I express my expectations to students who want to prepare their graduation project with me:

• Making projects with students who I have never met and who have not taken my lesson is not a practice I like very much. In order to ease the workload of other faculty members, I accept those who want to do a marketing thesis. In this condition, I prefer to meet with the project students one-on-one even if it is a distance education. (“I have decided on a subject. I chose you as a thesis instructor. Let’s get started” style approaches are not appreciated.)
• I require the student to do a study that will be useful for him/her and the institution she/he works for. When choosing a topic, the student should act together with the institution she/he work with and to work in the direction that the institution needs. In this direction, I have expectations such as receiving support from the institution and using institutional data.
• I do not accept any project with “copy-past” intention. If there will not be your direct contribution, let’s not work together.
• First of all, I don’t want to get a graduation thesis if there is less than 6 months. (Due to the implementation of YÖK, I now accept it for 3 months. But…) I am positive not for a thesis like a simple student assignment, but for a study that both the student and I will be proud of. I do not listen to and do not accept the stories of the students who left the whole thesis to the last term “I had a lot of work, you know what happened to me, the company does not allow us anyway, etc.“.
• When we agree on the subject of the thesis, we need to start discussing that the student has prepared something about the content [at least the outline] within two weeks and how we can turn this content into a final thesis.
• Thus, both the backbone and the content of the thesis become clear. Then I want to be reported regularly. In addition, I talk and direct about the progress of the thesis.

These are my “must-haves”. I want these conditions both because I took lessons from my past experiences and because I do not want to hear the story, “I was going to finish the school, but Uğur Özmen did not pass my thesis“.

😮

See some testimonials:

An MBA participant’s request:

Ugur Hocam;

I took a digital transformation course from you last semester as part of the MBA program.

I may have done the worst homeworks of the period, perhaps the lessons you have taught so far. I do not want it to stay that way.

Before the end of the school, I want to make use of your comments, which destroy the feeling that «this is a great homework, I think it was very good» in the student’s mind.

😉

Another comment:

I remember 2011 just like yesterday.

While I was preparing for your exam, I saw an article on your web page. Then I showed you what I expect with the project. I asked you “Should we do final project together?” When I said this, Şule hoca said, “Are you crazy? It is very difficult to make a project with Uğur ”. After all, in all my different school experiences, the best was with you.

In the meantime, the project had provided the company with a benefit close to a million TL with its current value.

🙂

Do I want so many things? I think YES… When I look at the responses sent after my comments, I say CONTINUE SAME. When I look at the results of those who completed their theses, I think I did well.

;-)

Note: You may see some of the final projects at the final part of that article