If you are about to start a master's thesis at LIACC, here are six things I wish you already knew.

  1. Your research question is not a project plan. Spend the first three weeks sharpening the question. It will change twice. That's normal.
  2. Read ten papers twice. Not thirty once.
  3. Write while you work. The thesis isn't a last-chapter artifact; the draft is how you think.
  4. Version everything. Your data, your code, your draft. If it isn't in git, it doesn't exist.
  5. Email your supervisor weekly. One paragraph: what you did, what's blocked, what you'll do next. This is the single highest-leverage thing you can do.
  6. Defend early, not late. We don't grade on the perfect thesis. We grade on the finished one.

The rest is details.