Welcome to the first of three courses where we want to help you develop your bachelor thesis.

What is a bachelor thesis and why is that super important for you? Well, in a nutshell, bachelor thesis is:

o   The long-term single biggest and the single most important individual project you will do during your bachelor studies;

o   Important part of your evaluation. You will have to defend your thesis at the (oral) final examination and the grade for the thesis will be one of just two grades you will get at the final exam;

o   An important piece of your work that will be made public and will be accessible (together with the reviews and grading) in the future as you will build your professional career;

o   Excellent opportunity focus yourself in a particular area and further develop your academic and professional skills

Having said that, it should be clear to you now that bachelor thesis is super important. You are going to spend the rest of your studies developing your thesis. It should be clear to you now that the hard work, time and effort you spend on it is going to be a time well invested. But it will be a good investment ONLY IF you do work hard, only if you do invest your time and effort into it.  

The good news is, that you are not alone – we – your teachers and supervisors – are here to help!

We are going to guide you through the process, offer advice and feedback to help you navigate around potential pitfalls that may lie ahead on the long road to successful defence.

The first set of advice is just coming:

o   BE RESPONSIBLE – this is YOUR project, your responsibility and ultimately your grade and degree. That means YOU are responsible for timely delivery of good quality work. Your supervisors will help you but they are not responsible for your results. nor to cover up for broken deadlines or poor work.

o   WORK HARD – that is the only safe way forward. You will work with your supervisor to develop the thesis. It is a big project and finishing it will require hard work: studying the literature, preparing your research, collecting and analysing data, discussing results and providing suggestions. We are here to help, not to do the work instead of you.

o   BE ACTIVE – we can help you only if you let us know that you need help! That requires active communication from your side. The sooner you let us know you have a problem or need advice, the sooner we can guide you through the problem.

o   MIND YOUR DEADLNES – it’s a long project and will be inevitably broken down into smaller staps, milestones and deadlines. Some of them are formal (and binding even to supervisors), some of them are more flexible and result of your cooperation with the your supervisor. But they all have one thing in common: it is your responsibility to mind and meet those deadlines. We will guide you so that you can meet all the important formal deadlines, but it is not our job to observe the deadlines for you or remind you of what should be (or even worse: what should have been) done.

Student responsibilities include:

o   to review all materials concerning the thesis (relevant regulations and instructions, study materials for methodological preparation),

o   to work continuously, individually and conscientiously on your thesis,

o   to initiate consultations, in person or on-line,

o   to submit all supporting documents within the established deadlines, range and quality, which correspond with requirements determined by this document and a supervisor.

If you do all that, you will be successful in the end. For that, we all wish you all the best.