Preparation for the Master Thesis

This module contains the first stages of your final project. It consists of:

• Reading background literature necessary for the project;

• Acquiring necessary skills, such as learning to work with experimental set-ups, clean room and/or computer skills, and transferable/soft skills;

• Identifying areas, in collaboration with the supervisor, where extra training is necessary, for example English writing skills, presenting, a particular course, etc.;

• Formulating the research goal of the project: which research question(s) will be addressed and what method(s) will be applied to arrive at the answer;

• Making a planning, including anticipating pitfalls and how these will be dealt with in order to prevent delays (e.g. equipment failure, delayed delivery of materials, sharing/availability of facilities, unexpected results, etc);

• Writing a project plan.

The result of the Preparation for the Master Thesis is a project plan which addresses the project goal, the name of your supervisor(s) and others involved in the project, the track of the Masters programme, knowledge (e.g. courses done) and skills that you will use in the project, required training for skills that need improvement and personal learning goals, anticipated pitfalls and how these will be dealt with, agreements about supervision (such as the meeting frequency between the student and the responsible supervisor) and about presence on-site in the research group, and a time planning. The report typically contains between 4 and 7 pages.