Bachelor's and masters theses at the Chair of Finance

General information:

• The thesis must be preceded by a cover sheet, an outline and, if applicable, a list of symbols and figures. At the end of the thesis there is a bibliography and, if applicable, an appendix.
• The bibliography may only include sources that you have cited in the text. If you would like to cite further sources, please list them in a separate list under "Further reading".
• Longer mathematical treatises or proofs belong in an appendix and not in the running text. The same applies to supplementary tables and figures that are not absolutely necessary for understanding the text. All illustrations and all elements of the appendix must be referred to in the running text.
• Excluding the cover page, outline and lists, but including the appendix, a bachelor thesis can comprise 20 to 25 pages of text, a masters thesis 25 to 30 pages of text. The length of your final thesis depends very much on the topic you are working on. Therefore, the values given here are only to be understood as guidelines. Your supervisor can provide you with more specific information.
• The thesis must be submitted in duplicate to the Examination Office. A CD or USB stick with the text of the paper as a PDF file and the source file in the original format (e.g. .doc or .tex) must be enclosed with one of the submitted papers. If you have processed data, these must be attached including the source codes with which they were processed (e.g. Excel calculations, R source code). Furthermore, the CD must contain all cited sources in the form of individual PDF files. In the case of books, the edited chapters or subchapters must be scanned and attached. Internet sources should be saved in PDF format and also transferred to the CD.
• Please also observe the provisions of your individual study and examination regulations.
• If you have little writing experience, we recommend the book "Deutsch für junge Profis: Wie man gut und lebendig schreibt" by Wolf Schneider. You can also get further useful tips at the writing centre.

 

Research:

If you have little research experience, we recommend the guide "How do I find specific information about economics and business studies?" by Mr Henning Klauß.
Further literature recommendations can be obtained from your supervisor.

Formatting:

We do not set any specific requirements for the formatting of the text. Overall, the final thesis must meet the requirements of a modern text document and fulfil the criteria of clarity, consistency and efficiency.
For orientation, you can take a look at an example of a scientific thesis.

Here is a summary.

Experience-based recommendations for final theses

• Timeframe: Most students want to have completed their final thesis - whether it is for career entry or, in the case of dissertations, for applying for a place on a Master's programme - by a certain date. When planning your time, please bear in mind that you need to allow about a month for the preliminary work, such as finding a topic and registering with the examination office. You also usually have one and a half months after submitting your final thesis for the review process. In the case of masters theses, a colloquium must also be completed, which takes place after the assessment has been completed in accordance with the study and examination regulations. Please take these circumstances into account in your time planning.
Prerequisites:
(1) There are no specific prerequisites for writing a final thesis at the chair.
(2) However, we strongly recommend that students attend modules offered by the chair or take equivalent modules abroad in order to have a certain professional foundation in the field of modern finance, the chair's field of work.
(3) In particular, we recommend that you attend a seminar prior to writing your final thesis and prepare a written seminar paper so that the final thesis is not your first work. The advantage of attending a seminar is that you will gain valuable experience in structuring and writing a topic on the one hand, and on the other hand you will learn about any problems with writing a longer paper under time pressure during the course of your studies and not just during your final thesis.


• Note the procedure for requesting supervision for writing a final thesis on the examination board's homepage.