Here we provide a brief set of suggestion for students starting their thesis in our lab. Check out this website on how to survive grad school link
Understand why you are doing a thesis: The main purpose of a BSc/MSc thesis is two fold: (i) to provide a cultivating environment for the student to apply what s/he has learned in lectures and consequently contribute to students education both on academic and personal level. (ii) Carry the research done in the lab forward and consequently contribute to solving existential challenges for the society at large.
Plan steps required to finalize your thesis ? You can use the templates provided below.
- Understand how you will be graded by reading the MEP or BEP grading rubics under education tab.
- Start writing from day 1. Literature and theory are the first sections you should be writing
- Check out the previously written theses from the group to understand standards.
- Learn how to communicate your data and analyze your data
- Learn how to make graphs with purpose
Thesis reporting (BSC and MSc)
To aid in the reporting of Bachelor and Master research project two files are made available here.
- File 1 gives guidelines on what is expected from a report in terms of lay-out, formatting, data presentation, references etc. Also the correct use of literature is indicated to avoid plagiarism.
- File 2 is a template file for setting up your thesis in Word (taken from the TUD website).
We strongly advise to start setting up and writing (parts of) your report from the beginning of your project. Your thesis proposal is already a good start for an introduction. Further elements may be the description of equipment, materials used, prcedures followed, data processing etc.
This approach saves precious time by the end of the project when you really have to focus on the interpretation and dicsussion.
Time management: Stress in professional environment is very common. Careful planning can minimize it. In essence, once the expectation of your thesis and your responsibilities are well defined, it is possible to foresee and address bottlenecks while managing expectations.
- Make a clear “dynamic“ plan of for the thesis considering all the phases (Literature search & writing your introduction, Building know-how: Learning of required techniques and understanding the underlying theory, Conducting research, finalizing your thesis, exit interview/clean up)
- Read the grading matrix to understand what is expected from you. Manage expectations
- Start writing your thesis immediately. The theory section and the literature review can be written as you go. This is 40% of your thesis. Results, Discussions and recommendation can also be written in small bits as the thesis proceeds.
Clear structure:Once a clear structure is agreed upon you will know what is expected of you and how you can manage expectations.
- Start your thesis with a literature search. Read the section on how to conduct literature search and discuss with your supervisor on how to conduct literature search particularly keywords to search.
- Simultaneously with your literature search, start writing your thesis. Your literature search feeds into your introduction where you will discuss not only the classic information but also recent articles in your field.
Lab work ethics and rules:
- Clear arrangements have to be made between the supervisor and the student researcher regarding working hours, safety regulations and proper work ethics.
- Lab safety rules are not negotiable and they have to be followed by everyone.
- In addition to basic lab training, lab specific and equipment training is required.
- Scientific integrity requires that we make the data we produced available to other researcher upon request therefore the raw data has to be stored in webservers and hard drives in collaboration with the supervisor.
- Keep an electronic or manual lab journal detailing all your procedures, actions during procedures
Communicating results:
- The results i.e. both failed and successful experiments/simulation attempts have to be communicated with the supervisor(s) on regular meetings.
- When communicating results you have to pay attention to two issues: (i) accurate description of what you are doing, (ii) what critical message you want to give.
Thesis grading (BSC and MSc):