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Master Degree Project

Before you start your master’s thesis/degree project, please read this information carefully.

Degree projects are always formally done at one of the departments at KTH. Regardless of where you actually do the practical work for your project, you need a supervisor at a KTH department and someone from the department will be your examiner. When doing your degree project at a company you will have a supervisor there as well.

A Master´s Degree Projects of 30 ECTS equals approximately one semester full time work. The project/thesis shall be done individually. If you work together with another student it must be approved by your examiner and the effort of each student in the thesis must be clearly distinguished.

What constitutes a master degree project/thesis?

A degree project is often the largest, most important individual element of your educational programme and is of interest for many future employers. A well performed degree project and thesis can be very a good qualification in the initial job search process.

The purpose of a degree project is to provide you with experience in research as well as in working life and to develop your ability to:

  • Independently and under realistic circumstances be able to structure, plan and carry out a specific and limited task with an engineering approach
  • Document your work in a systematically structured report, not only showing what you have performed but also that you can express your work in writing in a way that others can benefit from it
  • Present your work orally

Besides this, the degree project should show that you can:

  • Apply relevant knowledge and abilities that you acquired within the engineering field to a specific problem
  • Independently, within a given framework and with limited information, analyze and discuss complex issues and handle larger problems on an advanced level within the technological area
  • Reflect about, evaluate and critically review your own and others’ scientific results
  • Be able to document and present your work, for a certain target group, with high demands on structure, form and language
  • Discover your needs of further knowledge and continuing development of your competency

Find the topic for your degree project

It is the responsibility of the student to find a suitable topic for the degree project. Normally the project is related to the subject area that is your specialisation due to your choices of master courses.

It is advisable to contact the Programme Director, to discuss this. They often have suggestions for degree projects or know where to look. You may also find a degree project in the Degree project portal.

Some degree projects are carried out entirely at a department and in these cases they are normally connected to a research project. Others are completed at a company or public authority. It is common that they list assignments on their web sites that might be suitable for degree projects. If you see something of interest you should contact the company/authority to see if the task is still available and pertinent.

Tasks might be considered inappropriate if they:

  • Are too extensive or too narrow
  • Are not clearly delimited
  • Lack sufficient constructive thinking and investigation

The execution of the degree project is also a course at KTH. Course registration must be completed before starting work on your project.

Determining eligibility to begin a degree project

Requirements for admission

Student from Master’s programmes

You must have 60 credits from completed courses from the programme curriculum, including advanced courses.

Students of Master of Sciene in Engineering programme (5 year)

A maximum of two unfinished courses from the first three years of the programme is allowed.

At least 240 ECTS (247,5 credits for the Master's Programme in Electric Power Engineering) from the programme must be completed

Confirming eligibility

The Student office will have your eligibility checked and the student office will inform you by email of the result. If you are not eligible, you will be notified what your are lacking.  If you have the required courses and credits, you may proceed to apply.

Requirements for passing the course are the same for all.

Supervisor and examiner

If you carry out your degree project at a company or government agency you will have a supervisor at the company/government agency and a supervisor at a KTH department. The role of the supervisor is to give advice and proposals – but also constructive feedback/critique.

For every degree project an examiner from the department is designated. His or her role is to take responsibility for the quality of the degree project. It is also possible for the examiner to be supervisor. Depending on the department you might have contact with your examiner to a different extent, but it is always the examiner that decides whether or not your degree project is approved.

It is very important that the task for your degree project is as well defined as possible early on in the process, when deciding if a task might be a viable degree project. Be realistic when you estimate the extent of your degree project. Often the degree project expands and must be prolonged because the student has not sufficiently specified or delimited the area of the degree project.

Requirements for approval of the degree project

It is your Programme Director that approves the degree project, in consultation with your examiner and/or supervisor. The project must be related to your programme profile, in the area defined by the courses taken during the first year of the program.

If you are approved to apply, Exchange students also need to hand in a Thesis Agreement at the same time as the application. It can be obtained from your international coordinator at KTH.

Overview over the sequence of work (after eligibility established)

What kind of degree project would you like to do?

Search for the type of degree project you would like to do, that is look in companies and departments for proposed degree projects. You can always make your own proposal that might fulfill the requirements/needs of a company/department.

Establish contact with a department

Contact the person responsible for degree projects at a suitable department, in order to obtain a supervisor and an examiner. Read carefully the department’s instructions for degree work. They are normally found on the web.

Discuss

Write a short preliminary specification of a project you want to suggest.  You should discuss this degree project with your supervisor and examiner. The examiner is then able to make sure that the task is suitable and that the department is the most appropriate to supervise and examine this project. The degree project must be related to your programme profile

Establish a contract

Normally an agreement concerning the project is made between the student and the assigner. The department usually provides templates for these types of agreements. Moreover the student and the assigner make agreements regarding practicalities concerning the degree project, such as returning keys, possible economic compensation and such.

Carrying out the actual project

Initiate the degree project

Initiate the degree project after consultation with your supervisor and in accordance with the directions of the department. Some departments require a project plan in the beginning of the degree project. This is advisable whether or not it is required.

Note already now that there are requirements regarding both content and how it is presented. A degree project of 30 ECTS is evaluated on the basis of three criteria: process, academic content and presentation.

The reading phase

Some departments have an explicit period of reading, in general in the beginning of the degree project. This period usually consists of one individual ‘course, that supervisor, examiner and the student define with the starting point in some pertinent literature such as books and/or a collection of scientific articles. You should be prepared to take an active part in the search for literature, and not only depend on your supervisor. The reading phase should cover material that is relevant for the degree project and is to be included in it. The presentation of the reading period is made in the way agreed upon between the supervisor and examiner, for example through an oral exam. However, the reading period should always be referred to in the degree project thesis.

Status report

Keep continuous contact with your supervisor(s) and let them know the progress of your degree project.

Observation of others’ report presentations

As early as possible, arrange to observe others’ presentation of their master theses.  Attendance at two is required.  Ask the presenter’s supervisor to sign your Certificate of Participation form after the presentation.

Attendance is required because it can be very helpful in guiding you both in your progress on your project but also in writing the thesis.  It is helpful to have observed before it is your turn to act as opponent.

Report meeting

Call a report meeting two to three weeks before you have completed your degree project. At this meeting you should present to your supervisor and possibly the examiner, the penultimate draft of the degree project thesis which should include all essential parts, including conclusions. Naturally the demands of a complete thesis and the quality of the contents are lower than at the final review/presentation.

If you have been doing your degree project at a company, your supervisor from the company should also be present at this meeting.

Both supervisors should have access to the draft of the thesis well in advance of the meeting.

The supervisors will revise the thesis and offer their opinions at the meeting.

Oral presentation and opposition

  • When you are finished, you will present and defend your thesis at a seminar where teachers, other engineers and staff from the department have the possibility to participate. An opponent, normally designated by the department, will lead a discussion on and ask questions about your presentation.   Make sure that your opponent gets a copy of your thesis at least 2 weeks before the seminar.

If the presentation does not fulfil the requirements to the satisfaction of your examiner, you will have the opportunity to present your thesis again on another occasion.

Part of the degree project is the requirement to act as opponent for another student’s degree project thesis presentation. When you are acting as opponent the idea is to make a constructive critique of the degree project you are reviewing. Try to find questions at issue that are interesting in principle rather than focusing on details. At a minimum, the following items should be discussed:

  • The planning of the degree project thesis
  • The way the degree project thesis considers and discusses previous thesis/work on the area
  • The relevance and significance of the conclusions
  • Linguistic and graphical presentation

You must obtain the signature of the presenter’s supervisor afterwards on your Certificate of Participation. This form should be complete then.

Writing your thesis/report

Writing of the degree project thesis is an integrated part of the technical work. For this reason you should continuously document your work.

If you do your degree project outside KTH the company sometimes expects documentation in the form of a company report. Sometimes companies have their own specific requirements and desires for the design of the documentation and report. For this reason the company report may not be sufficient as a degree project thesis. Discuss this at an early stage with your supervisor at KTH.

For you to pass the course, your project degree thesis should above all accurately describe your degree project, but there are also some formal requirements. Consider the following:

  • When you use facts taken from other sources you must reference the source book . This is imperative even if you are not quoting directly, but only summarizing what someone else has written.
  • Try to relate the work you have done to the literature and  scientific knowledge or standpoints.
  • Be careful to distinguish your information from information from others.
  • Be careful to distinguish between facts and interpretation of facts.
  • Describe not just what your results are, but also how you reached your results. It is important to present the methodology and the results as distinctly separate.
  • Describe obstacles in the working process, how you managed them, worked around them or why you could not overcome them.

The degree project should rely on scholarly and scientific foundations. For this reason the requirements are high regarding references to literature. You must refer to scientific literature and not only to manuals, company reports and course literature.

Be aware that the thesis/reports are reviewed for language. If you need help, speak with your supervisor, examiner or the person(s) responsible  for the degree project theses at your supervisor’s department.

The thesis should be written in Swedish or English. In exceptional cases the report may be written in German or French. There must be an abstract written in English and Swedish, both.

The principle of free access to public records

Please note that all degree project theses/reports are official documents.

When your degree project thesis is approved (that is, on the date a grade is received) the document becomes official. The assessment that the examiner makes is based on that document.

If you do not complete your degree project

If you have initiated a degree project but for some reason are not able to complete it, you should as soon as possible contact or your supervisor or the person responsible for degree projects at your department.

Financial considerations

If you intend to do your degree project abroad, don’t forget to apply for a scholarship at the School of Electrical Engineering. For more information regarding doing a degree project abroad, please contact your master coordinator or the coordinator for exchange studies.

Some companies pay a "salary" during the degree project. Make sure that this is specified in the degree project agreement, and ask about how frequently and/or by what method the payments are made.

Normally you are entitled to receive study grants during the degree project. Make sure CSN knows that you are doing a degree project. If you are doing your project during the summer you can apply for extra grants.

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