Making a first contact with me

When to approach

Six months before your targeted date of handing in the thesis (e.g. If you intend to defend in August, you have to hand in the thesis at the end of July. Therefore, you may approach me around the end of January)

What to prepare

You can send me an email explaining that you are willing to write a thesis with me and give a general description of your idea.

The description should not be too broad as “I want to do some research on credit risk”. It should be more specific about a question that you find interesting, most likely something stemming from one of your courses or from reading some academic papers. Together with the question, you may write a few sentences on which potential methodology and data you plan to use.

If you have already got an internship with a research topic, do NOT simply copy paste the topic description you got from the firm. You should also write your own idea on how to approach the problem raised by the firm.

The length of this email should be as short as possible. If you put it into a WORD file, it should be within one page.

What to expect

You may get my reply within a week. There are two possibilities. If the topic is too far off my expertise, I will advise you to consider some other professors as your supervisor. You may still push it by going forward with Step 1, but it is very likely that I will turn it down in that stage.

If the topic stays within my interests, I will give you some feedback on the idea you described. It might take more than one round email exchanges.

How to move on to the next Step

At any moment, if you are confident that your research idea is sufficiently concrete, you may fill in the Topic Approval Request form, and move to the next Step. Nevertheless, you get a higher chance of being accepted if we mutually agree that your idea is sufficient.

Time line regarding this Step

This step, if you take, should be finished within in two weeks. With an initial contact, we may accelerate the official process for requesting a thesis topic.