EE: Master Degree Project

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 credits 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, the project must be related to the subject area of your master programme. It is advisable to contact the Programme Director, to discuss this.

Search for projects in KTH's 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. 

Tasks might be considered inappropriate if they:

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

Course registration must be completed before starting work on your project. See link to the left named: "Administration of your Master Degree Project".

Determining and confirming eligibility to begin a degree project: Requirements for admission

Students from a Master’s programme

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

Students of Master of Sciene in Engineering programme (Civilingenjörsprogrammet i Elektroteknik)

• 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. 

Exchange students 

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.

More information on how to register for the course to the left: "Administration of your Master Degree Project". 

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.

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 your supervisor.

Financial considerations

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.

Degree project abroad

For more information regarding doing a degree project abroad.

If you intend to do your degree project abroad, don’t forget to apply for a scholarship at the School of Electrical Engineering. 

Get inspiried by finished master theses

By students in Wireless Systems
By students in System, Control and Robotics
By students in Electrophysics
By students in Electric Power Engineering
By students in Network Services and Systems