TL;DR (be aware of at least these)
- The supervision process starts with agreeing on the topic, finding an instructor/advisor (the person that typically is a subject/application expert and helps your day-to-day thesis work), and finding a supervising professor (the person who oversees the process and guarantees the the thesis fulfills the requirements; typically me).
- Remember to submit the thesis topic form (you are not in a hurry, but it must be submitted in the first-half of your 6 months).
- The
thesis should be completed in 6 months. If the process takes longer, it can
impact your final grade unless the delay can be reasonably justified.
- You might be interested in the grading criteria, which I will use when writing up the statement of your work. This grading rubric might also be useful.
- In the end, you will need to give a presentation about your thesis (typically 20 min + discussion).
- Keep an eye on the M.Sc. Programme committee meeting calendar to know when you should expect to receive the final grade.
- Be aware that Arno is usually on summer vacation in July each summer and might not be overly eager to spend his vacation commenting on theses and meeting with students.
- M.Sc. theses are public documents, which you should keep in mind if doing the work for a company. Publication of the electronic thesis can be delayed, but it will eventually be public.
Avoid these problems
Frequently encountered issues that you can avoid by taking them into account.
- Do not delay writing. Start working on the actual thesis in the right template from day one. A random collection of notes or comments in code do not necessarily mean that you have produced any meaningful output for the actual end-product.
- Balance coding/experiments with producing the thesis. Do not be afraid of pivoting and discussing with your instructor/supervisor. If you keep hacking on codes for 6 months, you might suddenly realize that there is no time to actually produce the thesis.
- Prepare for meetings. Be prepared for the first meeting to present yourself, your study-history, and your intended topic. What is your major, minor, and what are the synergies with the topic? Who are you? How do you usually work? Are there things that I should be aware of (like problems with producing text, additional support needed, etc.)?
- If you know something should be corrected, correct it. You don't need me to tell you things that you already know: Spell-check your text, make sure it reads well, etc. Read a couple of old theses to get an idea of what the end-product should be like.
- Do not copy text or images from other sources. Students are usually well aware of how to cite other textual work, but you cannot use copyrighted illustrations and images from published works.
Please make sure you also
familiarize yourself with the more complete information from the School
of Science (SCI) regarding the Master thesis development process.