Abschlussarbeiten / Thesis Topics

Due to the high demand for final thesis supervision, I am not able to promise such supervision to all students in every semester. The application procedure presented here serves to allocate places for supervision and is based both on your interest in the subject area and on the previous achievements you have made in this area (number of specialisations; exam grades).

As part of the procedure, personal details as well as information about your studies must be provided. Furthermore, you must present your motivation for writing a final thesis in the subject area and two short synopses outlining possible topics for your thesis. In the short synopses, which should only be 5 - 10 sentences long, you should explain the main topics that you find interesting and would like to work on as part of your final thesis. These do not have to be elaborate proposals, but rather rough ideas that you would enjoy working on or that you consider useful for your career entry. If necessary, the topic will be narrowed down at a later stage in a counselling interview. As a suggestion for finding a topic, you can find an overview of final theses I have already supervised here. I recommend that you prepare the requested information before you start the application process in ILIAS.

The application deadline is 15.11. if you would like to start your final thesis in the summer semester of the following year and 15.05. if you would like to start your thesis in the winter semester.

For an application, please follow this link to the application procedure in ILIAS.

No later than two weeks after the application deadline, I will inform you whether I will supervise your final thesis and accordingly arrange an appointment with you to narrow down the topic of your thesis.

Registration for the practical project takes place via the SAM system(http://sam.wirtschaft.fh-aachen.de). The application required for this must be signed by me as the first examiner. The approval of the second examiner can be given later, but must be received at the latest when the Bachelor thesis is accepted. I recommend that you take care of a second examiner in good time, ideally before registering the practical project.

The goals of the practical project are to research the literature and, if necessary, to collect data or carry out a project at a company. In addition, at the end of the practical project, the final question of the final thesis should be determined and a clear structure for answering it should be worked out.

The report on the practical project (exposé) should be about 5 pages long and must be structured as follows and sent to me by email on the last day of the practical project:

1. Proposal for the title of the paper
2. Preliminary table of contents (up to the second level of structure)
3. Motivation of the work and formulation of the question of the final thesis (approx. 1 page)
4. Description of the contents of the thesis based on the outline. Briefly summarise the contents and show how the chapters help to answer the formulated research question (approx. 3 pages).
5. List the 10 most important literature sources

I recommend that you send me a first draft of the exposé within 7 weeks of registering for the practical project, so that I can give you feedback on the interim status achieved.

One week after submitting the report on the practical project and receiving approval, you can start working on your Bachelor thesis. You must have registered this beforehand via the SAM system. You can leave the title open when registering. This will be added later by the Examination Office.

The deadline for submitting the thesis runs from registration and can be seen in the SAM system. The processing time is 9 weeks (Bachelor) or 16 weeks (Master). The thesis must be prepared and bound in accordance with the above-mentioned guidelines for academic work and submitted in triplicate to the Examination Office. In consultation with the supervisors, electronic submission of the final thesis can also be arranged.

The thesis should have a length of 50 - 55 pages (Bachelor) or 70 - 75 pages (Master) for the text part (not including outline, indexes, attachments, etc.). In exceptional cases, deviations are possible with my prior consent, provided that a comprehensible justification is given in writing.

You will receive the invitation to the colloquium from the examination office. You can find the time and place of the colloquium in the invitation. The colloquium lasts 30 minutes. The colloquium begins with an 8-minute presentation prepared by you in which you present the motivation, method, results and conclusions of the work. Afterwards, we will question you on the content of your work. For this purpose, please bring a printed copy of your work (does not have to be bound) or a soft copy on your computer for yourself.

As a rule, we will announce the assessment of both the final thesis and the colloquium after a short consultation period (approx. 5-10 min.) following the colloquium.