1. Introduction: What is the Degree Thesis?

The thesis requirement gives students an opportunity to develop and demonstrate their ability to carry out and document a reasonably comprehensive project requiring considerable initiative, creative thought, and a good deal of individual responsibility. The thesis may be a design project, an analytical paper, or experimental work of a technical nature.

Degree of Eng. theses normally involve one or more of the following:

• Design of a system followed by construction, test, and evaluation;
• Formulation of an analytical or computational model of a system or process, simulation of the model, and comparison with actual data;
• Development of a computer program that might:
  • simulate a real system (e.g. Artificial Intelligence);
  • aid in a diagnostic procedure;
  • provide sophisticated, real-time analysis of measured data;
  • develop and analyze a theory or theorem which is an abstraction or idealization of an actual process or system;
  • apply some of the standard methods (of communication theory or control theory, for example) to aid in understanding of a process or system.
• Experimental study of physical phenomena.

Ordinarily the thesis is an individual effort; however, group projects are possible if the work of the individuals can be evaluated separately. Separate thesis documents must be submitted.

The research supervisor is found and the project is normally begun during the fifth course (senior year) or the summer after it (if the project could not completed till the end of the senior year), and completed during the graduate year. You must do your research at I.A.A.U., not at a summer or part-time job for which you received pay. Students may use a thesis topic which suggested itself during their summer or part-time jobs, but they must have an I.A.A.U. supervisor and do their work at I.A.A.U.