ARK-E5512 - Pre-Thesis Seminar, Lecture, 17.9.2021-17.12.2021

Assignment 2.  The Context of your Thesis

Deadline 22.10. 15:00

The assignment submission has two headlines - ‘Other Theses’ & ‘Keywords’:

A. Other Theses
The thesis is in some ways more ‘personal’ than other work done during your studies, however, getting to grips with previous work is essential to help you position your thoughts in relation to the discipline, and avoiding overlapping. Collect and review previous thesis work (from Aalto, or other universities) that you think is related to your topic or that you feel inspired by. Ask yourself, how can you learn from the previous work?
Are there sources, references, methods of inquiry, analysis and/or presentation that you think are worth considering in your own work?

You can review previous thesis work from Aalto on the website AaltoDoc - please see the links on the ‘Resources’ page.

Compile and organize your observations (and the theses you looked at) for example as lists, bullet points etc.

B. Keywords
Your Thesis will be related to existing theses, but more broadly it will have a relation to general phenomena - for example, if you are designing a new type of school building in Helsinki, then your thesis will (according to the way you prioritize its different aspect) be a part of the discussion on a. different existing types of school buildings, b. the idea of a learning environment, c. contemporary buildings in Helsinki, d. etc...

Consider the different issues your thesis will explore, and write down the topics your thesis will explore as a list of keywords, with short explanations. As each Thesis work will be connected to a large number of different topics, a key method of framing your thesis is giving more ‘weight’ to some topics and less to others - consider the weight you are giving to each of the keywords (what is most important for your thesis, what is secondary and so on.)

Upload the ‘Other Theses’ & ‘Keywords’ as one pdf on 22.10. 15:00.
These texts will be used as a basis for discussion in the 22.10. session.