Formalities for the thesis
Regulations
You can find the regulations applying to both bachelor’s and master’s theses in the §§ of the APSO (General Academic and Examination Regulations) and in the FPSO (Departmental Study and Examination Regulations) of your degree program.
We recommend that you familiarize yourself with these regulations as soon as possible and consult the administrative office of your school or departmental student advising should you have any questions.
To be eligible to register for the thesis, you must fulfill certain requirements, e.g. you must have successfully completed certain modules or have earned a certain amount of credits. Please inform yourself about the admission requirements in the FPSO (Departmental Study and Examination Regulations) of your degree program.
Once you have identified your thesis topic and had it approved by your principal advisor, you must register for the thesis. Because the registration process may vary from school to school, we recommend that you consult the information on the websites of your school or your program’s departmental student advising and inform yourself about the registration process. Please note that registration for the thesis is often only possible in a certain cycle of time (e.g. up to the 15th of each month). Be sure to inform yourself early on about deadlines to avoid unnecessary time delays.
The permissible amount of time that may elapse between registering for and submitting the thesis is specified in the FPSO (Departmental Study and Examination Regulations) of your degree program. Further information on registering your thesis and applicable time frames is also available on the homepage of your school or department.
Please follow the guidelines below for the use of English in thesis titles. Submitted documents not complying with these guidelines will be changed/corrected by a representative of the Academic Programs Office or Examination Office to ensure the correct and consistent appearance of all graduation documents at TUM.
Bachelor’s Thesis
Depending on the degree program, 6 to 12 credits shall be awarded for the preparation of a bachelor’s thesis. Calculated in hours, this is equivalent to a workload of approximately 180 to 360 hours for the thesis.
Please note that, as a rule, you must achieve further credits while working on your thesis. You will be writing your thesis as “part-time work”. Be sure to allot yourself a sufficient amount of time!
You can find information about the number of credits to be awarded for the thesis in your degree program in your program’s FPSO (Departmental Study and Examination Regulations).
Master’s Thesis
For the preparation of the master’s thesis, 30 credits will be awarded. Calculated in hours, this is equivalent to a workload of approximately 900 hours for the thesis.
For advanced studies master’s programs, 15 to 30 credits will be awarded. You can find information regarding the number of credits to be awarded for the thesis in your degree program in your program’s FPSO (Departmental Study and Examination Regulations).
If a student cannot meet the first submission deadline for the thesis for reasons beyond the student’s control, the Examination Committee may extend the period for writing the thesis by a maximum of half that period. The student must file an application with the Examination Committee for an extension prior to the first submission deadline, and the student’s supervisor must approve the extension. In such a case, please contact your supervisor as early as possible.
Should you be prevented from working on your thesis due to illness and are able to verify this with medical documentation, then the allocated time period for the thesis will be suspended. You can find important information on dealing with medical documentation here
Once your thesis is finished, you have to submit it to your department or school within the corresponding deadline. Please refer to the website of your school or department or contact your departmental student advising for the details.
The FPSO (Departmental Study and Examination Regulations) of your degree program contains information about further requirements of your thesis such as a supplementary colloquium, a supplementary course, or defense. The module description contains information about the structure of these additional requirements and the pass/fail credit requirement or, respectively, the credit requirement you must fulfill.
The APSO (General Academic and Examination Regulations) stipulate that, as a rule, the thesis is to be assessed within two months from the date of submission (§ 18 (11) APSO (General Academic and Examination Regulations)).
Should your FPSO (Departmental Study and Examination Regulations) stipulate that the thesis module calls for additional credit requirements (such as a colloquium or a thesis defense), the overall grade for the module will be calculated as the weighted average of grades awarded for individual module requirements. The grade weights of individual requirements correspond to the number of credits awarded (§ 18 (12) APSO (General Academic and Examination Regulations)).
If the thesis has not been graded with at least “sufficient” (4.0), you are permitted, once, to submit a thesis on a new topic. To do so, you must register again no later than six weeks from notification of the results.
Please note that the thesis and final colloquium may only be repeated once (§24 (7) APSO (General Academic and Examination Regulations)).
For the period in which you are working on your thesis at the TUM, from registration to submission, (+ where applicable, any supplementary requirements in conjunction with your thesis, such as a final colloquium or oral exam) you must remain enrolled in your degree program (cp. § 6 (3), APSO (General Academic and Examination Regulations).
Do not forget to reenroll (Rückmeldung) within the prescribed registration time. This also applies if you are writing your thesis externally, i.e. at a company in Germany or abroad.