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Technical University of Munich

Guidelines Theses

0. Requirements

Certain requirements must be met before you can write your thesis with us. Please find out in advance whether you are eligible to write your thesis in accordance with the FPSO applicable to you (see Study Wiki). Normally, at least 120 credits (Bachelor's thesis) or 75 credits (Master's thesis) must have been achieved. In order to be admitted to the Master's thesis, you must either be enrolled in the COME degree program, ITBE degree program or have chosen the specialization "Computational Modeling and Simulation" in the Civil Engineering degree program. If you have only chosen our content in your individual specialization or for the Cross Cutting Methods in the Environmental Engineering degree program, approval from the examination board is required.

In general, it is also possible to write an "External thesis" in collaboration with an industry partner. Please note that the thesis is student work, supervised by the University. Therefore, a topic needs to be carefully selected and must fit our current research goals. This requires an early consultation with your possible supervisor. Furthermore, we expect students willing to write their thesis externally to prove the scientific research gap (e.g., by referencing recent journal or conference publications). And very important: We publish all work conducted at our chair according to good scientific practice. If the industry partner requires a non-disclosure agreement, we will not supervise the thesis.

If these requirements are met, proceed as described in the following sections:

1. Finding a topic

Please first check our Open theses section to see whether a topic of interest to you is advertised. Alternatively, if no topic matches your field of interest, you can also suggest a topic of your own.

If you propose your own topic, please provide a small Exposé (2-4 pages) for your thesis topic as described in the next section (2. Thesis registration) with your application. The Exposé should outline the topic and the most critical research questions, and your arguments should be reinforced by about 5 recent publications (not older than five years) related to your topic. Please be assured that our selection process is fair and thorough, but we cannot guarantee acceptance of your proposed topic; it must align with certain criteria and the chair's research goals, and a suitable supervisor must be available.

Next, please contact us by e-mail at theses.cms(at)ed.tum.de. If you follow the link, you can use the ready-made e-mail and just add your information to the blocks in square brackets. It would also be helpful for us if you could additionally attach your transcript of records so that we can check the requirements quickly. If you would like to apply to a specific supervisor, please add their e-mail address to the list of recipients.

2. Thesis registration

Once all requirements have been met and a supervisor has been found, the work needs to be registered upfront. However, it is customary at our chair for you to write an Exposé before the definitive registration. This has the advantage that it gives the topic a contextual frame, and you can familiarize yourself in advance with the planned approach and timeline.

The exposé should have approx 2-4 pages and cover the following aspects:

  • general problem description (approx 0.5 pages)
  • summary of related works (please cite 5-10 relevant journal/conference publications, approx 1 page)
  • identified research gap and preliminary hypothesis (approx. 0.5 - 1 page)
  • intended approach/ methodology to solve the identified problems (approx. 0.5 - 1 page)
  • preliminary timetable.

3. Writing the thesis

Please use our provided templates for your thesis (password for download will be provided by your supervisor):

The thesis can be written in German or English - please agree on the language with your supervisor upfront.

It is your duty to report the progress of your thesis to your supervisor on a regular basis.

Please use the resources provided by central services of TUM (e.g. TUM University Library for Databases, standards, ...):

4. Submission

Please hand in one final version of your thesis as a pdf document directly to your supervisor in time.
Additionally, all data, as well as your digital thesis, must be handed in via Sharepoint or Sync+Share.

Content:

  • the final version of your thesis [.pdf]
  • a redacted version of your thesis for our website (all personal data redacted) [.pdf]
  • Title in german and English (max. 200 chars) [.txt]. They are inserted in your final transcript of records.
  • Picture, depicting the content of your thesis ([.png], max. 200x200px) and abstract ([.txt], max. 200 words) for our website
  • all relevant scientific data (Code, models, ...)

5. Presentation

The date of your thesis presentation will be defined by your supervisor. It will usually be within 1-2 weeks after the thesis handover. All CMS members will attend the presentation. If you want to invite external partners/guests, please inform your supervisor upfront.

Please use the provided template for your presentation: PowerPoint, Latex.

Our presentation monitors have a 16:9 ratio. We provide standard HDMI as well as ClickShare (USB, USB-C) for your presentation.

The presentation should be held in English unless otherwise agreed.

Duration:

Type of work  Duration 
 Research internship 8 min
 IDP 13 min
Bachelor's thesis 12 min
Master's thesis 15 min

Do not exceed these times!

Rule of thumb: ~ 1 slide per minute - no full sentences on slides! Make use of images supporting your statements.

6. Grading

You will be informed about your final grade within one week after the presentation. The grade will be announced to our faculty's grading office in meantime.

 

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