Orientation

Type				Team Size
Collaborative Tools	Software	Personal Skills	Productivity Tools	1	2-10	11-30	30+

   

What, Why & When

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1 ORIENTATION - 6.11.2023 At the beginning of the bachelor thesis it appears to be very overwhelming. That is why it is important to get an overview of everything that needs to be taken care of. This includes finding a supervisor and building a peer network. To make the bachelor thesis as relaxed as possible, it is essential to deal with time management. In this section you will find some tips that will help you to set up a suitable structure and work setting.

This table shows you an overview of the aspects you need to consider in the individual phases. To get more information about the individual phases, have a look at the respective sections in Moodle and ask questions in the lecture or tutorial. Some of these steps may happen at the same time for you, adapt these suggestions to your own needs.

Supervisor Communication

How to approach potential supervisors You can choose the topic of your Bachelor's thesis yourself. However, it is also possible to write your Bachelor's thesis on a given topic. In this case, members of the University of Lüneburg or another university that is authorised to teach can specify a topic. However, it is also possible to choose an external person as second supervisor, if this is done in agreement with the first supervisor, whereby the Bachelor's thesis can also be written at an institute or in a company. For suggestions of topics for your Bachelor's thesis, it is best to ask a professor at Leuphana University of Lüneburg

Here you will find a list of institutes and working groups that can be considered for your bachelor thesis.

Topic suggestions for the bachelor thesis of various working groups can be found here:

If you have your own topic ideas and want to find a supervisor, you can proceed the following way:

1.Find topic idea(s)

• This can be rough and not completely narrowed down yet.
• BUT: A first literature search has to be done beforehand.

2.Find suitable persons or institutes on the faculty website

• https://www.leuphana.de/einrichtungen/fakultaet/nachhaltigkeit/institute.html

3.Contact suitable supervisor(s) (select favourite)

• The following information should be provided when contacting the supervisor
  • Topic and scope
  • Time period in which the bachelor's thesis is to be written
  • Possible ideas for the methodological design
• Who could be a second supervisor?

The supervisor

Can you identify a specific gap in knowledge or contribution to existing research that resonated with you, and made you return to it again and again? Who from the faculty raised this to you, or may supervise it? Since not everybody can come up with a topic by themselves, maybe a suggestion of a potential supervisor might help. The more structured you approach your potential supervisor with your request, the happier they will be to help, at least in my experience. People are often inspired by projects that potential supervisors conduct, and would like to integrate their thesis into the large project. To this end, I would give some cautionary and sobering advise: Most projects that exist are already underway, and most of the time a thesis is an add-on, and not exactly a pivotal part of the project. This should not be a reason to feel that the work is irrelevant. More often than not additional questions arise through your contribution to a project. Yet, you might need to acknowledge that the project was designed a long time ago by someone who probably was not you. Hence the demand in such a project is often quite precise and the questions are already rather specific, and I would suggest that you are clear about what is expected from you. However, this may be a good opportunity to be under the wing of a PhD or somebody else in the project, and get a closer interaction that you would get with most supervisors. (https://sustainabilitymethods.org/index.php/How_to_write_a_thesis#The_supervisor)

PEER-TO-PEER

What is Peer-to-Peer?

Peer learning is about creating an exchange that takes place at an equal level. In this way, students can support each other in the process of the bachelor thesis. The aim is to exchange perspectives on topics such as the writing process, self-organisation or formalities of the Bachelor thesis.

Why having a peer network is important

Assemble a team. How did previous students orientate themselves? Ask around in your peer-group, and start to engage early with people who write their thesis. The insights and experience that they already have may allow you to orientate yourself on a different level later. You need to find people that are either complementary to or aligned with your work style and ethics. This is the most important point since you need to exchange with peers on a very regular basis. This is not so much about the goals, but more about the way. Peers can become an important reflexive space, with more time than your supervisors, and more knowledge of your specific needs. In addition, your peers can help you to think out loud on the progressive track that you are ideally on and give you emotional support. This is what friends are for. Most people we know as scientific geniuses were embedded into a larger group, and exchanged frequently and regularly with their peers. Peers often share a similar set of goals (i.e. writing a thesis), and also a comparable rhythm (https://sustainabilitymethods.org/index.php/How_to_write_a_thesis#The_peers).

Get feedback from others

Getting feedback from your peers can help to gain a new perspective on the bachelor thesis. It can also be useful if you are stuck on a certain aspect. As many students have gone through similar problems, it is good to get feedback from time to time throughout the process and not only at the end of the Bachelor thesis. New ideas can be incorporated directly into the process and solutions to problems can be found more quickly. This may concern, for example, the following issues: Narrowing down the topic and the question/hypotheses, methodological design, presentation of your results.

Feedback towards the end of your Bachelor thesis

When you are ready to have written and revised parts of your thesis, it is time to get feedback from other people. It is important to allow enough time for the proofreading and it can be done by different people at the same time. Here are some general tips on how to get feedback. Make

* a list → who could revise your work?
* Distribute sections to different people
* Give each person an individual "work order" so that corrections do not overlap
* set deadlines for when you need them back to incorporate the feedback

To help you receive feedback that is useful to you, here are a few guiding questions in preparation for feedback.

• What is the overall topic of the text and where does the text excerpt fit in?
• In which editing phase is the text? (Raw version, already revised,...)
• What do you want feedback on? (e.g. structure, argumentation, reader orientation)

While giving feedback you could focus on some of these questions:

• What are the main messages?
• What is particularly successful?
• Which passages are unclear?
• What additional information would the reader like to have?
• Is it clear where own positions are presented and where those of the research?
• Is a structure recognizable?
• Is the argumentation comprehensible?
• Are there too many repetitions?
• Is the paragraphing coherent?
• Is the language understandable?
• Is a specific passage understandable?

Wiki-Article about Giving Feedback: https://sustainabilitymethods.org/index.php/Giving_Feedback

TIME MANAGEMENT AND MOTIVATION (TIMAMO)

• paths: routes along which people move throughout the city;
• edges: boundaries and breaks in continuity;
• districts: areas characterized by common characteristics;
• nodes: strategic focus points for orientation like squares and junctions;
• landmarks: external points of orientation, usually an easily identifiable physical object in the urban landscape.

The table below displays an ideal-typical process of the Walking exercise.

Header text	Header text	Header text	Header text
Example	Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example	Example

 

Links & Further reading

Papers

According to Chicago Style conventions

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The author of this entry is Max Mustermann.