Procedure
A successful Master's thesis can be divided into five main phases. In chronological order, these are
1. Initiation
The student proposes a topic (or up to three related topics) and a completion period (more precisely: a start date) to the assistant professors by e-mail. For this purpose, the student sends an e-mail to all three assistant professors of the Chair of Real Estate Finance. Direct enquiries to the professor should be avoided at the first contact. The list of topics for Master's theses in the G.R.I.P.S. course of the Chair of Real Estate Finance (external link, opens in a new window) can serve as inspiration for the choice of topic, but the student's own topic suggestions are preferred. The list of topics for Master's theses is up to date until it is replaced. Enquiries regarding the up-to-dateness of the list of topics should therefore be avoided. In any case, students should at least roughly orientate their choice of topic to the research priorities of the assistant professors. These are advertised in the staff section of the chair's website or can be found in the existing list of topics for Master's theses.
It is recommended that students also briefly introduce themselves in their first e-mail contact: Which Bachelor's degree programme was taken? What is the current semester and what is the current grade point average in the Master's programme? Which software packages have you mastered (e.g. Matlab, R, Stata or EViews) and which programming languages have you mastered? What IT skills do you have? Which statistical, econometric and numerical methods have been mastered? Why does the student want to write the Master's thesis at the chair?
In order not to artificially extend the processing time, the student should propose the topic and the start date by e-mail at least two months before the desired start date.
After successful initiation, one of the three assistant professors whose research topic includes the proposed topic will get back to the student by e-mail.
2. Exposé
After one of the assistant professors has generally given the green light for Master's theses in the respective subject area and period, it must be checked whether the supervision of a Master's thesis also makes sense in the respective individual case. In particular, it should be ensured that the necessary motivation and previous methodological knowledge are sufficient.
To this end, the student applies for supervision with an exposé. The exposé comprises approximately two to three A4 pages and contains
1. An informal description of the research project (ideally, innovations and research gaps are already identified here).
2. A brief description of the current literature from internationally renowned scientific journals. Preference should be given to journals ranked according to the following sources:
a) https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.journals.simple.html (external link, opens in a new window)
A short informal summary of three to four sources is sufficient for this purpose.
3. A brief description of the methodology: Which statistical methods should be used to test any hypotheses? What methodology will be used to carry out any numerical optimisations? How are any questionnaires and random experiments structured?
4. A concrete idea/approach on how the student will obtain the data required for the empirical part of the work (internet portals, data stream, company contacts, etc.): It should be noted that the chair cannot and will not endeavour to obtain the data - apart from exceptional cases to be discussed personally.
The exposé should be sent by e-mail to the assistant professor who has contacted the student.
3. Registration
The student will then be informed whether the exposé has been deemed sufficient. If this is the case, the student can register for the Master's thesis. The contact person for this is Mr Lang from the Examinations Office for Economics. At the same time, the student informs the assistant professor by e-mail of the exact desired start date and the exact desired topic.
After successful registration, the student will receive a letter of congratulations from the Examinations Office. Please note: This letter will be sent to the postal address registered with the university!
4. Completion
The student is responsible for writing the thesis independently. For formal requirements, citation methods, tips on the general approach and useful links, please refer to the G.R.I.P.S. course of the Chair of Real Estate Finance (external link, opens in a new window). Open detailed questions can be clarified during consultation hours. The following code of conduct applies to the consultation hours:
As a rule, two consultation hour appointments are arranged per master's degree programme. It is suggested that two appointments be made after one third and two thirds of the processing time. However, the student may deviate from this at their own request. More than three consultation appointments cannot be granted. Less than one appointment is not recommended.
The student coordinates the consultation appointments with the assistant professor in advance by e-mail (one to two weeks before the desired appointment).
Productive appointments not only have a start time, but also an end time. An appointment should only take more than 60 minutes in absolutely exceptional cases.
Productive appointments have an agenda: The student sends the assistant professor the agenda for the appointment by e-mail in advance (one to two weeks before the desired appointment). The agenda is, of course, structured in a self-explanatory way and includes all questions and problems to be discussed at the respective appointment.
- The questions and problems that the student submits to the assistant professor via the agenda are, without exception, detailed questions. Under no circumstances does the assistant professor take over the student's intellectual contribution or decisions on fundamental questions of content! If the student has problems with fundamental questions, he or she breaks them down logically to the smallest level that he or she considers meaningful. The student then independently researches the possible decision alternatives with regard to the detailed questions that arise and collects arguments for and against the respective alternatives. The student presents the detailed questions, the decision alternatives and the arguments in favour of and against the respective decision alternatives to the assistant professor as part of the agenda and during the consultation hour. The student independently reproduces the thought processes and arguments developed by the assistant professor during the consultation hour on the basis of the scientific literature and incorporates them (together with any primary sources) into their chain of argumentation. On the basis of all the information now available, the student answers detailed questions independently and transparently presents any content-related considerations and trade-offs in their work.
5. Explanation
A declaration of independent composition must be attached to the thesis. The exact wording of the declaration can be found on the website of the Examination Office for Business and Economics
6. Submission
The thesis must be submitted to the Examinations Office by the deadline specified in the confirmation of registration from the Examinations Office. It is essential to ensure that the title on the paper corresponds exactly to the registered title!
Worth knowing
Master's students who do not come from the M.Sc. Real Estate programme may require special permission from the managing director of their respective institute. It is your own responsibility to enquire about this.
You can write your Master's thesis in either English or German. However, we recommend that you write in English, also because most of the sources are written in English.