Bachelor's thesis and Colloquium

The bachelor's thesis is a written term paper on a defined topic. It is intended to show that the candidate is capable of independently completing a practice-oriented task from his/her subject area, both in its subject-related details and in its interdisciplinary contexts, according to scientific and practical methods, within a specified period of time.

Admission to the bachelor's thesis is granted to those who have achieved at least 140 ECTS points from the examinations of the 1st semester up to and including the 5th semester. If the admission requirements are fulfilled, the start of the processing time for the Bachelor's thesis is freely selectable.

Application for admission to the bachelor's thesis:

The application for the bachelor's thesis is made with the form "Antrag auf Zulassung zur Bachelorarbeit/Application for admission to the Bachelor's thesis" which has to be handed in at the Department Secretary's Office.

• The student fills in the application form and submits a proposal for the subject area of the bachelor's thesis. The topic of the bachelor's thesis can only be returned once and only within the first three weeks of the processing period without giving reasons.
• The student enters the names of the first examiner and the second examiner.
• The Examination Office checks the admission requirements.
• The first examiner enters the exact topic for the bachelor's thesis.
• The topic must be approved by the Chair of the Examination Board. A topic that has been approved cannot be changed after the start of the processing period.
• The student collects the original application with the approved topic from the Department Secretary's Office at the beginning of the processing period.

The bachelor's thesis can be handed out and supervised by any lecturer at the Department of Management Sciences who can be appointed for examination according to § 7 (1). Usually, these are the professors of the Department of Management Sciences. At the candidate's request, the examination board may also appoint one person from the following group as supervisor:
1. honorary professor
2. teachers for special tasks and other scientific teaching staff
3. lecturer
4. persons experienced in professional practice and training, insofar as this is necessary or appropriate and insofar as they possess at least the qualification to be established by the examination or a comparable qualification and teach in the Department of Management Sciences.

In these cases, the second assessor must be a full-time professor of the department.

The processing time for the bachelor's thesis is three months. In the case of an empirical bachelor's thesis, the processing time can be extended by one month upon request.
The guideline for the extent of the bachelor's thesis is 15,000 - 17,500 words in the form specified by the Examination Board and described below.

The bachelor's thesis must be submitted in due time in at least two printed and paperback or bound copies (no spiral binding) as well as in digital form (threefold, for example on CD-Rom) in generally readable data formats such as txt, doc, rtf or pdf without access protection in the Department Secretary's Office. The time of submission must be documented. The submission date depends on the time of issue and the length of the processing time. If the papers are delivered by post, the time of delivery to the post office is decisive. Students will receive a receipt from the post office. This must be submitted to the Examination Office.

When submitting the bachelor's thesis, the candidate must give written assurance that he or she has done the work independently and has not used any sources or aids other than those stated and identified in quotations. In addition, he or she must ensure that there is no factual correspondence with the bachelor's or master's thesis prepared within the framework of a previous course of study.

Tutorial

During the processing of the bachelor's thesis the students have to attend the accompanying tutorial for the bachelor's thesis. The signed application for admission to the bachelor's thesis with the approved, final topic must be submitted at the date of the tutorial. There are usually 3 dates offered for the tutorial during the lecture period. The dates as well as further information can be found in LEA. Please join the LEA course and one of the dates (under "Videoconferencing with Zoom") after submitting your Bachelor thesis registration.

Colloquium

The colloquium complements the bachelor's thesis and is evaluated separately. The colloquium serves to determine whether the candidate can present

•     the results of the bachelor's thesis,
•     their technical and methodological foundations,
•     interdisciplinary interrelationships and
•     extracurricular references,

 independently, justify them and assess their significance for practice.

The colloquium is open to those who have passed all examinations and the bachelor's thesis. In justified exceptional cases, in particular within the framework of agreements with foreign universities, admission to the colloquium may also take place before the end of the practical semester or study semester abroad. Before the colloquium, an application for admission must be submitted to the Chair of the Examination Board. The colloquium is an oral examination of 30 to 45 minutes. Alternatively, the Examination Board may, at the request of the examiner of the bachelor's thesis, determine that the colloquium may also be held in writing. In this case it consists of two parts:

•     a concept for a 30 to 45-minutes lecture, and
•     a written elaboration of 1,000 words.

Further information on the bachelor's thesis can be found in the Examination Regulations and the guidelines for writing academic papers. Please also read the information brochure on the bachelor's thesis for proper preparation.