Many students imagine the process as a sudden flicker of light in the bulb. They imagine themselves sitting down with a professor and inventing an idea from scratch. Let’s get ahold of ourselves – you’re bachelor’s students, and your experience with research is minimal. This can happen, of course, but it is not the most common route. In reality, most of these topics already exist before a student chooses it. Research groups define projects connected to their ongoing work, and students join one small piece of that larger puzzle.
That said, the way students obtain their thesis topic can differ quite a bit between programmes at the University of Twente (UT).
The process of finding a thesis topic
In Mechanical Engineering, the process is surprisingly systematic. Students are given a long list of available projects from different research groups. These can range from robotics and control systems to fluids, manufacturing, or material science. From this list, students select their preferred topics, ranking their top five choices, and submitting their preferences using a form. An allocation algorithm then distributes the projects among students based on these preferences and availability.
On the other hand, programmes like Electrical Engineering also have a list of topics from which students can choose, but the process is more direct. Students choose a topic, contact the supervisors themselves, and projects are usually assigned on a first-come, first-serve basis. This means that if a topic looks interesting, it’s usually wise to send an email or stop by a professor’s office sooner rather than later.
In other programmes, like Business Administration or Communication Science, the choice of your thesis topic is usually completely up to you. Based on your chosen topic, you will be assigned a thesis supervisor and together, you can refine your research question, set-up, et cetera.
What kind of topic suits you?
Now, it’s all nice that we know how to choose a thesis now. But the question remains: how do you choose a thesis that’s best for you?
The short answer is that there is no perfect formula. Heck, I don’t know if I can even tell you myself, since at the time of this article, I have just been assigned my topic. But I’ll hopefully stick the landing.
Interest
The first is interest. A bachelor’s thesis will likely occupy about a module and a bit’s more time, which means you will likely spend hours reading about the topic, thinking about it, and trying to solve problems related to it. Choosing something that you are at least curious about can make a significant difference. It doesn’t have to be your lifelong passion, and it surely doesn’t need to be the thing you specialise in later, but it definitely helps if the topic makes you want to understand it a bit more deeply.
Method
The second factor is the type of work involved. Not all thesis topics look the same. In engineering-focused bachelor's, some theses might focus on simulations and modelling, while other involve experimental setups in a lab and some more others are more theoretical and literature review-based. And for degrees in social sciences, there's of course the difference between quantitative and qualititative methods. The question is: what do you prefer? Do you like coding or statistical analyses? Are you more into hands-on experiments, or would you rather spend your time interviewing people and doing fieldwork? Or do you prefer reviewing literature, comparing them, and coming up with hypotheses?
Future plans
The third is probably to consider what field you wish to explore after graduation? The bachelor’s thesis is often the first opportunity to dive deeper into a specific field. For some students, it becomes a way to explore an area they might want to continue in a master’s programme. For others, it might just be an opportunity to try something new before the next stage.
Your strengths
Finally, my fourth piece of advise is probably the weakest, because it is quite vain, but it would be logical to choose a topic based on your best grades. I wish I could say this is great advice, and logical, but speaking as someone who did this and is now stuck designing a controller for a machine, this is terrible advice. Of course, if your best grades align with all the other criteria, then this could be great advice. However, a lot of times your talents and your interests don’t line up, so I would take this piece of advice with a grain of salt.
In the end, choosing a thesis topic is a bit like choosing a direction rather than a destination. You probably won’t know exactly where your thesis will lead, but the experience itself is part of the learning process.
At the moment of this article’s release, I am still beginning this process, so do take the advice here cautiously. For my thesis, I will be looking into friction compensation for a high-acceleration device using a controller. Like many students choosing their thesis, I am still figuring out what the problem really looks like and how to best approach it. And this comes, unfortunately, with reading a dozen papers.
Maybe that’s the point of the thesis. Not just to find whatever needs answering, but to learn how to search for them.
