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How To Write A Bachelor/Master Thesis [2024]

It's that time of year again when students are wrapping up their final semester and beginning to write their dissertation. In Germany, students must adhere to some particular formatting standards while writing their Bachelor's or Master's thesis. 

The dissertation is a crucial component of all German higher education programs. Students may use it to demonstrate their understanding and abilities in a given field of study. The thesis also plays a crucial role in helping students develop critical thinking and research skills. They are a valuable preparation for future career opportunities.

In this article, we'll go through everything you must do to write a successful thesis. We will also provide tips and tricks to stay organized and on track throughout the process!

Thesis writing process

Bachelor’s thesis vs. Master’s thesis

A Bachelor's and a Master's thesis are two types of academic papers. A Bachelor's thesis is usually shorter and is meant to show that the student has learned the basics of the subject. In contrast, a Master's thesis is more extended and more in-depth. It should serve as evidence that the student has mastered their chosen subject.

How to format your Bachelor's or Master's thesis in Germany

The following are some of the most critical format requirements in any thesis:

Note:  Depending on the university and the "style" of the student's thesis, the formatting requirements might vary (e.g., Harvard or APA). Be sure to check with your supervisor or department for specific guidelines.

• Margins:  Your thesis must have 1-inch margins on all sides.
• Spacing:  The text must be double-spaced.
• Fonts:  Subtitles must be in a 14-point typeface. The text's main body should be in 12-point font, subheadings in a 14-point typeface, and title headings in a 16-point typeface.
• Length:  A Bachelor's thesis should be around 60 pages, while a Master's thesis should be about 80 pages.
• Language:  Your thesis must be written in German or English, depending on your program.

Let's take a look at each thesis component, starting with the Title page. The following are the required sections for both Bachelor's and Master's thesis.

Title page 

The title page of your thesis must include the following information:

• The title of your thesis
• The name of your supervisor
• The name of your program

The abstract is a summary of your thesis. It should be a maximum of one page long and include the following information:

• Your research questions

Table of contents

The table of contents must list all of the sections and subsections of your thesis.

• List of figures:   The figures must include all the figures used in your thesis.
• List of tables:   The list of tables must consist of all of the tables used in your thesis.

Introduction

The introduction should explain the context of your research and the problem you are trying to solve. A Bachelor's thesis should be around three pages, while a Master's thesis should be about five pages .

Literature review

The literature review critically analyzes the existing research on your topic. The literature review is an essential part of any research paper.

It helps you situate your research within the context of existing scholarship and allows you to critically evaluate the existing research on your topic. It is essential to be as critical as possible when reviewing the literature.  It would be best if you addressed questions such as:

• What are the limitations of the existing research?
• What gaps does the current research leave open?
• How can my research contribute to the current body of scholarship?

Methodology

The methodology section explains the research methods you used to collect data for your thesis. This information is crucial because it allows the reader to understand how you gathered your data and what conclusions you drew from it. It is also essential to be transparent when describing your research methods so the reader can evaluate them critically.

Results & Discussion

Result and discussion : The results section presents the data you collected during your research. The discussion section is where you interpret the data and discuss the implications of your findings.

The conclusion summarizes your findings and their implications for practice or future research. A Bachelor's thesis should be around three pages, while a Master's thesis should be about five pages.

Bibliography/References

The references section lists the sources you used in your thesis. It is essential to list all of the sources you used, even if you did not cite them directly in the text.

The appendices include any additional material relevant to your thesis but do not fit within the main body of the text. This part might consist of data sets, survey instruments, or detailed descriptions of research methods.

Tips and tricks for writing a successful Bachelor's or Master's thesis

Choose a topic you are passionate about : This factor will make writing your thesis much easier, as you already have some knowledge about the subject. Passion will also help you stay motivated throughout the writing process!

Do your research : Make sure to do a thorough literature review to be familiar with the existing research on your topic. This step will also help you develop new and original ideas for your thesis.

Create an outline : Once you have done your research, create an outline of your thesis to know what topics you will cover and in what order. It will help you stay organized and on track.

Start early and give yourself enough time : This will allow you to avoid unnecessary stress.

Create a schedule and stick to it:  This step will help you stay on track and make steady progress.

Take breaks and reward yourself : Breaks are essential to avoid burnout. Make sure to schedule some breaks and reward yourself for completing tasks! It will help you stay motivated.

Get feedback from your supervisor:  It is vital to get regular feedback throughout the process. It will ensure that you are on the right track.

Ask for help when you need it:  Don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it. There are many resources available to help you with the writing process.

These are the general guidelines for writing a Bachelor's or Master's thesis. However, checking with your supervisor and program for specific requirements is essential. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to writing a Bachelor's or Master's thesis. However, these tips and tricks will help you write a successful dissertation!

Happy writing!

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Want to know what your life would look like after Graduation? Read the below article to learn more.

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Thesis in Germany – Tips to write your thesis at a company

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In order to graduate from your bachelor or master studies in Germany, you will probably need to write a thesis in your last semester. Having a thesis semester was not something that I was familiar with. I did my bachelor degree in Hong Kong, where we did not have a thesis semester. When I did my master degree in Germany , I had many questions relating to the thesis semester. In this post, I will explain to you what a thesis semester is and provide some tips about writing your thesis at a company.

Moving to Germany or new in Germany? Check out our Resources Page for all the help you need!

What is thesis semester?

Thesis semester is very typical in German universities. It is normally the last semester before your graduation. By the end of your last semester, you need to submit an academic thesis called Abschlussarbeit in German. You need to find a topic that is approved by your professor, write a thesis and present it in the end. The length of your thesis depends on your department’s requirement. To give you an idea, my master thesis was around 60 pages long. A thesis is a formal document. You need to write with formal wording, and quote your sources for whatever you state in the content.

There are three ways to do your thesis. The first way is to write a thesis by yourself. An advantage is that you are quite flexible with your location. You can write it at home, or even in another country, as long as you can submit your thesis in the end. The second way is to write at the university with a topic from a professor. If you are in a technical field, your professor may have some topics on hand that you are free to choose from. In that case, you need to work with your professor to understand his expectations and requirements for the specific thesis topics.

The third way to do your thesis is to write it with a company. Some companies are looking for thesis students to help them to investigate certain topics that are of their business interest. In this case, you need to write your thesis at the company. It is like you work for this company. You get a contract for a fixed period of time and you write your thesis in the office. In the end, you have to hand in your thesis to both the company and your professor.

Why do companies hire students to write theses?

There are different reasons for that:

To research on a topic

Sometimes, companies want to get more knowledge on a certain topic. A hypothetical example: the government is planning to change the law relating to foreign investment in 2 years. The company wants to know how this law will affect their investment strategy.

Since the regular employees may not have time to do this research, the company may want to hire a student who is fully dedicated to this task. The student needs to collect all information on this new law, and investigates how this law would affect the company and what the company can do about it. It is like a consultation that the company can use for their decision making in the future.

To develop a tool

Companies want to achieve some process improvement. An example: the employees have a tedious task that they need to do daily. They need to pull all the data from system A and put into system B and do some daily analysis with this data. It is a manual process that requires a lot of copy and paste. The company wants to automate this process so that it can save time for the employees.

In this case, the company may want to hire a student to look at how this process can be improved. A tool can be developed by the students which automates this process. This can be a creation of a Macro tool or using one of the existing systems tools in the company. The student needs to develop the tool, explains in the thesis what the tool does and how it helps the company. The company can benefit from the thesis as they get a tool now which helps to improve their process.

To find potential employees

Similar to hiring interns, hiring thesis students is a way to find potential good employees. It is kind of like a probation period. The thesis students work for a few months in the company. This gives a chance for the company to see how the students perform and if they are suitable to work permanently in the company. See also this post about tips to boost your chances of getting hired.

Why should you write your thesis with a company?

For me personally, I prefer to write a thesis with a company. There are some advantages relating to it:

You may get some money for it

As a student, I was living on a very tight budget. If you write your thesis for a company, you may be able to get some compensation (though not all companies will pay). For example, I got about 2000 EUR for writing my thesis. I spent around 6 months to write it. So, it was really not a lot of money. But it helped already and it was better than nothing. Check out this post as well for other ways to earn money in Germany as a student.

Writing for a company is more practical

When you write your thesis with a company, it is like you are working in this company. You work on your thesis in the office, you need to work with different people in the company, and your thesis has a business context. In my opinion, it is more practical as it relates to real life business, rather than just a student work with theory.

Interaction with other people

Writing thesis with a company is like having a full-time job in the company. You have a supervisor in the company who guides you on the topic and you need to work with other employees to collect the necessary information. In my opinion, this is more interesting than if I have to write my thesis at home on my own.

Exposure to the company’s management

After finishing your thesis, it is likely that you need to present the result to the company’s management. This is a good chance for you to practice your presentation skills in a real business setting. And it is your show time on all the hard work you put in for this thesis semester.

Future job opportunities

As mentioned before, some companies hire thesis students in order to find potential good employees. If you write a good thesis, you will have a chance to get hired after your graduation. You have an advantage since you already work in the company for a while and make some connections there. See this post about how I got my job offer after my thesis.

Besides, your thesis experience in a company will also make your CV looks good . You can request the company to give you a reference letter for future job search.

Read also: How To Write Your Cover Letter in Germany (+ English Example!)

How to find thesis opportunities with companies?

Basically, it is the same process as when you are looking for a permanent job. Here are some of the ways:

Apply online

You can find thesis offers in different job portals or directly on the career page of the companies’ websites. If you are curious about the compensation that you may get, check out my post about salary in Germany . Below are some of the portals that I used:

– Gehalt.de 

– Jobs.de

– Monster.de 

– LinkedIn 

– Xing  

It is quite common that some companies participate in job fairs to advertise their companies and find potential employees. These job fairs sometimes take place in universities. Each company has its own booth and it is a great chance for students to ask any questions relating to the companies and job positions. You can also ask around in the job fairs for any thesis opportunities.

Through an internship

I had an internship semester right before my thesis semester. During my internship, I made connection with different people in the company and asked about any thesis opportunities. I had an advantage since I knew the people and had some understanding of the business already through my internship. And this was how I got my thesis contract afterward.

How to generate a thesis topic by yourself in a company?

Let’s say you are doing an internship in a company now and you would like to write a thesis for this company afterward. How easy it is to get a thesis topic in the company depends a lot on your field. For example, if you study in a technical field like engineering, the company may have some thesis topics available already that you can just pick from.

However, if you are in a general business field like me, there may not be as many topics available in the company. What if you really want to write a thesis in the company, but they tell you that they have no thesis topic available?

Instead of waiting for the company to give you a topic, it is better to be proactive and suggest a topic by yourself. Think of a topic and suggest this to the company to see if they are interested. At least this was what I did. Below are some tips on how you can generate a topic for the company:

Research online or ask your classmates

Let’s say you study supply chain management. To get some ideas, you can research online to see what kind of thesis topics are out there. Besides, if your classmates are writing theses for other companies, you can also ask them what topics they are writing about and see if this topic applies to your company as well. The point here is not to pick a topic you find online or from your classmates. But it is more to give you an idea of what a potential thesis topic in your field is. This can help you to generate ideas for yourself which are also potentially interesting for your company.

Networking in your company

During your internship, you should try to network as much as possible. Networking should not be limited to the team you are working for, but also to other teams in the company. Tell the people that you are searching for a thesis opportunity and ask if they need help on any topic. The more connection you have, the better your chance is to get a thesis contract.

Think about what is your company’s interest

Companies like proactive students. You should be there to help the employees to solve problems, rather than to create more work for the employees. So, instead of begging people for a topic, you should be proactive and tell the people why you think writing on a certain topic is beneficial for the company. During your internship, you should already have some understanding of the business. Do you see a gap somewhere? Should any processes be improved?

For example, let’s say you are working in a local real estate company that is growing rapidly. Do you know if the company has a plan to expand internationally as well? If yes, which countries make sense for them to expand? What about expanding in Austria? How is the real estate market in Austria? What factors should the company consider for this expansion?

Another example: your company has recently acquired another company. Can you write a thesis regarding the acquisition? How does it affect the work and the employees? What should the company consider to have a smooth transition? What has the company done and how effective is the process?

These are just some hypothetical examples. You should think from your company’s perspective on what kind of topics can be interesting for them. If you don’t have an idea, start with networking and talk to as many people as possible in your company. Ask them what they do in their daily jobs and what kind of improvement they would like to see in their tasks/company. It may help you to think of a topic which is helpful for the people.

Improve your technical knowledge

Companies like practical and useful tools. The best is that you can create a tool that can improve their daily process. If you study in general business like me, you will probably think that “developing a tool” is too complicated and it is something for the technicians.

This is not completely true. For example, a tool can be as simple as an excel macro. I did not know anything about macro before. During my internship, I bought a book to learn about it because I know this can be beneficial for my thesis or future jobs. It never hurts to learn one more technical skill.

Some companies use enterprise resource planning systems for their operation. During your internship, you should try to learn the system as good as you can. This knowledge will be very helpful in case you want to do data analysis or develop a tool for your thesis.

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Have you written your thesis in a company? Leave a comment below to share your experience!

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4 Replies to “Thesis in Germany – Tips to write your thesis at a company”

Its informative blog, thanks.

Glad that you like it. Hope it helps you!

Many thanks for practical tips! Now I have much more clear picture of how I can organize my thesis at a company.

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Guidelines for Master’s Theses

There are very few formal requirements when writing your master’s thesis. We have put together the most important of these as well as additional helpful information in our guidelines for master’s theses .

You can also download a style sheet . This is a pre-formatted Word document you can directly use to write your thesis.

Information about academic writing and how to avoid plagiarizing can be found here .

We have also provided a list of past master’s theses to help you brainstorm ideas for your own thesis.

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Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - School of Business and Economics

Bachelor and master dissertations - frequently asked questions, preliminaries.

The following material provides relevant information related to dissertations at the Chair of Information Systems (CIS). Unless stated otherwise, the information applies to both Bachelor and Master theses. We organize the page as an FAQ. You may wish to navigate directly to the parts that interests you most.

Table of Contents

• Is there a fixed date at which I have to start with my dissertation?

Is there anything I should consider when choosing a starting time for my thesis?

• Is there a maximum  or minimum length for my thesis? How long is a dissertation on average?

I plan to write my thesis in the next semester. What should I do beforehand?

Can i suggest my own topic, i was asked to prepare an extended abstract for a topic of my choice. what does that entail, are there any core research areas from which thesis topics are normally selected, is it possible to collaborate with industry, how do i find a topic, how about formatting requirements for my thesis, do i have to write my thesis in english/german, what is the typical structure of a bachelor thesis, i plan to apply for a master program, when do i have to start with my bachelor thesis, what is the typical structure of a master thesis, i understand that many theses at the cis involve empirical work. how do i acquire the data for such a task, do i have to complete certain modules before being eligible to write my thesis at the cis, in addition to mandatory modules, are there any other skills that i need/should possess, how do i register my thesis, is there a fixed data at which i have to start with my dissertation.

No. At present, we accept theses throughout the whole year. Please note that we may not be able to offer such flexible regime forever. Depending upon demand and resources, it may be necessary to implement a structured approach where all dissertations start at fixed dates (e.g., begin/end of a semester). However, by the time of writing, students can begin their dissertation anytime.

Back to the table of contents

You may want to consider that opportunities for personal meetings are somewhat limited during summer breaks due to conference attendance, research visits, etc. Therefore, if you seek very close collaboration with your supervisor, consider to schedule your thesis such that the majority of the writing time is within lecturing periods.

Is there a maximum or minimum length? How long is a dissertation on average?

On average, Bachelor and Master theses are 30 and 35 pages, respectively. Deviations are possible. See also the explanations on our new moodle page on dissertations .

It is good to plan well ahead. However, as far as we are concerned, there is not much that needs to be done long in advance. In particular, please understand that we allocate our thesis topics on a first come first serve basis. That means that we don’t reserve topics for students who plan to start their dissertation in a few months’ time. However, you may want to consider suggesting your own thesis topic. In such a case, we could fix a thesis topic before the start of the actual thesis.

Yes, you can. If you wish to work on a topic of your choice, please prepare an extended abstract and send it to your supervisor for discussion. We assess the potential of your proposition for a Bachelor/Master thesis and might suggest extensions/revisions. In general, we prefer topics that relate to our research areas . However, exceptions are possible, so feel free to elaborate any topic related to information systems research.

An extended abstract is about two to four pages long and should clarify:

• What research question(s) you plan to analyze
• What is the academic and practical importance of your topic
• How your thesis will contribute to the existing literature 

In addition, an extended abstract includes a selection of relevant literature.

There certainly are. In general, our research focuses on big data analytics (BDA). Approaches associated with the support of managerial decision-making and quantitative, data-driven methods are of particular interest. This scope offers a variety of research questions to be examined in a dissertation. Potential business applications to study include, but are not limited to:

• Marketing and e-commerce
• Consumer finance and risk management
• Speculative financial and betting markets

In terms of methodology, we employ a broad variety of techniques to solve planning problems, explain decision maker behavior, and assess the effectiveness of formal decision aids. Examples of such planning methods include:

• Ensemble selection (e.g. for marketing or credit-scoring problems)
• Kalman filters (e.g. for time series data or real-time targeting of advertising in e-commerce)
• Multi-armed bandit models (e.g. for or real-time targeting of advertising in e-commerce)
• Deep learning (basically applicable everywhere)
• Survival models (e.g. for price optimization in the automotive industry)
• Choice models/hierarchical Bayesian models (e.g. for or real-time targeting of advertising in e-commerce or betting markets)
• (Recurrent) neural networks (e.g. for turnover or financial markets predictions or in interaction with metaheuristics for model training or model selection)
• Metaheuristics (e.g., to build predictive decision support models or develop normative decision aids)

Furthermore, there is a large body of literature on novel learning paradigms, which differ substantially from conventional explanatory (e.g. regression or classification) or descriptive (e.g. clustering) methods. Surveying the state-of-the-art in such fields and/or evaluating such modelling strategies in business settings is an interesting task for a dissertation. Some examples include:

• Active learning
• Causal machine learning
• Learning with privileged information (e.g. financial forecasting)
• Semi-supervised/transductive learning (e.g. for churn prediction)
• Imbalanced learning (e.g. for marketing or credit scoring)
• Multi-task learning (e.g. financial forecasting)
• Reject inference (credit scoring)
• Online learning

Yes, we support collaborative theses written with an industry partner. In general, industry partnerships are more common for master dissertations. However, writing a bachelor thesis with an industry partner is also feasible. In some cases, our list of open topics includes such collaborative theses. Alternatively, you can propose a topic that you’d like to study together with an industry partner. However, please note that we normally do not sign NDAs (non-disclosure agreements). If you are in contact with an organization where you’d like to write your thesis, you may want to check whether your industry partner accepts this policy.

That is the key question. In general, you can browse through our list of open topics and see whether some of our propositions fit your interests. Alternatively, you can propose a thesis topic to us, preferably but not necessarily in one of our research areas .

We do not enforce specific formatting requirements. Instead, we recommend that students follow the author guidelines of scholarly outlets such as, e.g., the European Journal of Operational Research.  Note that these guidelines might also mention a minimum/maximum length. Such recommendations do not apply to your thesis and can be ignored. Instead, please adhere to our own recommendations related to thesis length.

MSc. theses are generally prepared in English. For a BSc. thesis, you are free to decide whether to write in English or German.

There are some general guidelines that any academic thesis follows. If you have already participated in one of our seminars (for Bachelor or Master students), you will be familiar with these guidelines. Otherwise, make sure that you have a careful read through our recommendations related to academic writing .

In addition to general guidelines, a typical Bachelor thesis written at the CIS adopts one of three paradigms.

First, the majority of dissertations is organized as a literature survey or, in other words, a state-of-the-art . Consider for example the question of IT business value. To which extent increases the use of information and communication technologies the performance of a firm? Several research projects have been undertaken to shed light on this question. A Bachelor thesis can review this field, identify sub-streams in the literature, and distill some overall conclusions. In addition, it might be possible to identify research gaps in the literature. In a nutshell, such a thesis provides a holistic overview of a clear-defined field.

Second, a bachelor thesis can be organized as a meta-analysis. A good example for such an endeavor is the paper of Jamain and Hand (2008) , who conduct a meta-analysis for the field of consumer credit scoring. In brief, this field is concerned with the question how a money lender can predict whether a credit applicant would pay back her loan, if the loan were granted. You can imagine that many papers have been written about this topic, and you can also imagine that several of these papers present some sort of forecasting method. Often, the proposition of a novel forecasting method is accompanied by an empirical evaluation to showcase that the new method predicts well. Given a large number of empirical studies that adopt this approach (i.e., present and compare forecasting methods), a meta-analysis first gathers empirical data about these comparisons (i.e., papers). This could be, for example, i) how many different forecasting methods have been compared in a paper, ii) how many times did some method A beat some other method B, iii) which measures have been used to assess the accuracy of a forecasting methods, etc. Next, a meta-analysis performs some statistical analysis on this data and, in doing so, distills some overall conclusions; for example, method A is better than B. You see that the outcome is the same as in the previous setup of a Bachelor thesis. Only the way in which one arrives at this outcome differs. Clearly, not every topic facilitates a meta-analysis. If you are generally interested in this format, feel free to contact our team members to find out which possibilities are available.

Third, it is also possible to organize a Bachelor thesis as a ‘little Master thesis’. This means that you conduct your own research study, which, at the CIS, would typically entail some empirical or analytic work. Such a study can span the whole research process – from gathering relevant data over data analysis to interpreting the observed results and drawing conclusions, or focus on specific steps in this process. Consider once again the above example of credit scoring. Given some credit scoring data set, your task could be to compare some novel forecasting method to some established benchmark. Given the similarity to Master theses in terms of format and organization, we do not publish dedicated topics for Bachelor theses that fall into this category. Students who are interested in the “small-scale Master thesis format” can review our topics for Master dissertations and ask the corresponding supervisor whether the topic could be changed such that it fits the smaller scope of a Bachelor thesis.

Every Master program has its own rules. We cannot make any recommendations related to programs offered at other universities. More specifically, the following guidelines apply only to our Master program Information Systems .

If you are considering to apply for the above program, you need to proof that you have collected at least 150 ECTS by the time of application. Say you want to start your Master in IS at the Humboldt-University in the winter semester 2016/2017. Assume for example that the application deadline is 30 th of April 2015. So, by end of April, when submitting your application, your transcript must show at least 150 ECTS. It is not necessary that you have completed your Bachelor studies. In particular, you can still be involved with your Bachelor thesis, or does not even have started with your Bachelor thesis. However, you need at least 150 (see ZSP-HU 1.1.2) .

There are some general guidelines that any academic thesis must follow. If you have already participated in one of our seminars  (for  Bachelor  or  Master  students) , you will be familiar with these guidelines. Otherwise, make sure that you have a careful read through the recommendations related to academic writing .

In addition to these general guidelines, a typical Master thesis written at the CIS addresses a research question(s) in the business fields mentioned above and contributes to the literature through providing some novel insight (e.g., original empirical results, evidence in favor of or against previously derived hypotheses, a new piece of methodology, etc.). Most dissertations contain an empirical part related to some real-world planning problem. For example, evaluating the effectiveness of a novel method from the realms of big data analytics in a real-world setting through empirical experimentation is a common task for a Master thesis. Such endeavor may also include the development of an entirely new methodology or the extension of some known technique to better fulfill the requirements of the application setting in question.

There are several possibilities to acquire the data for dissertation. Examples include:

• The master’s thesis is written in cooperation with an industry  partner who provides data
• The data is collected during (as part of) the thesis (e.g., through accessing a data provider’s API, say Twitter, or web scraping)
• The data comes from an academic data mining/forecasting competition (KDD Cup, Data Mining Cup, NN3 or NN5 Competition, etc.) or a Kaggle competition (www.kaggle.com)
• The data is associated with a current research project of the CIS. At the moment projects/data sets from the following areas are available:
• Direct marketing/churn modeling
• Automotive industry/sales of pre-owned vehicles
• Real-time targeting in e-commerce
• Credit scoring or PD modeling
• Markets for sports betting

The typical setting is such that students first complete some of our modules prior to starting their dissertation at the CIS. In particular, our seminars modules provide relevant background on the scientific method, academic writings, etc. Therefore, it is compulsory to complete the module Bachelorseminar Wirtschaftsinformatik to write a Bsc. thesis at the CIS. For master students, it is compulsory to complete one of our seminars, Masterseminar Information Systems or Applied Predivtive Analytics .

We gurantee that every student who has successfully completed the relevant seminar is given an opportunity to write her/his BSc./MSc. thesis at the CIS. Of course, there will still be a need to agree on the topic.

In general, completing our Bachelor/Master modules equips you with a firm understanding of research in information systems and big data analytics in particular. Moreover, our courses give you an opportunity to develop the skills typically needed to write a dissertation at the CIS.

Having said that, given your research interests and focus on analytic/empirical work, some useful skills include, e.g., scientific computing, databases, programming (preferably in Matlab, R, Python or Julia), econometrics and statistics, machine learning.

First of all, to be eligible to register for the final thesis you have to fulfill certain requirements (e.g. you must have completed certain modules or have earned a certain amount of ECTS – depending on your degree program). To verify that, you can consult the examination office. Afterwards, you have to receive a thesis application form in the student office that you need to fill in and hand in to your supervisor for signing (on the form you will have to indicate the exact datum when you have received the final topic). Afterwards, submit the signed registration form to the examination office: either give it personally during the office hours or send per post. You will also receive a copy of the filled form once the examination office processes the documents. 

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Points to take into account while writing your master's thesis

The topics you can choose for a master's thesis should be highly relevant for practice and policy and the thesis should to be empirically grounded.

Process of a master's thesis

• Discuss a possible topic with Prof. Liudvika Leišytė.
• Write a 2-page proposal (incl. title, table of contents and timeline of the thesis).
• Get approval for this by Prof. Leišytė.
• Prof. Leišytė will write a letter to the Central Examinations Office to declare that she will be your supervisor.
• Write the thesis: in the process, make sure to send the questionnaire for surveys or interview schedules to Prof. Leišytė to get approval before you start your empirical work.
• Submit your thesis to the Section Central Examinations Office, Dez. 4.3.

Type and time frame of the master’s thesis

• Generally, all theses at the Professorship are empirical (i.e. the self-organized collection and analysis of data is part of every thesis). This type of thesis has a time frame of 26 weeks (for details see the Prüfungsordnung ).
• In exceptional cases, theoretical theses are accepted. The specific topic must then be discussed and agreed on with Prof. Liudvika Leišytė. The time frame for this type of thesis is only 17 weeks.

The time frame (count of weeks) starts with the registration of your topic (letter from Prof. Leišytė to the Central Examinations Office).

Topic of the thesis

The topic you choose should relate to the main research fields of the Professorship of Higher Education. Possible Topics:

• Innovation through organizational learning
• Stakeholder representation and characteristics in the boards of universities
• Promotion of collaboration at German universities: policies and practices
• Changing governance of universities and implications of this for their performance
• The implementation of gender policies in German universities
• Characteristics and challenges of an inclusive professional organization

Academic entrepreneurship

• Policies of German universities to promote spin off creation in Germany
• The characteristics of founders of new high tech ventures in Germany
• Motivations of academic entrepreneurs to patent
• Gender and entrepreneurship: evidence from patenting activities

Academic profession and managerialism

• The role of new public management on publication behaviour of academics
• The role of performance based systems on grant acquisition of academics
• Gender in academia: what are the gender differences in academic productivity?
• Challenges of integration of foreign knowledge workers in Germany

Preconditions

Master's theses at the Professorship of Higher Education are accepted according to certain preconditions and according to capacities of scientific staff:

• Bachelor's degree
• Successful completion of two seminars of the Professorship of Higher Education
• Parallel to master’s thesis: Participation in the Research Colloquium of the Professorship

For theses in the Master WiWi as well as the exam regulations (Prüfungsordnung) see: WiWi: Master of Science

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B.A. and M.A. Theses

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Student Counselling

Update on the submission of theses

Please read carefully the respective paragraph of your Study Regulations concerning the bachelor's or master's thesis. You can find there all you need to know.

You can find your study regualtions in the  download area  under your field of study.

Looking for a Supervisor

Procedure for the search for a supervisor

1. first decide on the topic

You should first think about the topic you would like to write about. Ideally, you should then summarize the topic in an exposé.

2. search for the first supervisor

You should look for a supervisor/first reviewer for your thesis one to two semesters before you start writing it. If you are unsure who is suitable for a topic, please contact the Student Counseling Service. Pay particular attention to the information about theses on the professorships' websites. There you will usually also find information on how best to apply for a thesis. If there is no information on this, we recommend that you always visit the office hours of the potential supervisor. If you make a request by email, you should make it very clear in writing exactly what you want to do for your thesis.

Please note that some examiners want to know their candidates, so you should have taken a final module examination with them. Please also refer to the information on the pages of the professorships.

You should look for your first examiner or supervisor yourself. 

If you cannot find anyone, you still have the option of being assigned a supervisor by the examination committee. However, we only recommend this procedure in an emergency. If you want to use this option, write an informal application in which you ask to be assigned a supervisor. The application should include the desired topic and also details of who has already rejected you. The application should be submitted to the Examinations Office by email. The examination committee will then assign someone to you.

3. Search for a second assessor if necessary

You can also look for a second assessor yourself, although the supervisor can recommend someone. If you register your thesis without a second assessor, the examination committee will automatically appoint someone. Please also note the specific requirements regarding your degree program and your study regulations.

4. final determination of the topic in consultation with the supervisor

Together with the supervisor (first reviewer), you then determine the final topic.

5. registration of the thesis

Finally, register your thesis with the Examination Office. The formalities are explained below.

Who may supervise my thesis?

Below you will find information on which groups of people are authorized to supervise theses. Please note that there are differences between the individual degree programs and study regulations. You should therefore pay particular attention to the general explanations listed for your degree program and your study regulations regarding who may supervise a thesis. If you are unsure, you can also ask the Examinations Office. 

Here you will find all the essential information about which groups of people are authorized to supervise a thesis as first or second supervisor:

• BA Political Science (Study Regulations 2014)
• BA Political Science (Study Regulations 2022)
• BA Sociology (Study Regulations 2015)
• BA Sociology (Study Regulations 2022)
• MA International Studies / Peace and Conflict Research (Study Regulations 2014 and 2022)
• MA Political Science (Study Regulations 2014)
• MA Political Science (Study Regulations 2022)
• MA Political Theory (Study Regulations 2014 and 2022)
• MA Sociology (Study Regulations 2015)
• MA Sociology (Study Regulations 2022)
• MA Economic Sociology (Study Regulations 2019)
• MA Comparative Democracy

​Tips for writing theses

You can find useful advice on how to write your thesis in the download area  under your field of study.

Registering your thesis

There is no fixed period for registering a bachelor's or master's thesis. You can register your thesis at the Examination Office at any time using the registration form . You can post the registration form in the letterbox in front of the Examination Office at any time; it is not necessary to come in person during office hours. Please make sure that you have completed it in full.

You can find the form     in the   download area  under your field of study. 

After submitting the registration form, you will receive a confirmation letter from the Examination Office, which will also indicate the submission date for your dissertation.

To register for the dissertation, you must have completed the following modules or earned the following CP.

​Returning the topic, language, group work

The agreed topic can be returned once only and only within the first third of the processing time. The new topic must differ in content from the returned topic.

As a rule, you must write your thesis in German (exception: M.A. Comparative Democracy). In agreement with the examiners or the chairperson of the Examination Committee, you may write your thesis in English.

Theses in the form of group work can also be allowed if the individual student's contribution to be assessed as an examination achievement is clearly distinguishable and assessable through the indication of sections, page numbers and other objective criteria that enable a clear differentiation.

Processing times and scale

You must submit your thesis to the Examination Office of the Faculty of Social Sciences in due time. If the thesis is not submitted on time, it is deemed to have been failed.

Processing time is as follows:

If the first deadline cannot be met for reasons beyond the student's control (e.g. the student or a child cared for by the student is ill), the chairperson of the Examination Committee extends the processing time in accordance with the respective Study Regulations (see above). The student must apply for this informally to the Examination Office before the first submission date.

The thesis can be submitted at the earliest after 50% of the processing time.

Formal Requirements

Bachelor's theses :

• Submission of the thesis in 3 bound copies
• The Declaration on Examination Achievements must be bound in (see download area  under your field of study. ).
• You can discuss further formalities with your supervisor.
• On the cover sheet only the following: degree programme, thesis topic, author's name and submission date.

Master's theses :

• The Declaration on Examination Achievements must be bound in (see download area  under your field of study.).

Reviewers’ reports

The standard time for the reports by both reviewers together is 6 weeks after submission of the thesis. The second reviewer can limit himself/herself to co-signing the first reviewer's report if both award the same grade.

Oral Final Examination

Once you have passed your thesis, you must present it within an oral examination. The subject of the oral examination is the content of the dissertation as well as questions and/or tasks in the context of the topic chosen for it. The examination lasts 30 minutes. The supervisor and an observer are present.

As a rule, the student arranges the date for the oral examination with the supervisor and an observer, whereby there are no fixed time periods for this.

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Examinations Office Faculty of Social Sciences 

Dieter Groh Tel.: (069) 798-36562 PEG 2.G 130

Daniela Toplicanec Tel.: (069) 798-36589 PEG 2.G 132 Responsibilities: Certificates, theses, transcripts

Please send your enquiries primarily by e-mail: [email protected] .

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Writing the Thesis

Schreiben der Dissertation / Writing the Thesis Image Credit: http://www.istockphoto.com

You can either submit a monograph or a cumulative thesis . As a general rule, both must be comparable/equivalent in terms of type and scope. The thesis must be written in one language throughout either English or German (with the exception of the German and English summary). This also applies to the acknowledgments and any quotes used. In exceptional cases, the doctoral board shall decide whether the requirement for a cumulative work to be entirely in either German or English can be waived if the work consists of articles in both German and English.

When preparing the dissertation, please observe the requirements of the Statute for Safeguarding Good Scientific Practice . If you have any questions about citations, please use the citation consultation hours at the University Library.

Please note: When you are submitting your dissertation to obtain the title "Dr. rer. nat.", the term "Ph.D." should not be used in the acknowledgements (or any other section) - this is a different title, which will not be awarded to you after a successful doctorate.

MONOGRAPH A monograph is a self-contained representation of the research work and its results. It may already be published completely or partially. Any publications related to the thesis have to be submitted separately. They must not be embedded in the thesis.

CUMULATIVE THESIS A cumulative thesis reports the scientific work done during the doctoral thesis using a set of research articles. In a cumulative thesis, the research articles (including supporting information/supplements) are an integral part of the thesis and have to be embedded in the scientific part of the thesis (like the chapters of a monograph). In addition to the research articles, an introduction, a list of references etc., a cumulative thesis must include an extended summary which has to go beyond the summary of the individual papers as it has to give an overarching discussion of the results described in the research articles. Although figures may be taken from the publications, the text should be genuinely new and should not be taken from the text of the individual publications. The contributions of the author must be described for each article individually, according to the requirements of the Statute for Safeguarding Good Scientific Practice.

A cumulative thesis must consist of at least two published or accepted publications. Only publications from journals with a peer review system will be considered. All additional publications might be in an earlier stage (in revision, submitted or in preparation). The version submitted cannot be changed or updated in the further course of the doctoral process, i.e. changes to the content as part of the publication process cannot be taken into account once the dissertation has been submitted. Only those articles qualify in which the doctoral student has made substantial contributions. The substantial contribution of the doctoral student to the respective articles must be confirmed by the supervisor of the thesis. This confirmation is requested by the doctoral office as part of the evaluation process. In case of manuscripts being accepted but not yet published, a confirmation of acceptance must be provided at the time of thesis submission; to this end, it is also possible to submit a separate list with DOI links.

For more information on writing a cumulative thesis, click here .

1) First page = cover sheet

Title Inaugural-Dissertation to obtain the academic degree Doctor rerum naturalium (Dr. rer. nat.)

submitted to the Department of Biology, Chemistry, Pharmacy of Freie Universität Berlin

year of submission

2) Second page:

Please name the time period, supervisor and institute of your doctoral studies.

1 st reviewer: _____________________ 2 nd reviewer: _____________________

Date of defense: ____________ (please leave the date open)

ATTENTION One reviewer must be research active in one of our departmental research areas. At least one reviewer must be a professor of the Department of Biology, Chemistry, Pharmacy, whose primary employment is with the university. (Retired, em., apl., hon. professors are not or no longer considered university teachers).

3) Third page: acknowledgment (if desired)

4) Declaration of authorship     Please use the following text:     I hereby declare that I alone am responsible for the content of my doctoral dissertation     and that I have only used the sources or references cited in the dissertation.

If you are writing an English-language dissertation, please note that all texts must be in English (with the exception of the German-language summary), including the acknowledgments and the declaration of authorship.

6) Summary in German and English

7) Main scientific part of the thesis (incl. introduction, method section, bibliography)

8) If applicable: List of publications

9) CV (voluntary)

10) Appendix

Typeface/line distance/formatting Sheet size: DIN A4 Font: an easy-to-read font (such as Arial). Font size: not less than 10 pt Line spacing: 1½ Margin: approx. 2.5 - 3 cm Unilateral and bilateral printing is accepted. The thesis has to be bound (no spiral or ring binding).

Answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ) can be found here.  

Read on for the next topic: Submission of the Thesis

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Glossary of Terms and Documents for Studying in Germany

From A-Z terms relating to studying in Germany as a foreigner explained.

The German “ Abitur ” is the highest German school leaving certificate taken after having passed the secondary school final exam, following the completion of 12/13 schooling years in a German school in Germany or abroad.

Abitur is commonly referred as a German university-entrance qualification “ Hochschulzugangsberechtigung (HZB)” , as it gives you access to higher education studies in Germany.

With an Abitur you can take up higher education studies at almost any world country, as this certificate is equivalent to national school-leaving diplomas of many foreign states.

To study for a “ Numerus Clausus ” course in Germany, as study places are reserved only for a limited number of students, a good Abitur average is a mandatory requirement for admission.

See also What If I Am a Foreigner Who Doesn’t Have an Abitur?

“Abstract” it’s a document of international academic standards where you introduce in short your thesis question and the methods applied. This document is required when you’ve yet haven’t received a Bachelor Degree or haven’t yet completed a Diplom Thesis the time you apply for Master’s studies .

Accreditation Certificate

“Accreditation certificate” is a notarized formal document proving that the educational institution where you’ve completed your so-far education is an accredited institution. It is obtained at the educational institution, upon your request.

An accredited educational institution in Germany or abroad is officially endorsed on their study quality. During an accreditation process the quality control of respective educational institution is carried by the competent public authorities or agencies, following a specific procedure.

Admission Letter

“Admission Letter” stands for a formal letter you receive by a German academic institution allotting you a place for a study course, following your successful application for admission.

A German admission letter usually tells if you’ve been fully or conditionally admitted, together with the deadline for registering your semester. If you’ve been offered a provisional place of study, the letter explains you which are further measures you need to follow, to get the complete admission in studies.

Anabin Database

“Anabin Database” is an authoritative German online database, covering country-specific facts and information on recognition of such countries’ national school-leaving certificates in Germany.

It also provides information about the equivalence of such foreign university entrance qualifications, with the German University Entrance Qualification. Anabin also informs you about the requirements and steps for making your foreign educational certificates, recognized for beginning higher education studies in here.

Aufenthaltstitel

“German Residence Permit” it’s a German residence title taken at the German Foreigner’s Authority in the first 3 months of your arrival in Germany. All the visa and visa-exempt nationals about to study in Germany for longer than 3 months must get this residence title to legally stay and study here.

Ausländerbehörde

“Foreigner’s Registration Authority” it’s a German public body in charge of issues related to foreign residents in Germany, including issuance of German residence permits. Every German administrative district has its particular Foreigner’s Registration Authority.

Agentur für Arbeit “Federal Employment Agency” is the main public administration authority for the job and training placements in Germany.

As a foreign student, you can require from the agency to support you in finding a job, matching your interests and qualification

Beglaubigung (Certified Copy)

“ Beglaubigung ” stands for an original educational document, I.e. Transcript of Records (ToR) having been certified by a German authority or consular service abroad, to prove their originality.

Blended Learning

“Blended Learning” stands for a study course/module held in a combination of online and in-classroom lectures and seminars.

Block Seminar

“ Blockveranstaltung ” stands for an intensive study course offering all-together over several consecutive days teaching sessions.

Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz (BAföG)

“Federal Education and Training Assistance Act” it’s a German law that enables students (including some foreign students) placed amongst German educational institutions, to get a funding in case of failure to pay their living costs.

Certificates of Education

“ Certificates of Education ” stands for all the educational certificates showing your study activity you’ve ever completed at a school or university.

Educational certificates usually take account of:

• School-leaving certificates (diploma certificate and transcript of records).
• Certificate for having passed the university entrance examinations.
• Transcript of grades (for the ongoing studies).
• University certificates.
• Diploma certificate.
• Transcript of grades.
• Diploma supplement.
• Further additional school/university educational certificates.

Certification of Internship/Work Experience/Vocational Training

“Certification of Your Previous Professional Activity” stands for the process of offering documents that proof your participation in an internship, a paid job, or a professional training.

Certified Translation of Documents

“Certified translation of documents” stands for the educational and further documents of a foreign language content, whose copies are translated, signed and stamped by a court-certified translator.

Confirmation of Registration

“Confirmation of registration ” is used to name an educational certificate showing that you’ve registered to undertake an exam or, or participate in a study course at a higher education institution issuing it.

Curricular Analysis

“Curricular Analysis” it’s a document containing a review of the knowledge you’ve received during your previous studies. Such document may be a requirement to apply for a Master’s study, together with the aptitude assessment results.

Curriculum Vitae/Résumé

“CV” it’s a document where you in a chronological order include all your formal and informal education, together with work and other professional experience.

Dekan / Dekanat

“Dekan” it’s the dean (head) of a faculty of a higher education institution in Germany. Their office, it’s known as “Dekanat”, standing as the key administrative department of the respective faculty.

Deutschlandstipendium

“German scholarship” it’s a bursary granted by Germany to the exceptionally talented students in German higher education institutions, in the amount of 300€/month.

Diploma Certificate

“ Diploma Certificate ” is an educational certificate clearly specifying the time and the title/degree you’ve received by completing certain degree studies, such as Matura, Bachelor’s, Baccalauréat, Master’s or a further degree.

Diploma Supplement

“ Diploma Supplement ” it’s a detailed educational certificate that supplements a university certificate.

It consists of specifics about the type of your study course that led you to the particular university degree, admission requirement for such a course, aims and contents of them as well as its modules.

Dissertation

“Doktorarbeit” it’s a document where you present your theory for a particular study subject, based on a persistent research and it’s the key requirement to obtain a PhD degree in Germany.

After submitting the doctoral thesis, you’ve to undertake an oral examination on the subject of such thesis.

Doppelstudium/Doppeldiplom

Double degree studies “Doppelstudium” stands for the study programmes where you can meantime attend studies in two different universities, one in Germany and in another abroad country. These studies lead to a double degree “ Doppeldiplom ”.

DoSV Dialogorientiertes Service-Verfahren

“Dialog-Oriented Procedure” It’s a service offered by a portal hoschschulstart.de, for assists German higher education institutions in allocating their open undergraduate study places amongst their applicants.

Dozent/ Dozentin

In Germany, a lecturer in a higher education institution is called “Dozent” (male) and “Dozentin” (female).

DSD German Language Diploma

“ Deutsches Sprachdiplom der Kultusministerkonferenz ” is a German language certificate attained by passing a DSD test once completing certain schooling years at a German school (in Germany or abroad).

There are two levels of DSD proficiency, DSD I and DSD II.

Commonly, DSD certificate serves as a proof of German language competence for admission of foreign students in German higher education institutions.

DSH Deutsche Sprachprüfung für den Hochschulzugang

“ DSH German Language Exam for University Entrance ” is an assessment taken at a German higher education institution that attests your German language proficiencies as a candidate for admission.

The DSH test comprises of a written and oral test. There are three stages of proficiency that DSH test confirms: DSHI, DSHII and DSH III.

The DSH III is commonly required for taking up studies for a medical study course.

Duales Studium

“Dual studies” stands for the study programmes where you can combine standard academic studies with a practical work inside a business or company.

ECTS (European Credit Transfer System)

“ECTS” stands for a standardized system for tertiary study credits amongst European countries.

ECTS credit points ensure equivalence amid different countries of Europe, as regards of study quality for the same tertiary study degree, i.e. Bachelor degree. There are commonly required ECTS credits to complete a university degree study in almost all European countries.

ECTS points also known as Credit Points (CP), “ Leistungspunkte ” (LP) or “ Kreditpunkte ” (KP) measure the student’s performance, despite the classical grade of attainment in studies.

Einwohnermeldeamt

“Resident’s Registration Office” it’s the German public body covering issues related to registration of their resident’s living addresses.

As a foreigner, you’ve to register your permanent living address within 2 weeks of your arrival in Germany.

Every district in Germany has its own Resident’s Registration office.

Embossed Seal

“Embossed Seals” stands for a stamp usually put against a foil, providing a three-dimensional or upstretched effect commonly used by notaries to certify copies of educational documents, for their authenticity.

“Essay” it’s a document where your thoughts on a specific topic are presented, based on theories and evidences of different relevant academic/scientific sources. Essay sources must be properly cited, in compliance with the international citing standards.

Exmatrikulation

“Ex-matriculation” is when you as a student are officially removed from the list of registered students.

If you don’t pay your fees for the upcoming semester, you will automatically be exmatriculated. Otherwise, if you decide abandoning studies before this, the certificate will be issued upon your request.

Exmatrikulations-Bescheinigung

“German Certificate of Removal” is a German educational certificate showing that you’ve been unlisted from the educational provider’s register of enrolled students, a process called “ Exmatrikulation ”.

This certificate is required to be able to register in a new university.

Fachhochschule (FH)

“German Universities of Applied Sciences” are second most popular higher education institutions in Germany. They offer a practically-oriented study courses and research programs leading to a degree of a lower level than PhD.

FHs are entirely changing their name into “ Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften ” for a specific study field i.e. “ Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft ” (HTW).

“Student representation” stands for a group of students annually elected by the enrolled students in a German academic institution, representing their rights and concerns to the university board.

“Fakultativ” it’s a term used to describe an optional requirement or a not mandatory study course/other study measure.

Feststellungsprüfung

“German Higher Education Qualification Exam” it’s a test that evaluates your competence, as a foreign university candidate student whose foreign qualification isn’t recognized, to enroll in tertiary studies in Germany.

The test commonly takes place after completing a 2-semester preparatory course “ Studienkolleg ” in Germany.

By passing this exam, you’ll be offered a subject-restricted university entrance qualification “ Fachgebundene HZB ” which gives you access to undergraduate studies (Bachelor, Staatsexamen or Diplom level) only for your subject area “ Fachrichtung ”.

You may sit the examination without having to participate in a Studienkolleg, known as “ Externe Feststellungsprüfung ”.

See also Will I Automatically Be Admitted at a German HEI If I Pass the University Qualification Exam?

Feststellungsprüfungszeugnis

“The Assessment Exam Certificate” It’s an educational certificate showing you’ve succeeded in passing the German University Entrance Qualification “ Feststellungsprüfung ”.

Combined with your foreign original school-leaving diploma, your Assessment Exam Certificate is weighed as a subject-HZB.

Focus Course

“Focus courses” are courses offered in a Studienkolleg, for the specific study area, depending participant’s so-far educational background and the study course they’re seeking to complete in Germany.

Focus courses offered in a Studienkolleg by a German university are:

• G Course – Humanities.
• S Course – Linguistics
• W Course – Social and Economic Sciences.
• T Course – Technical, Science and Math.
• M Course – Medical and Biological.

Focus courses offered in a Studienkolleg by a German university of applied sciences are:

• TI Course -Technical and Engineering.
• WW Course – Economic Sciences
• GD Course – Art.
• SW Course – Social Sciences.

“Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering” it’s a standardized test aimed for Indians intending to take up an Engineering study course in an academic institution in Germany.

Graduates from an Indian institute of technology are exempt from taking the test.

See also Requirements to Study in Germany for Indian Students .

German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)

“DAAD” is an organization that has its main offices in Germany and branches all over the world. Its activity focuses on providing foreign nationals and institutions with the information and guidance on study, research and academic cooperation issues in/with Germany.

German Aptitude Test

“German Aptitude Test” is a mandatory exam applied by a number of German Higher Education Institutions to applicants seeking an admission in studies there. This assessment evaluates your suitability for the particular study course.

German Bachelor Degree

“German Bachelor Degree” is the most common academic degree in Germany obtained by successfully completing undergraduate studies in Germany. It is granted in a form of an Awarding Diploma, supplemented by a Transcript of Records (ToR) that you’ve attained during such studies.

See also Qualifications of the German Higher Education System .

German Diplom

“ German Diplom ” is the German conventional higher education degree certificate taken by completing an undergraduate study program in engineering, natural sciences and economics here.

German Diplom is to be entirely replaced by a Bachelor and Master Degree by 2020.

German Introductory Courses

“Introductory courses” stands for the preparatory measures provided by few German academic institutions for foreign admitted students to better prepare them with specific knowledge in their subject area, right before beginning their studies.

An example of introductory courses is the Propaedeutic “Propädeutikum” courses.

German Special Study Programmes

“Special Study Programmes” stands for the German study programs offered for the refugees in German higher education institutions. This takes account of preparatory, language and introductory courses.

German Student Applicant Visa

“German Student Applicant Visa” it’s a visa that German consular services abroad provide for foreigners holding a confirmation of university application, but who yet haven’t received the admission letter.

German Undergraduate Studies

“Undergraduate Studies” stands for the complete study activity required to get the first German higher education degree: a Bachelor Degree, a Diplom or Staatsexamen.

“Graduate Management Admission Test” it’s an internationally accepted exam that evaluates your competence as a candidate for a Master’s degree study course in business administration field.

Grading System

“Grading System” stands for the general information about the minimum and maximum grades needed to obtain a specific study degree in Germany or elsewhere.

The information of this form it’s commonly available in your educational certificates. Some institutions publish such information on their official website. If any of this isn’t relevant to you, this information can be taken by the provider following your formal request.

“Graduate” stands for every individual having obtained a degree certificate and supplementing educational certificates for successfully completing a university degree study course, a preparatory course, a school, or other study course.

“Graduate Record Examination” it’s a standardized test that assesses your fitness as a candidate for a Master’s or PhD degree study course, in a wide range of study fields.

Grundstudium

“Foundation studies” stands for studies you take up during your first 1 or 2-year of your degree studies in Germany, which set you the basis for further studies in your subject study area.

Habilitation/Habilitationsschrift

“ Habilitation ” it’s an additional qualification you’ve to obtain, despite a PhD degree, if you intend to become a university professor in Germany. To do so, you’ve to prepare a thesis “ Habilitationsschrift ” and pass an examination.

Hauptstudium

“ Hauptstudium ” stands for the advanced studies after having obtained a “ Grundstudium ”, to specialize in a specific study area.

Advanced studies are concluded by passing an examination leading to a German Bachelor’s or Master’s degree.

Higher Education Entrance Exam

“University entrance exam” is a test that some higher education institutions in Germany require from you to sit, to evaluate your competence for entering tertiary studies.

Passing this test is one of the requirements, despite having an accepted university entrance qualification (HZB).

Hilfswissenschaftler (HiWi)

A research assistant in Germany is called “ Hilfswissenschaftler ”. You can become a research assistant in the same university where you’re meanwhile studying.

Hochschulzugangsberechtigung (HZB)

“German Higher Education Entrance Qualification ” stands for collective educational certificates of your earlier education, which qualifies you to apply for admission into a German higher education institution.

See also HZB Types .

In Germany, auditoriums where lectures take place are called “ Hörsaal ”.

HZB Certificate

“German University Entrance Qualification Certificate” it’s a certificate enabling you to apply for an academic study course in Germany.

As a foreigner, your HZB certificate contains details about your foreign educational certificates and their appraisal converted into the German grading system.

“International English Language Testing System” It’s an exam that measures your English language skills for participation in academic studies or training.

IELTS test results are largely acknowledged as a proof of your English language competence by the German higher education institutions. IELTS points are valid for no longer than 2 years.

Immatrikulation

In Germany, enrollment process in a higher education institution is called “ Immatrikulation ”. In this process the student registers their semester by paying a semester contribution fee and/or semester fee.

By enrolling in studies you receive a student ID, eligibility to participate in lectures and other study activities, as well as access to the study resources of the respective higher education institution.

Immatrikulations-Bescheinigung

“German Certificate of Enrollment” it’s an educational certificate showing a semester contribution and/or the semester fee paid by you in the enrollment period.

The German enrollment certificate gives you access in study activities to the chosen study course, as well as to the university resources and more, for the current semester.

See also Enrolling at a German University .

International Office of the University

“Akademisches Auslandsamt” stands for a department at a German higher education provider with an activity focused in supporting foreign applicants and students, through the information and guidance regarding academic studies and related administrative issues.

International Study Course

“International Study Courses” are named German academic study programs of international format commonly taught entirely or partially in English language.

Despite modules held in English language, international courses in Germany contain modules in German, French or further foreign languages.

Germans designate a written examination as a “ Klausur ”.

“Colloquium” in Germany stands for an interactive group discussion on a study session, for a specific lecture or series of lectures. At times, that includes a brief test or a lecture from an expert.

Kommilitone

In Germany, a student designates their fellow student a “ Kommilitone ”.

Kreisverwaltung

“The Germany’s Local Government” It’s a public administrative body for a “ Landkreis ” (German administrative district).

“The Germany’s Administrative District” it’s a public authority that maintains several German municipalities.

Language Certificate

“Language Certificate” is the term to describe accepted certificates which attest that you’ve successfully passed an approved German/English/other language test.

Commonly accepted English language certificates amongst German higher education institutions are:

• Certificate of having passed a DSH Test.
• Certificate of TestDaF.
• Certificate of Goethe-Institut.

Recognized as proof of English language proficiency are also:

• Certificate showing scores of TOEFL.
• IELTS Test Report Form.
• Cambridge, TOEIC, UNIcert Certificate (In some higher education institutions).

See also Proof of language proficiency (German and/or English) .

“Research chair” in Germany stands for a single or few teaching university professors, accompanied by their research assistants, tutors and secretaries.

Lehrveranstaltung

In Germany, a lecture, seminar, tutorial or other course unit it’s labeled as “ Lehrveranstaltung ”.

Master’s Degree Studies

“Master’s Degree Studies” stands for the postgraduate studies, taking place following the end of undergraduate studies; usually last up to 1 year or 2 semesters, leading to a Master’s degree.

There’re two types of master’s studies available in Germany:

• Follow-Up Master’s Course – for a study course related to previous studies, or in a new study course.
• Master’s Courses as Extension Studies – for a study course related to your work experience.

Nomen Nominandum (N.N.)

“N.C” stands for a seminar or lecture for which the professor yet hasn’t been announced.

Numerus Clausus (N.C.)

“N.C.” stands for a limitation on the number of admitted students in medicine, pharmacy and dentistry study course.

Obligatorisch

“ Obligatorisch ” stands for a mandatory course or a compulsory study requirement.

Officially Certified Document

“Officially certified document” it’s an educational document that has an official stamp “ Dienstsiegel ” by a public authority or notary “ Öffentliche Stelle ” for the authenticity.

Orientierungswoche

“Orientation Days” stands for welcoming days that academic institutions organize in the first weeks of an academic year, aimed at familiarizing new students with the services, departments, staff and procedures of such providers.

Ortsbürgermeister

“German Local Mayor” is the key official representative for a district of a German municipality.

“Plagiat” stands for plagiarism when someone uses someone else’s thoughts/publications as their own, without quoting or citing the author. Plagiarism in Germany is considered a fraud.

Portfolio of Work

“Portfolio of Work” it’s a term used for a collective sample documents, to attest your own projects in a specific field for which you’re seeking to study in Germany, i.e. Architecture study course.

Portfolio of work includes but it’s not limited into samples, images, texts.

Preparatory German Language Course

“Preparatory German Language Courses” are courses where preparatory knowledge of German language before academic studies is offered, specific to your study course.

Following the end a preparatory course you will be assessed on your attainment, through a DSH exam.

“Promotion” in Germany stands for all the studies completed to obtain a German Doctoral degree title.

Prüfungsamt

“Examination Office” it’s a university unit that runs issues related to the student exams, as well as issuance of educational certificates and transcripts of records. Another role of the office is guiding students regarding their examinations.

Recommendation Letter

“Recommendation Letter” it’s a paper where a previous professor/teacher gives their thoughts on your appropriateness to participate in the specific study course.

“Referat” stands for an oral presentation of a seminar with a group of students.

Regelstudienzeit (Course Semester)

“ Regelstudienzeit ” stands for the complete semesters of studies you must complete to obtain a university degree, in a standard course. The standard period for completing studies leading to a Bachelor degree is 6 academic semesters, while it takes 2 semesters to be able getting a Master’s degree in Germany.

Repetitorium

“Revision course” it’s a course preparing students before taking an examination in law, medicine and teaching subjects.

Rückmeldung

“Re-registration” stands for the process where you re-register for the upcoming semester. This usually includes paying the semester contribution fee and/or semester fee for the upcoming semester. If you don’t re-register, you will be unavoidably ex-matriculated.

“Schein” stands for a certificate of successful completion of a seminar, or other course unit.

“Semester” stands for academic studies you complete during a 6-month period in a year. An academic year consists of 2 semesters, summer and winter semester.

Semesterticket

“Semester ticket” it’s a ticket that some academic institutions in Germany provide their students with, aimed for using a free public transportation in a specific area here.

Semesterwochenstunden (SWS)

“SWS” stands for the number of hours you’ve to dedicate for participating in a seminar or lecture within a week.

Staatsexamen

The German “State examination” it’s a test taken at the end of undergraduate studies for a medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, pharmacology, law, food chemistry, or a teaching course. By passing the state examination you can get pursue a profession of a doctor, pharmacist, lawyer or teacher in Germany.

Stiftung für Hochschulzulassung

“Central Admissions Office” it’s a German authority that handles with applications for a study degree with a restricted access, such as medicine, dentistry and pharmacy.

Studentenausweis

“Student ID” it’s an ID showing you’re an enrolled student in a specific academic institution.

A Student ID entitles you to participate in the course units, use the institution’s study resources and get discounts when paying a cinema, theatre or museum entry ticket.

Studentenwerk

“Student Services Association” it’s a network of student service centers across Germany, dedicated in providing support on accommodation and other student life aspects to all students in Germany.

Studienkolleg

“Studienkolleg” it’s a 1-year or 2-semester preparatory course where foreign university applicants attain specific academic and language understanding in their subject area. Participants of the course are commonly foreign applicants whose earlier foreign education is not equivalent to German Higher Education Entrance Qualification.

Studienkollegs are taught at both universities and universities of applied sciences in Germany.

At the end of the course, as a participant you’ve to succeed in passing a “ Feststellungsprüfung ”.

A Feststellungsprüfung passed at a “ Fachhochschule ” entitles you to study only at a “Fachhochschule. While, a test passed at a “ Universität ” entitles you to study at both, university or university of applied sciences in Germany.

Amongst requirements for attending a Studienkolleg is passing an entrance exam to attest your German language proficiency on your subject area.

You can learn more about Studienkollegs in Germany here.

Studienordnung and Prüfungsordnung

“ Studienordnung ” stands for all the study regulations within an academic institution. While “ Prüfungsordnung” stands for all the examination regulations.

Study Module

“Study module” is the term used to name lectures, seminars and related course units for up to 2 different study subjects.

Subject Restriction University Entrance Qualification

“Subject-restriction HZB” stands for a university entrance qualification entitling you to apply only for specific study courses in Germany.

Subject Studies

“Fachstudium” stands for the study subject of your study course during your Bachelor or Master studies in Germany.

Test für Ausländischer Studierende (TestAS)

“Test for Foreign Students” it’s a German examination that measures your competence to commence Tertiary Education studies at a German higher education.

TestAS it’s available in German and English language, as well as in Arabic for the refugees.

The TestAS consists of the: (1) core exam and (2) exam in your study area, between humanities, cultural studies and social sciences; math, computer and natural sciences, engineering, or economics.

Test für Deutsch Als Fremdsprache (TestDaF)

“Test for German as a Second Language” it’s a German examination, that attests your German language competences as a foreigner.

TestDaF consists of: (1) reading, (2) writing, (3) listening and (4) speaking exams.

TestDaF results are commonly accepted as a proof of German language skills for university admission in Germany. However, the requirements regarding the minimum scores differ depending on several factors.

“Test of English as a Foreign Language” it’s an internationally recognized language test that attests your English language competence.

TOEFL has three options: (1) iBT (Internet Based Test), pBT (Paper Based Test), and ITP (Institutional Testing Program). The results of this test are valid for no longer than 2 consecutive years.

TOEFL consists of (1) writing, (2) reading, (3) listening, and (4) speaking exams.

TOEFL results are often acknowledged as a proof of English language for university admission in Germany. There are different requirements regarding the minimum scores for university application here.

“Tutorial” stands for meeting with a tutor who teaches you a series of seminars or lectures.

“Uni-Assist” it’s a popular German online service embraced by only some universities, through which students can apply for admission in academic studies.

Uni-assist manages the compliance of you as an applicant, with the requirements for university admission, while the respective academic institution is in-charge of giving you the final decision.

University Admission

“University Admission” is to name the decision of a particular university on your application for admission to a specific study course. Depending on your situation, this can be a positive, conditioned decision or a negation. It’s normally provided as a formal university letter, issued by the university admission office.

University Admission Criteria

“Criteria for the university admission” names a list of requirements for admission into a university study course.

University Admission Office

“The office for university admission” is a separate department in a university, in charge of receiving university applications, their evaluation, taking a decision about them, and informing applicants about their admissibility. The office, meanwhile, maintains the enrollment process of the successful candidates.

University Application Deadline

“University Application Deadline” stands for the most recent day you’re eligible submitting your application for university admission.

University Application Extension Period

“Extension Period” stands for the tolerable period of time, outside the original application deadline, for submitting additional documents for university admission.

University Application Motivation Letter

“Motivation Letter” it’s a personal letter where you tell your motive for choosing the study course where you’re seeking for admission.

In the letter you must relate how your expected studies will benefit your future career and life.

See also How to write a motivational letter for university admission in Germany .

In Germany a lecture is called “ Vorlesung ”.

Vorlesungsverzeichnis

“Course Prospectus” it’s a document with detailed information on all your study courses and their content, and timetable of such activities.

Vorlesungszeit

“Lecture period” stands for the period within one semester during which lectures and seminars are held. The gap between such periods is known as a “Semester Break”.

For the German winter semester standard lecture period is from Mid-October up to Mid-February.

For the German summer semester standard lecture period is from Mid-April up to Mid-July.

Zentralstelle Für Ausländisches Bildungswesen (ZAB)

“Central Office for Foreign Education” it’s the main evaluating authority of the foreign certificates for the purpose of continuing further education in Germany.

This office covers the information for more than 180 foreign countries.

Zeugnisanerkennungsstelle

“Certificate Recognition Office” it’s an office that runs issues for recognition of foreign university entrance qualifications, when the university cannot take a decision about such a matter.

Office’s scope of work extends into evaluating qualifications of foreigners applying for Studienkolleg and for the “ Feststellungsprüfung ”.

Zugangsvoraussetzungen

“Zugangsvoraussetzungen” stands for a study course requirements for admission.

Zulassungsbescheid

“Zulassungsbescheid” stands for a university offer letter. In this formal letter, the academic institution offers you a place in a study course, and after this you can register a semester and start your study activity.

Zweitstudium

“Zweitstudium” stands for the second degree studies, usually Master’s studies. You cannot begin Master’s studies without first completing undergraduate studies, i.e. Bachelor’s degree studies.

Zwischenprüfung

“Zwischenprüfung” stands for the final examination you need to undertake after having completed first few years of studies “ Grundstudium ”. Through this test your competence acquired during such studies and ability to continue with further studying is assessed.

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About DissOnline

The German National Library houses the largest national collection of online dissertations in Europe. We have been collecting online dissertations and theses since 1998. Since then, the collection has grown to more than 284,000 documents (as of November 2020).

Since these activities began under the aegis of DissOnline more than 20 years ago, electronic publishing has become a part of everyday university life. This is due to the close cooperation between universities, their libraries and computer centres, and representatives of academia as well as the long-standing support provided through projects funded by the German Research Foundation ( DFG ).

The DissOnline project was brought to a successful, sustainable conclusion. Stakeholders whose initiative had supported DissOnline then became free to transfer their commitment to other areas. In June 2012, the DissOnline advisory committee therefore decided to integrate the functions and information on the website www.dissonline.de into the German National Library’s services. This is particularly relevant in terms of the deposit of works with the German National Library. The extended metadata format XMetaDissPlus enables all types of publications and documents available in subject-specific and institutional repositories and on university servers to be deposited in just one fully automated transaction.

Deposit information

The DissOnline portal is also integrated into the German National Library's catalogue as a search option. This means that online dissertations are listed as a component of the German National Library’s collection alongside traditional printed dissertations, other online university publications and academic literature. Our catalogue offers a wide variety of search options that are constantly being developed and optimised further. You will find an explanation of all the available search options here:

Guide to searching dissertations and theses in the German National Library’s catalogue (only available in German)

In order to enhance the international visibility of the collection, the metadata for all German online dissertations is continually delivered to DART , the European portal for online dissertations. NDLTD : Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations is committed to the promotion of electronic publishing in the academic sector beyond Europe. The International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD) takes place every year.

Statistical information

Online university publications have been collected, catalogued and archived at the German National Library since 1998. The illustration shows how the percentage of online publications has developed over the years since this work began. Here it must be considered that although dissertations are subject to a mandatory publication obligation and an obligation to be placed on deposit with the German National Library, only an approximate impression of doctoral and publication activities in Germany can be given.

As the statistics refer to the year in which the publication was released rather than the year in which it was deposited, it is quite possible that figures may rise in succeeding years. This applies in particular to the most recent full year.

The DissOnline projects

• 1998–2000 Dissertations Online
• 2003–2004 Establishment of a coordinating body for online university publications
• 2005–2007 DissOnline Tutor
• 2005–2008 Establishment of a portal for online university publications

The intensive cooperation between all partners and sponsors also made it possible to start collecting dissertations and theses on a voluntary basis in 1998, eight years before the amendment to the Law Regarding the German National Library and the provision stipulating the mandatory deposit of online publications.

Last changes: 08.03.2021 Short-URL: https://www.dnb.de/dissonline

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PhD in Germany: The Ultimate Guide

Ph.D. in Germany is almost free, if you’ve a great academic background. Get step-by-step directions on finding and applying for a suitable PhD in Germany for indian student.

How to Study a PhD In Germany?

As in many countries, the aim of the PhD program in Germany is to work on and publish a written doctoral thesis/dissertation . PhD degree is awarded based on examination of the thesis, which must be published in journals specified by the universities, and by an oral examination of thesis presentation.here are some top reasons to study in germany .

Let’s first understand the options you would have for a PhD in Germany -

What is University System in Germany?

There are mainly two types of higher education institutions in Germany -

• Universities (including Technische Universität, also called TU) are research-oriented institutions and offer a wide variety of subjects. Many of the universities also award PhD (usually called doctorate in Europe) degrees.
• Fachhochschulen (University of Applied Sciences, also called FH), are practice-oriented institutions and offer course mostly in engineering, business administration, social sciences and design. They do not award doctorates.

Bachelor’s and master’s degrees awarded by both types of universities (Universities and Fachhochschulen) are legally equivalent. After completing Master’s from either of the institution, you can get admission to a PhD program at a University.

Unlike in the US, a fter an Undergraduate (Bachelor’s) degree, you can directly get enrolled for a PhD program at a University in Germany. Most US universities only requires an Undergraduate degree for admission to PhD program but all of them will require you to take additional coursework.

Germany is also home to a number of prestigious research institutions, such as EMBL. These research institutions can’t award PhD degrees but they host a large number of PhD students for the major part of their doctorates. These students are jointly-supervised by a professor in a university (in Germany or abroad) from which the PhD will be awarded.

What are Types of PhDs in Germany?

Following are the two types of PhDs in Germany:

The traditional approach with Individual Doctorate

Under traditional approach, you need to identify a supervisor at a German university who is willing to guide for your research.

You get lots of flexibility in terms of no compulsory attendance, deadlines and curriculum . As you would largely be working independently, you are expected to work hard and demonstrate more personal initiative and responsibility.

In addition to conducting research work at a university, you could also complete a project at a non-university research organization or at a German company in the industrial sector.

The average length of this kind of PhD is 3 to 5 years.

* Structured Programs with Doctorate in a Team of Researchers

Under structural program,

• First , your research proposal have to fit within existing PhD programs, unlike Individual Doctorate, in which your PhD can be more freely structured to suit your research project.
• Second , you work as part of a group of doctoral students and all are guided by a group of supervisors.

There are over 700 programs of this nature available in Germany, often with an international make-up, with English as the team language.

The majority of doctoral candidates still complete a traditional doctorate. However, in recent years, a large number of students are choosing structured program, especially in the natural sciences and mathematics.

Is PhD in Germany for Free?

Almost! There is no tuition fee for PhD program in Germany.

However, you will be asked to pay small administrative fee in the range of €50 – €250, which is to cover service costs such as student governance and services, public transport etc. In addition, you will also have to take health insurance.

So your main cost for a PhD in Germany is you living expenses.

An average student in Germany needs about €820 (US$921) per month to cover living expenses, including rent, food, clothing, transportation, working materials, recreation and other costs.

How to fund a PhD in Germany?

You have various ways to raise money including by teaching appointments, grants, scholarships and part-time jobs.

Under traditional approach of PhD, your supervisor may nominate you for a grant, for example from the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes (German National Academic Foundation).

Depending on the subject, there are also numerous organizations in Germany that award individual grants. These include Federal states, foundations, religious organizations or foundations associated with political parties. Funding periods and eligibility criteria will vary but may include allowances for language course, families with children as well as research travel costs.

To get part-time work work, as an international student, please ensure that your residence permit allows you to take paid work. Also, you will be limited to working up to 190 full days or 240 half days per year before you must apply for a work permit.

Under structured program, you also need to include an application for funding in your PhD application. If you are accepted for a PhD, you can expect a monthly allowance of €1,000 – €1,400, which is sufficient to meet your living expenses.

What are the entry requirements?

Entry requirements will vary between universities and PhD programs. In general, you are expected to have a great higher education degree , which is equivalent to a German master’s degree along with a high GPA. Many of our successful students have a GPA of above 75%.

Each university is responsible for decisions on the admission of doctoral students and the accreditation of qualifications.

Some universities may ask for proof of English language proficiency , for example by requesting TOEFL or IELTS scores, while universities will ask for very good German language skills if your thesis is to be written in German.

How to apply for a PhD in Germany?

You need to apply to individual institution. Following are the general steps that you should follow:

Find a supervisor or a structured program

Traditional PhD: You will need to find a suitable professor who is willing to be your supervisor. You may be able to find a supervisor through contacts from your own university, or by searching for institutes and research centers or teams which relate to your area of interest. Here are some websites that you can use to find a suitable supervisor: DAAD, PhD Germany, Hochschulkompass.de and academics.de.

You should directly reach-out to potential supervisors in your area of research interest. You should send a brief and well-structured outline of your PhD proposal along with your academic background and CV. This process takes time and you should allow plenty of time before intended start date of your PhD.

Structured PhD - You should identify universities in your research area and contact them directly. Use the reference websites mentioned above to find appropriate universities. You would be required to complete the application procedure, as instructed on their websites and within the application deadline.

Admission procedures

Once you have a letter of acceptance from your supervisor or a confirmation of admission for a structured program, you should apply for formal admissions .

These vary depending on the institution. At this stage, the relevant department or doctoral committee must confirm your eligibility as a doctoral candidate. This usually involves completing an application that includes a statement by your doctoral supervisor, certified copies of certificates and the university degree that entitles you to engage in doctoral study.

Your application may also include an English or German language test result, if applicable. The Student Office of your chosen university will review these documents and grant permission for you to commence doctoral studies.

Next comes enrolment after a university accepts your application . Some universities may not require you to officially enroll at university. You an find about this requirement in the doctoral regulations of your university’s official website.

Enrolling secures you a better legal status as an international student. So try to get it done. You must also make sure your Master’s degree is recognized, obtain a residence permit and/or student visa, and ensure you have adequate finances for your stay.

Do I need to speak German?

You don’t need to be able to speak German for your PhD. For Individual PhD, your thesis can often be written in English, whereas for Structured PhD, you re allowed to complete your doctorate in English.

However, you will have much better academic experience, student life and access to projects, internships and part-time jobs if you can speak German language. It’s not difficult. Couple of hours every week for 4-6 months should get you speak a decent level of German language. So please make some effort and start learning German language.

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Prof. Dr. Bettina Braun Zinn

Phonetic aspects of gender-neutral speech in German

Many speakers who use gender-neutral speech in German produce a glottal stop /ʃtʊdɛntʔɪn/. In this project you will compare the realization of gender-neutral speech for different speakers (those who find this distinction important and those who don’t). You will also investigate how the speakers deal with forms in which the stress pattern is different between the male and female forms (e.g., Professor vs. Professorin)

Prerequisites:

• knowledge of praat or another speech processing software
• knowledge of statistics

Language: 

German or English

Intonational meaning in one-word utterances (with R. Eckardt)

In mother-child interaction, mothers utter a whole range of semantically empty one-word utterances (e.g., hm?). In this project you will analyse an annotated corpus of spoken Germna mother-child interaction to classify the pragmatic content (intent) of these one-word utterances and to relate their function to intonational form to develop a model of intonational meaning.

• knowledge of pragmatics

Literature: Grice, M., Baumann, S., & Benzmüller, R. (2005). German Intonation in Autosegmental-Metrical Phonology. In J. Sun-Ah (Ed.), Prosodic Typology. The Phonology of Intonation and Phrasing (pp. 55-83). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

The role of intonation on lexical stress perception (with T. Rathcke)

There are studies showing that participants perceive high-pitched syllables as stressed (this happens, for instance, in a rising intonation pattern such as “Peter?” where the low-pitched stressed syllable is less often detected correctly than in a declarative utterance with a falling f0-contour. In this project you will use rhythm-beats to probe participants’ stress perception in different intonation contours.

• knowledge of psycholinguistics

Literature: Zahner, K., Kutscheid, S., & Braun, B. (2019). Alignment of f0 peak in different pitch accent types affects perception of metrical stress. Journal of Phonetics, 74 , 75-95.

Prosody vs. syntax in the interpretation of questions as rhetorical or information-seeking (with N. Dehé)

Previous research has shown that listeners can use prosodic information (duration, voice quality, intonation) to decide whether a question is intended as rhetorical or information-seeking question (all else being equal). In this project you will investigate how this prosodic information compares to information from other linguistic areas, e.g. syntactic structure, use of particles

Literature: Braun, B., Dehé, N., Neitsch, J., Wochner, D., & Zahner, K. (2018). The prosody of rhetorical and information-seeking questions in German. Language and Speech 62(4), 779–807 . Kharaman, M., Xu, M., Eulitz, C. & Braun, B. (2019). The processing of prosodic cues to rhetorical question interpretation: Psycholinguistic and neurolinguistics evidence.  Proceedings of Interspeech . Graz, Austria.

The perception of bias in polar questions (with M. Romero)

Previous research has shown that speakers mark their own bias preferentially via word order in German (Gibt es nicht einen Bus? vs. Gibt es keinen Bus?), while English speakers make more use of prosody (in particular the final rise). In this project you test the perception and identification of speaker bias and test the roles of prosody and syntax therein.

Literature: Arnhold, A., Braun, B. & Romero, M. (2020). Aren’t prosody and syntax marking bias in questions? Language and Speech. Online first publication   https://doi.org/10.1177/0023830920914315

The marking of rhetorical question in Swiss German: Syntactic and prosodic cues (with N. Dehé)

Rhetorical questions (RQs) may be signaled by lexical or syntactic cues and/or by prosody. Regarding the prosodic marking of RQs, previous research on German has shown that tonal targets are aligned later in rhetorical wh -questions than in neutral wh -questions. Swiss German is an interesting test case for the marking of RQs as tonal alignment seems to occur later in Swiss German than in Standard German. Moreover, Swiss German employs various lexical cues to convey pragmatic meaning. In this project you will test whether Swiss German speakers use syntactic/lexical cues and/or prosody to mark a question as rhetorical. If prosody is a cue, you will further study tonal alignment patterns for the disambiguation of the two illocution types in more detail.

• knowledge of intonation
• basic knowledge of syntax

Literature: Braun, B., Dehé, N., Neitsch, J., Wochner, D., & Zahner, K. (2018). The prosody of rhetorical and information-seeking questions in German. Language and Speech 62(4), 779–807 . Leemann, A. (2012). Swiss German intonation patterns. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Prof. Dr. Bernhard Brehmer Für die Themen für die MA-Arbeiten wenden Sie sich bitte direkt an Herrn Bernhard Brehmer. Please contact directly Mr. Bernhard Brehmer to determine the subject of your MA-Thesis.

Prof. Dr. Miriam Butt

Grammar Development

Develop a Grammar Fragment for a language using LFG/XLE.

Framing and Argumentation

Computationally analyze linguistic strategies involved in framing and argumentation. Other possible topics are the automatic detection of hate speech or the content of political manifestos.

Computational Morphological Analysis

Develop a computational analysis for morphophonological phenomena in a language using Finite-State Morphology.

Computational Semantics

Work on a topic within Natural Language Unterstanding: the automatic analysis semantic content.

Artificial Intelligence

Develop small AI systems. These could be Chatbots or systems involving machine learning from texts for a given task like text generation or classification or clustering of texts/phenomena.

Theoretical Linguistics

I am happy to supervise topics on the following: case, complex predicates, lexical semantics, grammar architecture, including the prosody-syntax-semantics/pragmatics interface. My area of specialization is South Asian languages, but I am happy to do other languages as well.

Historical Linguistics

Understanding language change, particularly with respect to case or auxiliary formation. This can be done purely from a general linguistics perspective or be combined with computational approaches (corpus linguistics and/or visual analytics).

Emotion-evoking language in Spanish political manifestos

In this thesis, you will examine the instances of emotion and emotion-evoking language in Spanish political manifestos and speeches. The aim is to create word lists that will help us in the analysis of emotional language in Spanish texts. 

Required skills:

• knowledge of Spanish; no programming skills required

Prof. Dr. Nicole Dehé

Prosody vs. syntax in the interpretation of questions as rhetorical or information-seeking (with B. Braun Zinn)

The intonation of faroese (with c. ulbrich).

Literature on the intonation of Faroese is scarce, except for some short and anecdotal descriptions in Lockwood (1977) and Árnason (2011). Speech data (from a map task study carried out in 2019) are available for analysis. Prerequisites: - Knowledge of Praat, some experience with intonational annotation / analysis - Interest in Faroese Literature: Árnason, Kristján. 2011. The Phonology of Icelandic and Faroese. Oxford University Press. Lockwood, W. B. 1977. An Introduction to Modern Faroese (3rd printing). Tórshavn: Føroya Skúlabókagrunnur.

Topics related to ditransitives in Insular Scandinavian

The objective of your thesis will be to explore important issues relating to ditransitive verbs in Insular Scandinavian. The project that your thesis will be related to focused on three main issues: (a) inversion of the two objects (DO-IO orders in active clauses and theme passives), (b) the morphosyntax of ditransitive verbs (different cases and DPs vs. PPs) and related syntactic issues, and (c) the scope possibilities for the internal arguments of ditransitive verbs. Data have been elicited in a series of experimental studies at the University of Iceland, ready for analysis. If you are interested, we will contact colleagues in Iceland and discuss use of the data as well as a specific thesis topic.

Prof. Dr. Regine Eckardt

Ich betreue Abschlussarbeiten im Bereich Semantik, Pragmatik und Sprachgeschichte. Sie können theoretische Arbeiten, Literaturvergleichende Arbeiten oder empirische Studien anstreben. Hier ist eine Auswahl an exemplarischen Themen. Für Ihre eigenen Vorschläge bin ich immer offen.

Most topics can also be researched for English, and in English. See me in my office hours talk about your ideas and interests.

Perspektivierung und perspektivierende Ausdrücke

Mit perspektivierenden Ausdrücken wird die Meinung eines Sprechers wiedergegeben. Es gibt viele Formen der Perspektivierung: geschmacklich ( gut, lecker, ekelhaft ), emotional ( leider, gottlob ), epistemisch ( wohl, vielleicht ).

Da viele davon noch nicht genauer beschrieben wurden, können hier viele Einzelfallstudien durchgeführt werden..

Ein weiterer Aspekt perspektivierender Ausdrücke ist ihre Funktion in Medientexten. Welche Art von Mitteilung wird perspektiviert? Welche Perspektiven werden vermittelt?

Form und Funktion rhetorischer Fragen.

• Datenbezogen: in welchen Texten und Medien werden rhetorische Fragen vermehrt verwendet?
• Form: Wie werden rhetorische Fragen im Deutschen markiert? (Negativ-Polare Elemente, Negation, Partikeln, Adverbien usw.)
• Funktion: Kann jede beliebige Frage auch als rhetorische Frage verwendet werden? Wie sehen adäquate Verwendungskontexte für rhetorische Fragen aus?

Emphatische Negation in Zeitungstexten

• Pragmatik von negativ-polaren Elementen
• Einordnung weiterer Negationsformen des Deutschen in die Theorie: Niemals, nicht einmal, nicht ein einzige(s) … und ihre Verwendung in Zeitungstexten
• Verwendung und Funktion von von wegen!

Präteritumsschwund im Süddeutschen

In den süddeutschen Dialekten sind die morphologischen Formen des Präteritums fast völlig verschwunden; sie werden durch analytische Formen im Perfekt ersetzt.

• welche bedeutung hat in diesem System das Doppelperfekt ( Peter hat das Buch gelesen gehabt )?
• Überprüfung von Quellen des 16. Jahrhunderts auf die Verwendung von Perfekt / Präteritum
• Überprüfung von Quellen aus dem Bereich der Hanse auf die Verwendung des Perfekts / Präteritums im 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts
• eventuell für Romanisten: Quellen aus dem Norditalienischen Raum aus dem 14. Jahrhundert auf die Verwendung von Vergangenheitsformen hin überprüfen.

Argumente und Scheinargumente

Erarbeitung von fallacies (= Scheinargumenten) anhand von Lehrbüchern, und eine empirische Studie zu der Frage: Welche fallacies kommen bei (online-)Debatten am häufigsten vor? (Zur Eingrenzung empfiehlt sich ein Fokus auf Debatten zu einem bestimmten Thema, z.B. nur über Migration, nur über Corona, …)

Texte und Medien

Wie wird in Texten die Perspektive des Autors indirekt spachlich vermittelt? Wie setzen Journalisten subjektive Prädikate ein, um einen gemeinsamen Glaubenshintergrund zu suggerieren?

Semantik von Adjektiven

Die Natur von A+N-Komposita im Russischen: Zur Semantik von A + N – Phrasen im Russischen. Im Deutschen bedeutet rote Socke dasselbe wie „ist rot und ist eine Socke“. Im Russischen scheint es A+N-Verbindungen zu geben, in denen das Adjektiv nicht einfach zur N-Bedeutung dazukommt. Was ist die Semanitk dieser A+N-Verbindungen? Gibt es solche Beispiele auch in anderen Sprachen (z.B. „blauer Brief“)? Wo ist die Grenze zwischen kompositionaler und konventioneller Bedeutung?

Indirekte Sprechakte: Russisch und Deutsch im Vergleich

Befehle und auch manche Fragen können face-threatening acts sein. Oft wird behauptet, dass Sprecher auf indirekte Sprechakte ausweichen, um den FTA abzumildern. Ist diese Strategie empirische belegbar? Ist sie kulturspezifisch?

Prof. Dr. Carsten Eulitz

Underspecification of phonological features in the mental lexicon

In this thesis, you will be conducting an EEG study using a component of the event-related activity, called MMN, to generalize MMN effects demonstrating the underspecification of phonological features in the mental lexicon. This topic is conditional to the re-opening of the EEG lab. Required skills: Experimental linguistics and neurolinguistics, ideally experience with EEG measurements and data analyses Language of the thesis: English or German

Pre-attentive recognition of the language mode and nativeness in bilingual speakers

In this thesis, you will be conducting an EEG study using a component of the event-related activity, called MMN, to investigate the pre-attentive recognition of the language mode of bilingual speakers while producing CV syllables in the L1 or the L2 as well as the nativeness of their productions. This topic is conditional to the re-opening of the EEG lab. Required skills: Experimental linguistics and neurolinguistics, ideally experience with EEG measurements and data analyses Language of the thesis: English or German

You can come to me with ideas about projects on neurolinguistics topics. Language of the thesis: English or German

Juniorprof. Dr. Diego Frassinelli

Automatic generation of behavioral measures using Distributional Semantic information

In this thesis, you will use regression methods to predict (extra)linguistic information (e.g., behavioral norms like concreteness, valency, arousal) using distributional semantic representations. The main focus of this project is to identify the type of linguistic and non-linguistic information available in distributional representations and understand how to access this type of information. Required Skills: Understanding of distributional semantics; Understanding and running correlation and regression studies; Good knowledge of Python or R. Language of the thesis: English only

Investigating Multimodal Distributional Semantics

In this thesis, you will use existing multimodal distributional representations (e.g., visual vectors) in combination with purely linguistic vector representations to understand how information coming from multiple modalities can be combined to solve traditional tasks from lexical and distributional semantics. Required Skills: Understanding of distributional semantics; Understanding and running correlation and regression studies; Good knowledge of Python. Language of the thesis: English only

Building Multimodal Distributional Representations

In this thesis, you will build visual vectors using complex neural networks and test such representations on traditional tasks from lexical and distributional semantics. The main question in this project is the following: does the quality and type of pictures used to build such vectors significantly affect the final representation? Required Skills: Understanding of distributional semantics; Understanding and running correlation and regression studies; Very good knowledge of Python; good knowledge of neural networks. Language of the thesis: English only

You can come to me with ideas about projects that use corpus linguistic methods and distributional semantics to solve specific tasks. Language of the thesis: English only

Prof. Dr. Georg A. Kaiser Für die Themen für die MA-Arbeiten wenden Sie sich bitte direkt an Herrn George Kaiser. Please contact directly Mr. Georg Kaiser to determine the subject of your MA-Thesis.

Prof. Dr. Tanja Kupisch Für die Themen für die MA-Arbeiten wenden Sie sich bitte direkt an Frau Tanja Kupisch. Please contact directly Ms. Tanja Kupisch to determine the subject of your MA-Thesis.

Prof. Dr. Theo Marinis

Language policies in multilingual cities

The aim of the project is identify what language policies are in place in countries with large multilingual populations in Europe and beyond.

Language policies in Konstanz as an international city – the view of the Konstanz citizens

This aim of this project is to identify through a survey the needs of the citizens of Konstanz in terms of the language policies they would like to be implemented in the future in Konstanz. "Language policies in multilingual cities-2 and "Language policies in Konstanz as an international city – the view of the Konstanz citizens" are closely linked together.

Effects of Covid19 on children’s language development

The aim of this project is to find out through a survey with parents their perceptions about how social distancing has affected their children’s language development.

Evaluating flyers from the Centre for Multilingualism

As part of the Ringvorlesung students are developing material for families and professionals. This project will evaluate the material through questionnaires and interviews with parents, professionals, people working in local authorities

Any other topic related to language development

Processing of cognates in english-german bilinguals (to be supervised with elisabeth süß).

The aim of the project is to study the effect of lexical stress on cognate production. While cognates are produced faster and more accurately than non-cognates (cognate facilitation effect (CFE)), it is unclear if and how lexical stress affects the CFE. A production experiment will be conducted to fill this research gap by testing German-English bilinguals on a picture naming task in both German and English. The pictures will depict non-cognates, cognates with stress overlap, and cognates with stress mismatch.

Pronoun resolution in bi-/multilingual children (to be supervised with Angelika Golegos)

The aim of this project is to study how children produce and comprehend pronouns. Pronouns as referential expressions are crucial in everyday communication. The target like use of pronouns is considered to be a demanding task that costs a long developmental progress. It is little known about the strategies monolingual children are applying for producing and interpreting pronouns and even fewer studies investigate bilingual children strategies. In this project we address the question of pronoun use and interpretation by applying various tasks, e.g., story retelling, pronoun judgment task.

Irony comprehension in children (to be supervised with P10 project)

The aim of the project is to compare the comprehension of irony in monolingual (German) and bilingual children with Italian as a heritage language. Several tests will be used to assess the participants’ ability to understand irony, general cognitive abilities, and Theory of Mind (ToM). ToM is the ability to make inferences about other people’s beliefs, intentions, and states of mind. Your two objectives will be 1) to find out potential correlations between different tasks (within participants), and 2) to investigate two different dimensions of language acquisition (monolingual vs bilingual).

[Knowledge of Italian is not necessary; if present, the project can also include the heritage language.]

Irony comprehension – comparing native speakers and late learners of German (to be supervised with P10 project)

How do adults who learn German as a second language perform in Irony Comprehension tasks? Are there differences between groups with a different L1 (e.g., Italian vs Japanese)? In this project, you will be able to compare how Italian learners of German and another group of late learners perform in an Irony Comprehension task. The L1 of the second group of late learners can be chosen based on your linguistic experience.

Rhetorical questions in German and (a language of your choice) (to be supervised with P10 project)

The aim of the project is to test two groups of monolingual speakers, speakers of German and speakers of another language. The linguistic phenomenon under investigation is rhetorical questions, which involve different linguistic cues in different languages (syntax, lexicon, prosody). There will be three main experiments (perception, comprehension, production) and some additional tasks. Your objective will be to find out which cues trigger rhetorical interpretation in different languages.

Rhetorical questions in German monolinguals and Italian heritage speakers (to be supervised with P10 project)

The aim of the project is to compare heritage speakers of Italian and monolingual speakers of German on rhetorical questions which involve different linguistic cues in different languages (syntax, lexicon, prosody). There will be three main experiments (perception, comprehension, production) and some additional tasks. Your objective will be 1) to find out which cues trigger rhetorical interpretation in German, and 2) to investigate two different dimensions of language acquisition (monolingual vs bilingual).

Prof. Dr. Tamara Rathcke

The role of the media in interpersonal accommodation and sound change

Prof. Dr. Tamara Rathcke (with Prof.. Dr Theo Marinis) The role of media in interpersonal accommodation and sound change has been controversially debated, with compelling evidence yet to be provided. In this project, the role of media engagement will be examined and compared between L1 and L2 speakers of English. This work will inform both sociolinguistic theory and second language acquisition models.

• Understanding of the posits of accommodation theory
•  Readiness to learn new technical skills
•  Basic knowledge of statistical inference

Literature: J Stuart-Smith, G Pryce, C Timmins, B Gunter (2013). Television can also be a factor in language change: Evidence from an urban dialect. Language, 501-536.

Interpersonal accommodation during speed dating

Speed dating is one of the contexts that allows us to study verbal and non-verbal accommodation in highly relevant contexts. The time that speed-daters spend in each other’s company is very short, and what they say is often less important than how they say it. This project will study if and how communicative accommodation can explain and predict interpersonal attraction during speed dating. The data for this project was recorded at the Centre for General Linguistics in Berlin in mid-October, and is available in German.

• Good command of Praat or another speech processing software
• Basic knowledge of statistical inference

Literature:

Giles, H., & Ogay, T. (2007). Communication Accommodation Theory. In B. B. Whaley & W. Samter (Eds.), Explaining communication: Contemporary theories and exemplars (p. 293–310). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

Prosodic interfaces between language and music

If music/singing is your thing, you may want to consider a dissertation topic on shared structures of music and language. Both are uniquely human abilities, and their shared cognitive underpinnings have been controversially debated for quite some time. You can take up different stances on the issue at hand, but a potential project involves the study of the so-called “speech-to-song illusion”, an illusory perception of singing in speech. The effect has been documented in many intonation languages but is limited (if at all present) in tonal languages. There is also quite large, to date poorly understood individual variation in the susceptibility to the effect. You can run this experiment with your own data, or use existing recordings. Prerequisites:

• Rock-solid knowledge of acoustic-phonetic concepts
• Understanding of key issues in speech and language processing

Falk, S., Rathcke, T. and Dalla Bella, S. (2014). When Speech Sounds Like Music. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance [Online] 40:1491-1506.

Perceptions of charisma in speech

We can easily say who we perceive as charismatic, but it is more difficult for us to say why. Some previous research has shown that for a person to radiate charisma, the content of their message is not as relevant as the way the message is delivered. If this fuels some research interest in you, the topic can be studied in different cultures and languages. An existing database of speeches given by British politicians during Brexit campaigns can also be used.

Rosenberg, A., & Hirschberg, J. (2009). Charisma perception from text and speech. Speech Communication, 51(7), 640–655.

Prof. Dr. Maribel Romero

Alternative Questions

Alternative questions like Is the baby awake or asleep? are realized using a wealth of different surface cues in different languages –prosodic, morpho-syntactic, lexical– and have special semantic and pragmatic properties. This makes the mapping from surface form to utterance meaning in this construction particularly interesting from a cross-linguistic point of view.

• How are alternative questions realized in less studied languages?
• What is their distribution in embedded environments?
• What is their distribution in matrix environments, i.e., do they have special discourse restrictions?

Biased Questions

There are many ways to ask one and the same question. Compare: (i) Is Amy at home? , (ii) Is Amy not at home? , (iii) Isn’t Amy at home? , (iv) Amy is at home? , (v) Amy is at home, isn’t she? . While some of these forms are neutral, others express some degree of bias towards or against the prejacent proposition ‘that Amy is at home’.

• How exactly do these forms differ from each other in terms of semantic/pragmatic behavior?
• What impact does prosody have in polar questions like (i)-(iii)? [Together with Prof. Bettina Braun]
• What readings do Rising Declaratives like (iv) allow in your native language?
• Besides a tag question form like (v), does your native language have other tag question forms? What are their semantic-pragmatic properties?

Quantifier meaning and semantic universals

Crosslinguistically, the meaning of lexical quantifiers –e.g., ‘every’, ‘some’, ‘no’, ‘most’,… – is known to obey a number of mathematical properties, including extension, isomorphism and conservativity. Recent efforts in Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy and Linguistics strive to derive these universal properties from (i) learnability considerations (using neural networks), (ii) the simplicity/informativeness trade-off and (iii) properties of logical operators and/or of natural language. For each such universal property:

• What explanation is best?
• Can several competing explanations be tested experimentally?
• If a particular reading of a specific quantifier in your native language seems to violate that universal property, can this reading be derived otherwise within the grammar of that particular language?

Tense and Aspect (with M. Butt)

Languages differ in how their tense and aspect paradigms are structured and what meaning distinctions they convey. For a given language, one can develop a grammar fragment on tense or aspect in LFG/XLE.

Discourse particles

Expressions like German schon and bloss or English totally and even , etc. often live a double life in the grammar: as adverbial elements contributing to the propositional content of the sentence (e.g., in The glass is totally full ) or as speech acts modifiers fine-tuning the illocutionary act performed (e.g., in You should totally click on that link ).

• Does the speech act use have any syntactic/semantic/pragmatic distribution requirements? If so, what is the underlying motivation for them?
• Can we pin down the content of the speech act reading with the help of experimental methodology?
• How should the speech act reading be theoretically modelled?
• How do the two readings –the propositional meaning and the speech act meaning– relate to each other?

Different attitude verbs –e.g. think , know , wonder — select for different types of complement clauses –e.g., that -clauses vs. interrogative clauses, indicative vs. subjunctive clauses, only V-final clauses vs. also V2 clauses. What guides this selection in each particular language? And can general semantic properties be identified that guide this selection cross-linguistically?

Meaning in Multilingualism (with T. Marinis or T. Kupisch)

What happens with the meaning of functional items –e.g., pronominal reference, definite and indefinite article, tense/aspect/mood morphology—in a multilingual setting? Do we observe transfer in their acquisition? Is there delay or acceleration in the acquisition process?

Open topic in Semantics and/or Pragmatics

If you have some ideas or interest on any other topic within semantics and/or pragmatics, feel free to come to my office hours.

Prof. Dr. George Walkden

Multilingualism and Mary, Queen of Scots

In this thesis, you will be conducting corpus-based research on the multilingual usage of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587). Fluently multilingual from birth, Mary’s letters are written in French, Scots and English, and the aim of the thesis is to establish patterns and regularities in this usage, as well as potential cross-linguistic influences. Required skills: Corpus linguistics, ideally experience working with historical texts, some knowledge of French and English Language of the thesis: English or German

Language contact and syntax in Early Modern English

In this thesis, you will investigate the grammatical effects of lexical borrowings from French and Latin into English, with a specific focus on French and Latin verbs with non-finite complements. You’ll be testing the idea that these borrowings entered the system at a crucial time to trigger wider changes in complementation patterns. Required skills: Corpus linguistics, ideally experience working with historical texts, basic syntax Language of the thesis: English or German

Transylvanian Saxon in contact

In this thesis, you will investigate the Transylvanian Saxon variety of German, a language island in northern Romania. You will use the Audioatlas Siebenbürgisch-Sächsischer Dialekte to investigate some aspect of contact effects of Romanian and/or standard German on this variety and its geographical patterning. Required skills: High level of German, ideally experience in working with recorded spoken data Language of the thesis: English or German

You can come to me with ideas about projects with a historical or syntactic dimension to them, especially those that use corpus evidence. Language of the thesis: English or German

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Suggestions.

Master's Thesis in Germany

Master's students from the GUC can receive a scholarship for a six-month study stay at a German higher education institution. Only Teaching Assistants who are in the final phase of their Master's studies and would like to complete their Master's thesis in Germany can apply for funding. As of April 2023, the funding will include a one-time travel allowance of 850 € and a monthly stipend of 934 €. The scholarship is aimed at Teaching Assistants of the GUC and will be advertised in the fall via the GUC. The application deadline for scholarships for Master's theses in Germany is mid-January for stays starting in July of the same year. The applicants are informed about the outcome of the application process by the end of March.

The application documents for scholarships consist of:

✓ a letter of motivation

✓ a detailed description of the planned Master's thesis topic (following the guidelines provided)

✓ two letters of reference

✓ a transcript of records

✓ a confirmation of supervision from the GUC, indicating with which GUC research group the Master's thesis topic is located (in particular, whether it is part of a BMBF-funded research collaboration)

✓ an invitation including confirmation of supervision from a German professor

✓ the DAAD application form (will be provided)

✓ a completed and signed evaluation form (will be provided)

✓ a passport copy

✓ the confirmation of enrollment as a Master student at GUC.

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• Guide overview

Bachelor thesis in Germany Bachelor thesis

Looking for a topic for your bachelor thesis combined with an opportunity for career entry in Germany? Read here how to find the right topic and what career opportunities are available during your bachelor thesis.

Finding a topic for your bachelor thesis: focus on a high degree of interest and good supervision

Writing your bachelor thesis at a company: opportunities for career entry, info-box: checklist: step by step to the perfect company.

Spoiled for choice or clueless? When it comes to finding a topic for their bachelor thesis, many students despair. However, those who bear a few key aspects in mind and make a start early on will be able to master this challenge.

At most German universities, students are free to choose their own dissertation topic when they have completed their bachelor's studies. While students mainly consider preset topics during their studies, suddenly the possibilities are endless. The heads of many students fill with question marks, and they break out in a cold sweat. 

Take a step-by-step approach

The aim of the bachelor thesis is for students to prove that they are able to reflect on an academic issue independently. No more and no less. As such, it is not a case of ploughing through as broad a topic as possible, or of inventing something entirely new. Quite the contrary in fact: in the bachelor thesis, the topic should be clearly defined. 

Within this, the most important question is 'What actually interests me?' Prior knowledge acquired during university lectures and professional experience gained during your studies can serve as inspiration for this. If you discern a particularly fascinating aspect within a topic, you should first review the state of research. Only in this way can you determine what has already been covered within this topic and where compelling questions still lurk. The topic ultimately chosen should differ from those already covered. 

Ask the right questions

"Initially, I was a little concerned, as I could not find many sources for my topic," says Thomas Düllmann, looking back on when he first began his bachelor thesis. Düllmann studied software engineering at Heilbronn University. He discussed what academic work actually meant at great length with his professor. "Not only the source research is important, but also the logical conclusion," explains the 26-year-old. "This point should be clarified early on to ensure you do not lose yourself in the sources and waste time unnecessarily." A discussion with a professor of the department early on will help order preliminary ideas and determine whether the topic can even feasibly be approached in the way intended. "Students need to ask the right questions during the consultation," warns Kai Stapelfeldt, Managing Director of Studi-Lektor.de. 

The business administration graduate coaches students during the final thesis phase, and advises them to consider exactly which information they require to work effectively before the consultation session. "The most important question is that of the complexity," says Stapelfeldt. "The professor must weigh up whether the proposed topic is viable for a bachelor thesis." If the chosen topic is too easy, too difficult or not yet sufficiently developed, students should be informed of this in good time to allow them to alter their topic accordingly. 

Review the topic suggestions from companies

Nowadays, many companies advertise their own bachelor and Master thesis topics - they have long since recognized the potential of this cooperation with students. However, this also means that the companies set the topics for bachelor's students. This is an important difference to writing your bachelor thesis at university. In principle, speculative applications outlining your own topic are possible, though students should allow more time to prepare for this. "The decision on where to write your bachelor thesis should be based on the topic," believes Düllmann. 

He advises students to write their bachelor thesis at university if they cannot find a company that will allow them to address an interesting topic. "That being said, those who receive an offer of an interesting topic from a company that is ideally located close by and willing to remunerate the bachelor thesis phase should definitely seize this opportunity." After several queries to regional companies, Heilbronn-based IT company Cirosec suggested a topic to Düllmann that piqued the student's interest. The topic was defined in brief discussions, with flat hierarchies and a good support system ultimately winning him over. The conditions were set out in writing and a contract drawn up, which also covered the legal use and applications of the bachelor thesis. 

Insist on a close cooperation

Düllmann's professor conferred with the supervisor at the company and clarified open questions. He also ensured that the thesis met the academic requirements. "The scope of duties at the company and the content of the bachelor thesis should be defined clearly as early as possible," Düllmann advises. Written agreements and close cooperation between the university and company are a great help, but not always the norm. Students should definitely insist on this, for only in this way could they avoid slipping into the role of a trainee and neglecting the academic component of the thesis during their time at the company. It is also well worth taking a look at the special information sheets on completing the final thesis externally that have been published by several universities. 

Bachelor's degrees are long since widely accepted by companies. The opportunity to write your bachelor thesis at a company promises smooth transition into a professional career.

Most companies are satisfied with the level of competence of graduates with a bachelor's degree; indeed, the prospects for career entry are particularly positive among computer scientists, engineers and natural scientists. This is confirmed by the study entitled "Mit dem Bachelor in den Beruf " ("Starting a career with a bachelor's degree") conducted by the Stifterverband, the Cologne Institute for Economic Research, and the Higher Education Information System (HIS). "Experience has shown that most companies consider a bachelor's degree to be a very good qualification," confirms Professor Jochen Hasenpath from Kiel University of Applied Sciences. The holder of a doctorate in engineering is responsible for the student advisory service for bachelor's students in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, of whom around 95 per cent of every year group write their bachelor thesis at a company. 

Gain practical experience while writing your bachelor thesis

Romina di Fiore, a Business Administration student at Rosenheim University of Applied Sciences, also chose to pursue this route. Although exempt from the practical semester due to a completed vocational training, she still opted to complete a practical in the field of university marketing at electronics company Rohde & Schwarz during her degree course. "The job description was so interesting, I simply had to apply," she says. With a study focus on human resources, industrial goods marketing and digital marketing, she fits in perfectly at the company - and this not only as a trainee. "I wanted to consider the conception of company career Facebook pages in my thesis," explains the 27-year-old, who wrote her bachelor thesis in 2011. "The issue had just surfaced back then, and was also discussed at great length internally at Rohde & Schwarz." Thus, she had found the practical basis for her thesis. The company subsequently set up its own career Facebook page based on the findings from her bachelor thesis, and Romina di Fiore joined the company directly as a social media expert. She describes her enthusiasm for the subject as the most important factor for success. "You should consider very carefully which topics you are really interested in, which area you wish to begin working in, and which companies fit with this," she advises. This increases the chances of being taken on by the company afterwards. Among her fellow students of whom around half wrote their bachelor thesis at a company, di Fiore observed that career entry ultimately tended to be easier for those with extensive practical experience. 

Set the course early on

Finding a suitable company can be time-consuming. Daphne Menges estimates the time from preliminary contact to signing of a contract to be five months. "Those who only begin their search after completing their exams risk having a long time of waiting," warns the process engineering student. At the start of 2012, she contacted precious metals and technology company Heraeus about the possibility of writing her bachelor thesis there. She had previously come across a technology report from the company online that exactly matched her study focus. Six months later, she began a practical at the company, subsequently staying on to write her bachelor thesis. For Simon Schweidler, the study regulations require a bachelor thesis written at a company. The chemical technology student at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences decided on materials technology company, Umicore. A fellow student recommended the company to him, and this piqued Schweidler's interest. "At university, we only touched briefly on the subject of metals in inorganic chemistry," says the 25-year-old. "Going into this in greater depth during the cooperation with a company appealed to me." He successfully applied to write his bachelor thesis at the company as well as to complete the preliminary practical required by his study regulations there. A number of universities choose this route to extend the short processing time of an average of just 8 to 12 weeks. At Kiel University of Applied Sciences, the bachelor thesis can also be combined with a practical. "Otherwise there would not be sufficient time to delve into compelling issues with the company," explains Professor Hasenpath. "What's more, it often takes a few days to get organised, particularly at large companies. This is valuable time that students lose without this practical phase beforehand." 

Record everything in writing

The cooperation with companies is particularly smooth at universities of applied science with a practical emphasis. It is often beneficial for students to have one contact for the practical component and another for the theoretical one. However, conflicts of interest can arise if the university emphasises the need for an extensive theoretical component and the company primarily wishes to evaluate data. The nexus project of the German Rectors' Conference (HRK) recommends recording the expectations of all involved parties in writing beforehand. It must be clear to the company that they are supporting students in a piece of academic work within a clearly defined field. Many companies require students to sign a non-disclosure agreement confirming that the thesis will not be published (or only after the publication embargo has lapsed). "From a company perspective, entirely understandable," Hasenpath explains, though he regrets that these theses cannot be presented to other students as examples of good work. "I do not consider the publication embargo as a problem," says process engineer Menges. "After all, the outcomes of my bachelor thesis were noted in my work reference, meaning future employers are able to gain a good impression of my capabilities." The young woman finds it important for students to network during their bachelor thesis, to familiarise themselves with the company structures, and to take a practical approach to work. "Findings from my studies have already been implemented," the 27-year-old tells proudly. Despite the good prospects of direct career entry, she still opted to pursue a Master's degree. Like most other students, Menges, di Fiore and Schweidler receive financial support from the company while writing their bachelor thesis. With monthly pay totalling 700 to 900 Euros, the three are among the best paid. Each company has its own model for the remuneration of students writing their bachelor thesis at the company. It is an appealing aspect that means students do not need to worry about earning a living alongside their work. 

Writing the bachelor thesis at a company can yield manifold benefits for all involved. Students are able to gain some preliminary practical experience whilst receiving support and networking, and companies can pass on tasks they do not have time for in day-to-day business. 

With our Job-Mail, you will receive suitable job ads as well as interesting content matching your search profile on a weekly basis.

• Identify companies working on relevant aspects who are experts in their field.
• Search for job advertisements on university notice boards and online.
• Ask graduates and professors for suggestions.
• Find out about companies at job fairs and open days.
• Watch out for "Hidden Champion", "Fair Companies" and "Top Jobs" (lists available online).
• Check whether the company also has experience in supervising bachelor and final theses.
• Enquire about the possibility of writing your bachelor thesis at the company on a topic of your area of specialisation.
• Enquire about the possibility of further employment and future prospects.

Universitätsprofessur für Romanische Philologie / Literaturwissenschaft mit dem Schwerpunkt Hispanistik / Lusitanistik (Iberoromania)

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Professorship (f/m/d) for the subject area Physical Geography with a Focus on Geomorphology

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Eid amid the onslaught in Gaza

For some 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza this Eid, this will be the first Muslim religious holiday after more than 33,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks. With little food aid, and very limited water, Gaza’s Eid al-Fitr will be mired in destruction amid the continuing attacks.

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PhD positions: Call for applications in 2024

The Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Göttingen conducts fundamental research in the field of solar system physics. With its approximately 300 staff members, it is one of the leading institutes in the field of solar physics and planetary research. In particular, the institute is involved in numerous international space missions. The International Max Planck Research School for Solar System Science at the University of Göttingen and TU Braunschweig ("Solar System School") offers a research-oriented doctoral programme in Solar system science. In the context of this IMPRS, the MPS offers PhD projects in three main areas:  ''Sun and Heliosphere'', ''Solar and Stellar Interiors'', and ''Planetary Science''. Solar System School students collaborate with leading scientists in these fields and graduates are awarded a doctoral degree from the University of Göttingen or the TU Braunschweig.  

This call is closed. Please see the time line for information about the ongoing selection process.

The MPS invites applications for PhD Positions in Solar System Science

The Solar System School is open to students from all countries and offers an international three-year PhD program in an exceptional research environment with state-of-the-art facilities on the Göttingen Campus. Successful applicants will be offered a 3,5-year doctoral support contract with remuneration dependent on TVöD (75% E13) according to the German public salary scale, as well as postdoc wrap-up funding.

The language of the structured graduate program is English, with complimentary German language courses offered (optional). The program includes an inspiring curriculum of scientific lectures and seminars as well as advanced training workshops and provides relocation costs and travel funds to attend international conferences.

Applicants to the Solar System School should have a keen interest in Solar system science and a record of academic excellence. They must have, or must be about to obtain, an M.Sc. degree or equivalent in physics, chemistry, geosciences or a related field, including a written Masters thesis, and must document a good command of the English language.

Review of applications will begin on 1 October 2024

Review of applications for a starting date of October 2025 will begin on 1 October 2024 , but other starting times are also negotiable. The positions are awarded on a competitive basis.

How to apply

Applicants must submit the following documents through the online application portal between 1 August and 1 October 2024:

• an application form to be filled online, including two short texts describing the applicant's scientific interests and their motivation to apply for PhD projects in the Solar System School , along with the applicant's choice of up to three PhD projects;
• a curriculum vitae in pdf format;
• degree certificates and full transcripts of all academic records: i.e. scanned copies of B.Sc. and M.Sc. degree certificates (or equivalent), and lists of all courses with credits and grades issued by the respective school or university, with English or German translations;
• certificate to prove proficiency in the English language, for candidates whose most recent academic education has not been in English or German for at least two years (e.g. transcript of TOEFL / IELTS scores or equivalent);
• contact details for two or three academic referees who have been contacted by the applicant and who have agreed to write a letter of recommendation on behalf of the applicant. The referees will subsequently be contacted by the School and will be asked to submit their letters through the online portal no later than 10 October 2024 .

It is highly recommended to also submit

• GRE Physics or GRE Chemistry test scores or equivalent for candidates who have obtained their Master's degree at a university outside of the European ECTS area.

The Max Planck Society strives for gender equality and diversity. The Max Planck Society seeks to increase the number of individuals of underrepresented genders and therefore explicitly encourages individuals of underrepresented genders to apply.

The Max Planck Society is committed to employing more individuals with severe disabilities. Applications from individuals with severe disabilities are explicitely encouraged.  

To apply, please register then login at the Online application portal . For further information, please browse the answers to Frequently Asked Questions and direct any further inquiries to the IMPRS scientific coordinator, Dr. Sonja Schuh, at [email protected] .

The career and family audit

This page: Call for applications 2024 for several PhD positions in solar system science © MPS

Choose your project interests and apply via the online application portal:

Solar system science phd thesis projects offered, imprs phd online application portal, admission tests - please see faq pages, curriculum - structured phd study program, imprs partner institutions on göttingen campus, funding of doctoral candidates in imprs, download call for applications and poster.

• Call for PhD applications 2024 669.25 kB
• Solar System School Poster 2023 5.11 MB

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How One Family Lost $900,000 in a Timeshare Scam

A mexican drug cartel is targeting seniors and their timeshares..

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A massive scam targeting older Americans who own timeshare properties has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars sent to Mexico.

Maria Abi-Habib, an investigative correspondent for The Times, tells the story of a victim who lost everything, and of the criminal group making the scam calls — Jalisco New Generation, one of Mexico’s most violent cartels.

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