Cost Effective On-line Master Thesis Fair

Paper in proceeding, 2021

Under corona restrictions it was expected to be extra hard to find an opportunity to do a master thesis in cooperation with a company as is the praxis in the investigated context. To mitigate this, a special master thesis fair was held in the area of Electric power engineering as most normally arranged fairs and other opportunities for the students to meet companies had been cancelled.

For economic and practical reasons was Zoom and the function on break-out room used. A two-hour event was held with 15 companies, consisting of a mix of local, national, and international companies. The companies were given a great freedom to act within their respective break-out room. Around three quarters of the second-year students, in a two-year program, attended as well as a few from the first year. Initially the students, especially the international, focused on the big and international companies, like Ericsson, ABB and Volvo Cars, but then they were also looking for opportunities at smaller local companies. This created some waiting times, both for the students and some of the small and less known companies.

Both the students and most of the companies were satisfied and it was clear that all wanted the arrangement to be repeated, some even if there would be no pandemic. The fair fulfilled its purpose but also gave insights on how future fairs, with limited economical resources, could be arranged, The recommendations are presented in form of a list at the end.