Writing a thesis during the course of your studies is certainly one of the biggest challenges and marks the end of your degree programme. This page provides an overview of the procedure and offers advice.

The most difficult part is certainly finding a topic and a supervisor. On the department pages you will find topics that have been advertised by people in the department. Here you may already find an interesting topic or a suggestion of your own. Your own suggestions? Yes, you can work out your own topics with the supervisors. However, your ideas should roughly match the existing topics or the supervisor's research topics. If you have found something or have an idea, find the contact person and make an informal appointment.

The first meeting with the supervisor is to find out what interests and skills you have. Should the work have a programming component or would you rather do literature work? This allows us to offer you suitable topics and often further suggestions for topics are made during the discussion. This interview is absolutely non-binding and you can also enquire with other departments. As soon as you are sure that you want to write with us, please also register for the Stud.IP event "Oberseminar Systemanalyse und -optimierung" (see also point Oberseminar).

Once you have decided on a rough topic, you must first formulate it in more detail. There is a sample thesis agreement for this purpose. This text serves as an agreement between you and your supervisor and defines what is part of your thesis and what is not. The agreement is revised together with the supervisor until both sides are satisfied. By then, you should have gained a good insight into your topic. The following documents may still need to be completed:

• Declaration on data protection
• Declaration of confidentiality and utilisation of rights

Once an overview of the topic has been gained, the work should be presented in the advanced seminar. Here, possible approaches can be presented and previous results and the intended approach can be discussed. The student can thus receive important feedback on the work and practise for the final presentation. This presentation is not graded.

The duration should not exceed 10 minutes + 5 minutes for discussion. Please follow the instructions for presentations!

Once the agreement has been reached and the work has been presented in the advanced seminar, nothing stands in the way of registration with the Examinations Office. The official registration form for the Examinations Office can be found on the university website at uol.de/studium/pruefungen/. This is filled out by you and your supervisor and sent to the Examinations Office by us. You will receive a copy of the registration and the agreement and one will remain with us. A little later, you will receive confirmation of your registration by post with your submission date. So the clock is ticking now...

Attention: The Examinations Office has published new forms that can be submitted digitally during the corona pandemic!

You should meet regularly with your supervisor during your work. Depending on the type of work, this may be more often if you are developing something for a dissertation, for example. You will receive valuable hints and tips on what you need to work on. At the beginning of each week, write an email with two or three lines about what you did last week and what you plan to do this week. This will please every supervisor.

You can find a template for the essay on the Download documents page under the section Final papers. We have also put together some additional tips for your thesis. If your thesis deviates from these guidelines, please ask your supervisor again. They will also help you if you have any further questions about the layout.

Writing a student research project doesn't just mean handing in x pages of paper at the end. In the advanced seminar, you discuss your work with other students and also present your own work. This exchange is an important aspect of academic work. You must register for this accompanying course in the Stud.IP system. You must also register for one of the dates given there for a presentation (see sections on presentation and defence).

For all students writing a Bachelor's or Master's thesis in the Department of Systems Analysis and Optimisation, regular participation in the semester-accompanying seminar is mandatory. The presentation of the topics (presentation of the work or results) is an official part of the seminar. In this way, the student also earns the credit points provided for in the examination regulations.

In the seminar, the techniques for writing a scientific paper / scientific presentation should also be acquired. The respective supervisor is also available to answer questions about the design.

The results of the thesis are presented shortly before or after submission. The focus here is on the scientific presentation of your own results. Which goals have been achieved and which questions are still open? A short summary should also be given. This presentation is assessed as part of the final thesis.

The duration should not exceed 20 minutes + 5 minutes for discussion. Significantly exceeding this time frame will affect the assessment. Please follow the instructions for presentations!

The thesis must be submitted to the Examinations Office or the Service Centre by the deadline. This is a hard deadline that you must not miss under any circumstances. If you fall ill or need more time for personal reasons (not because you haven't written that much yet), please contact your supervisor. However, these are absolute exceptions and you will need a sick note or a really serious reason

After the submission you can celebrate. We endeavour to evaluate all work promptly. In any case, the assessment can only be complete after the defence. If you have already completed all the other modules of your degree programme, nothing stands in the way of your title. The following weighting is used to assess the thesis. Explanations of the individual criteria can be found on the pages for the notes on the thesis and the presentation.

• 10 % structure
• 10 % form
• 30 % Content
• 25 % Implementation / practical part
• 10 % Contribution to the objectives of the working group
• 15 % Presentation