General
Your Master’s thesis project can be carried out either in our division or at your home university. The majority of projects in the division are carried out in co-operation with industry both in and outside Sweden. We often receive project requests and ideas from industry, which we try to coordinate with the wishes of our students. We recommend that you, at an early stage, discuss possible thesis topics with teachers in the division. They will be your supervisors and examiners. Please also feel free to contact potential industrial partners and suggest thesis topics of your own.
Since the thesis is an important opportunity for you to apply and extend the knowledge gained during your studies, it is essential that you, already in an early planning stage, involve one of the teachers at the division. The examiners at the division are responsible for the thesis having the required quality. This means that it is the examiner who has final say on whether the project will be approved as a Master’s thesis project or not. The reason for this is to ensure that the project has a well defined topic that can be investigated properly within the given time – usually 20 weeks – and will result in a engineering report of good quality.
Your thesis topic has to be registered before you start your thesis work. The thesis registration form has to be signed by both your examiner and the master’s programme director. At registration there should be a clear description of the thesis topic, a work plan, a time schedule, as well as names and addresses of all those involved (you and the supervisors). The time schedule should also include dates for both the half time presentation (if applicable) and the final presentation of your thesis.
Resources and Administrative Procedure
From an administrational viewpoint, your thesis is handled as a course, and you will find the syllabus for this course here:
The course code for a 30-credit thesis is ACEX30, the code for a 60-credit thesis is ACEX60.
All information on the administrative procedure (and much more) is found here:
- Master’s thesis | Chalmers
- Guidelines for assessing the quality of degree projects
- Master’s thesis registration form
- Digital work card
- Planning report and Public defence of a degree project | Chalmers
- Design and publish Master’s thesis | Chalmers
- Chalmers Writing Guide | writing@chalmers
- Chalmers Writing Centre | writing@chalmers
- Intellectual property, patents and confidentiality | Chalmers
- E-publication and printing | Chalmers
- Handling of personal data | Chalmers
- Cheating and disciplinary matters | Chalmers
- Copyright for students |Chalmers Library
Example Theses
Below are three examples for successful MSc theses. They are all very different, and all of them are great.
- Maja Jansson, “The sound environment at preschools and how it may affect children’s hearing,” MSc thesis, Chalmers University of Technology, 2017
- Arthur Aglat and Jannik Theyssen, “Design of a Test Rig for Railway Curve Squealing Noise,” MSc thesis, Chalmers University of Technology, 2017
- Carl Andersson, “Headphone Auralization of Acoustic Spaces Recorded with Spherical Microphone Arrays,” MSc thesis, Chalmers University of Technology, 2017
Note that the aspect of ethics is becoming increasingly important with MSc thesis. See also the “Instructions for theses on the Master of Science in Engineering, Architecture and Master of Science Programmes” available here. Maja’s thesis contains a short discussion on this. This will be mandatory for future thesis.
List of Previous MSc Theses
Please refer here.
Thesis Templates
The thesis layout and bibliographic information should have the format given in the templates that you will find below. The actual content and structure of the thesis is up to you to decide.
Please follow the guidelines regarding fonts, line spacing, etc. to ensure that the text is nicely readable. The data to be entered on the first three pages is compulsory. Numbers, names, titles, abstract, and keywords in exactly this format makes it easy for us to have a homogeneous entry of the reports in the library database. You also expect others to provide such information, so that you can do proper literature searches. Please also note that you should optimise your figures to ensure that they are clearly readable.
If you use Microsoft Word, it is recommended that you use the built-in spell and grammar checking functionality. In order to make it behave the way you want you need to change the settings from “normal” document type to “technical” document type. This is generally done in the “Tools”->”Spelling and Grammar…” menu. One thing that is not included in this functionality is the tempus.
In order to make your report readable you need to keep track of what tempus to use yourself. The general rule is that everything you read in other reports should be written i past tense – “Cremer & Heckl [1] found that…”. All your own measurements should also be in past tense – “The sound level was measured in six positions and the average level was found to be 55dB, as was expected”. Your conclusions should be written in present tense – “Judging by the results there seems to be a tendency that increased loudness causes increased annoyance”.
- The official Chalmers information can be found here.
- The most popular template uses Latex and can be found here.
Below follow a few older templates that you may adapt.
The official Microsoft’s Word template for you to use in your report writing follows below. If you experience problems with fonts or anything else, contact us. The zipped archive contains a template for the complete report as well as for the report and cover separately. Use the latter if the complete template brings some problems.
- Thesis template: Adapted Master Thesis ZIP
The following two templates are a bit simpler in structure than the ones above. They are also available for the Mac OSX and Microsoft Windows operating systems, although the platform issue should not be a problem. Use them if you run in trouble with the one above.
- Mac Version: Master thesis mac.zip
- PC Version: Master thesis windows.zip
The two templates above do not contain the cover page so this is added extra. It is best to enter the data on the cover page together with your thesis supervisor.
- Cover page: Coverpage ta.zip
The following LATEX version of the official template (by Joachim Schlechter) is also available:
- LATEX version : Master thesis LATEX.zip
Note that the thesis templates may cause some text on the cover and on the initial pages to appear in the Courier or other font. You must change the font so that it becomes Times New Roman.
Thesis Completion and Publishing
You should make your thesis available to your thesis advisor early, months before it is completed. Write your thesis as you work, do not save the writing to the end.
Once you have finished writing, there may be little time left for necessary corrections, which will delay your thesis from being accepted. The completeness and correctness of your thesis is determined by your advisor.
Your thesis will be published electronically here: https://odr.chalmers.se/home. You take care of the printing process, but before that, please discuss the process with your advisor.