also had a beer and talked. Last week as very busy in Prague and I also got a bit ill, so I used the free time to recover a bit and have a proper sleep. It definitely helped, because on the day of defence, I felt better.

Master thesis defence

Conference room, Source: www.sxc.hu

My supervisor instructed me, that the defence has two parts – firstly I have about 15 minutes for a presentation and then he and the second reader have about a half an hour for questions. Afterwards the grade is determined as the average from both readers. When I got to the university, I was wet from the rain, so I changed into a suit to be dressed properly for the defence. Someone was having his defence when I got to the room, so I waited and chatted with the guy when he was waiting for his grade. Then it was my turn.

It was nice to meet Mark and Brent and I was looking forward to my presentation. I made only a few slides about my key points in the fashion I learned during BCG Strategy cup. My presentation was quite fine, but the questions were tough. I didn't expect them as I was though that would dig into my models and stuff, but the main topic was the contribution and meta-analysis as such. Hm, yeah. it's true that there points were easy to attack as they are also a bit hard to defend but obviously I managed to do so, because both supervisor as well as opponent expressed their satisfaction with my defence. My thesis got grade 8, which if I am not mistaken means, that it will be labelled "TOP THESIS". But more important for me is right now the fact, that I've managed to finish my Master of Science degree in the Netherlands. The feeling is great.

I agreed with my Czech friends to meet in the late afternoon, as they had their for exchange students. I called them and I met friend I could not reach here in Maastricht. Great day. We went for a beer and talked about the how is it to be a student in Maastricht. Then I went back to my friend's place, bought a beer and pizza and great evening full of fun followed. In addition to that, I got to know the result of my last exam of winter semester in Prague, thus from now on, I have holiday for almost 3 weeks.