Own topic proposals

Students can generally submit their own topic proposals for their thesis. This can be their own idea or, for example, a thesis idea arising from collaboration with an engineering company or an authority (e.g., during an internship). Allow sufficient time for contacting and agreeing on the topic to ensure timely external page registration of the thesis. In an initial meeting, please discuss your mutual expectations and also your prior knowledge in the subject area of the thesis.

For topic proposals, the following criteria must be met:

• The candidate must be able to work on the topic independently. The prior knowledge is sufficient for this.
• There is no salary for conducting the thesis.
• The topic must stand for itself. General participation in a project is not suitable. However, it can be interesting to select a specific point from a project and treat it separately in depth, e.g., a literature review on a specific question and its subsequent application to a practical case.
• Topics that are integrated into a fixed project schedule are not suitable.
• The time frame of the thesis must fit into the VAW schedule (start and end of the work).

If the supervision remains predominantly external, VAW's participation is limited to organizing the thesis. This variant requires that the external supervision, in addition to providing the basics, also has the capacity and competence for the professional supervision of the entire scope of the thesis (e.g., 2D numerical simulation).

Due to limited supervision capacities, we cannot guarantee individual supervision of desired topics. Therefore, topics that are predominantly supervised externally and (depending on the type of work) carried out as group work are accepted on a priority basis. Master's theses are always carried out as individual work. Therefore, try to search for a topic together in pairs or trios for project works and bachelor's theses. If necessary, the topic can also be included in the current topic announcement after registration to find further students.

Below you will find a list of contacts from engineering practice with whom VAW has collaborated in the past within the framework student theses. We appreciate any feedback on the experiences you have with the list.