Did they do some of the project without telling me?

Question

So I am doing this bachelor thesis for a research institute and they wanted me to do different kinds of development. Like conversions of files and implementing a system (I call it system A for mentioning later) and right now I am developing the main system which need to be connected to system A. Or at least I thought that was the plan.

So recently I found out they developed a similar system to system A, (it wasn't a big part of the project but it took me a lot of productive time to research and develop it) and this new version has to be integrated with the bigger system that I am building for them.

I asked them whether they used or will be using my implementation (system A) anywhere; They said no and it was more of a proof of concept, They said in my thesis I can write that it was 'initial implementation of the new one". How is it initial implementation if nothing is the same and they did not tell anything about it to me.

Does this situation make any sense? I am still developing a system for them which is quite bigger than system A and I still need to use some part of system A to integrate it with the new version that they totally developed themselves.

The reason of course is that their new system has a better outlook and design but they could have maybe told me from the start that they won't be using my version as I had told them from the start that I won't be using time on design and it was something we talked about on day 1.

I am not worried of what I should put in my thesis but is this really normal? If not, What did I do wrong?

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Yes, it makes sense. No, you didn't do anything wrong. Write up what you did for your thesis along with the necessary supporting material, but avoid complaining about what the institute did.

I think the key misunderstanding here is that they were giving you an opportunity to interact in a real system and that they might be able to take advantage of what you learned, but made no commitment to do so. The opportunity is the important part.

It may be that they used you as a low cost way to make an exploration. I don't see anything wrong with that.

Had they told you at the beginning that they weren't committed to what you were doing it might have lessened your enthusiasm at the time (as it does now). But, even for their own regular developers they don't make a commitment to accept any particular piece of work, especially before it is attempted.

The purpose of the "exercise" was your education, not their system. You did a good job of that ("productive time to research and develop it"), so you learned some things.

I don't have any advice about the "larger system" as there is too little information.