Graduation & Process

Many things related to the process and documentation are explained in detail in the graduation manual. The manual also provides you with references for methodology and forms for progress meetings. You can find the graduation manual on the CME Brightspace page.

Make sure to attend one of the information sessions on graduation, which are organized by the CME graduation coordinators each quarter. If you struggle with understanding the initial part of the graduation process, contact other colleagues or alumni. If you still find some questions unanswered, reach out to your graduation coordinator.

Before the meetings:

In order to make the meeting more efficient and less time-consuming, make sure you have planned all the meetings with your committee in advance. Make a brief agenda of the topics you would like to discuss in the meeting and share it with your committee beforehand. This will allow them to prepare for the meeting. Perhaps, you should also include all the necessary documents and a list of all the questions that the committee might need to address throughout the meeting. You should do so a week or so before the meeting to give your committee enough time to go through your material for review.

During the meeting:

Make sure to keep the minutes of every meeting. If this gets difficult for you, ask for permission to record the meeting and use it later to note all the important action points discussed in the meeting. Before the next meeting, make sure to go through the minutes of the previous meeting in case you need to follow up on any action point. You can download this PDF-version of a minutes-of-meeting template.

It is also advised to make use of the scheduling assistant tool provided by both Outlook and Teams to directly look at your committee’s availability instead of sending an email to the members. Many times, professors or company supervisors might respond with a delay to these emails which leads to a substantial delay in the graduation process. In the scheduling assistant tool, you can find the schedule of the professor or others you would like to schedule a meeting with and use it to directly propose 2 or 3 common time slots.

Here you can find some information on how to use the assistant tool in Teams.

Decide when would you like to graduate and plan all meetings in advance starting from the thesis preparation to the defence.  A good starting point is to check the assessment rubric, which can be found here on the Brightspace page of CME.
Schedule and agree upon with your whole committee on dates for milestone meetings in advance throughout the whole graduation process. These milestone meetings are shown on the timeline below as proposed by the university, namely kick-off, 1st and 2nd progress meeting, green-light meeting, and thesis defence. The 2 progress meetings are advised to be scheduled between kick-off and the green-light meeting and their aim is to monitor the progress and get approval from the graduation committee on the content work-in-progress.

Discuss with your 1st supervisor on the possibility of having more regular meetings. An example could be to have a 30-mins weekly meeting with the 1st supervisor throughout the whole graduation process. A fixed day within the week (e.g., every Tuesday at 15:00) would be the most efficient way and avoid scheduling miscommunications.

The nominal duration of the graduation process is shown on the timeline above. The kick-off meeting is scheduled about 10 weeks after the start of the thesis preparation. Take into account that the thesis preparation is done in the second quarter of the second year in combination with other courses. The main research itself is then executed in Q3 and Q4 of the second year, full time. The 1st progress meeting is scheduled about 6-8 weeks after the kick-off meeting while the 2nd progress meeting 6-8 weeks after the 1st progress meeting. Note that, some supervisors prefer to have one and others prefer to have two progress meetings. So, confirm with your committee members the number of progress meetings they find appropriate during the kick-off meeting. The whole graduation committee is advised to be present for both progress meetings. Moving forward, the green light meeting is scheduled about 5-7 weeks after the 2nd progress meeting. After a successful Green-Light meeting, the thesis defense could be scheduled after a minimum of 4 weeks.

While planning your graduation, we advice you to include some vacation in your planning. Have the end goal in mind from the beginning and work accordingly. Even if you have planned your thesis as efficiently as possible, it might not go as planned for multiple unexpected reasons. Therefore, add some buffer time (range of time) in your planning to mitigate delays if occurred.

To plan your graduation, perhaps you might want to use MS Project. As you might already be already familiar with it, in MS Project you can add the planned dates of each task and then update it with the actual dates of each task. This way you will be aware of any delays in your graduation process. It might be also useful to share this plan with your committee members for their reference.

CME forms are not complicated to fill in but are subject to change every year. Therefore, it is important to use the forms from the CEG student portal, which are always up to date. CME-forms 1 is a confirmation that you have completed, the course of Methodology of Scientific Research, one Ethics course and all synchronisation courses as well as 76 ECTS of your study planning. It should be filled and sent to the CME secretary before the start of the thesis preparation. CME-forms 2 is a confirmation that your thesis committee in on board both on the university and company side (if applicable). It should be filled and sent to the CME secretary after the Kick-off meeting. CME-forms 3 is a confirmation that your Green Light meeting was successful and the administration should start preparing your defence date. It should be filled and send to the CME secretary as soon as possible after the Green Light meeting.

CME-forms 2A should be filled and sent to the CME secretary only if, during your graduation process (after the Kick-off meeting) your thesis committee changed either because a new member has been added or a member has been changed.

You can always ask the CME secretary for support on this process, if needed while also visit the link provided above regarding the CME-forms.

During your thesis phase, there are several meetings that are mandatory to have with your whole thesis committee. These meetings are: Thesis Kick-off, Progress meeting 1 (and progress meeting 2), Greenlight meeting and the Defense.

Thesis Kick-off

In the weeks before the Kick-off meeting, you might have regular meetings with your company supervisor and TU Delft supervisor. During the Kick-off meeting you will explain your research and approach to your whole thesis committee. It is important to sent your proposal at least 5-7 workings days before the kick-off meeting to the committee. The kick-off meeting is led by the Chair of you thesis committee and take around 45min-60 min. Prepare yourself well and make a short presentation. During the kick-off you might receive some questions and/or feedback from the committee. If you pass the kick-off, you need to hand in your proposal together with the CME-2 form.

Progress meeting 1 (and progress meeting 2)

Around 6-8 weeks after your kick-off meeting, you will have a second formal meeting with your whole committee. This time you will discuss the preliminary results of your research. This time there will be more discussions and you will receive feedback. This will only help you deliver a better product!

Discuss during your kick-off meeting, if you will have 1 or 2 progress meetings with the whole committee. The second progress meeting is not mandatory, but could be helpful.

Greenlight meeting

During the Greenlight meeting or go-no go meeting , you will be finished with your thesis. You will present and discuss the results of your thesis. If the committee gives a 'go', this means you have around a month to prepare for your defense!

Defense

This speaks for itself. You can finally defend your research. During the defense you will give a presentation for about 15-20 minutes. Afterwards, there is time allocated for the public to ask you some questions. You will then go to a separate area with your committee and defend your thesis. Afterwards, you will receive your grade and diploma and... you are finally a CME MSc. graduate!

HREC stands for Human Research Ethics Committee. If your research includes for instance, interviews, it is advised to fill a form and get approval by the HREC. As of 2022, this approval has become optional and it is now advised to consult your thesis committee if an HREC approval is necessary for your research. For more info about the HREC visit the following link.