Writing Your Bachelor Thesis at Our Chair

In principle, we only supervise bachelor theses if you have previous knowledge in process mining / business process management / data mining because otherwise the familiarization with the topic would take too much time.

If you have such prior knowledge (e.g. from lectures at the University of Mannheim, lectures during your semester abroad, internships, etc.), please outline it in your application. 

Previous participation in the bachelor seminar (SM 458) is not compulsory, but an advantage.

If you have specific topic ideas or wishes, please include them in your application. This is optional, but very welcome. Ideally, such topic ideas have arisen in the context of a university course or a working student activity.

In the rare cases where we have concrete bachelor thesis topics available, you will find them on our website. Otherwise, we will find a topic together with you.

For applying, please send an e-mail with the following documents:

• Motivation for writing a thesis at our chair (in the body of your e-mail)
• Application documents (CV, Current Transcript of Records)
• Concrete ideas for a thesis topic (if applicable, in the body of your e-mail)

Address your email to the member of the chair who you think best matches your interests (and your proposed topic, if applicable). To do this, check the websites and publication records. If you are not sure, you can also send your email to jpmacmail-mail.uni-mannheim.de.

A member of the chair will contact you. You will then be informed of all other regulations regarding bachelor theses by the supervising person.

Once you have agreed on a research topic for your thesis with your supervisor, you can start working on a detailed proposal. This proposal is very important because it sets the objectives and expectations of your thesis. You can expect that your proposal will go through multiple iterations before your supervisors accepts it. Only then you may only officially register your thesis. Working on a proposal is therefore not a commitment for supervising your thesis! There is always a chance (for you and for us) to decide against supervision if we feel that it’s not a good fit for one side.

The proposal should contain the following:

• Motivation (context – problem – solution)
• Objective of the thesis
• Envisaged methodology
• Existing literature

No, there are no publicly available bachelor or master theses of our chair – and this is quite intentional. The general structure of scientific publications is always the same, but it is important to adapt this structure to the specific topic you are working on instead of following existing theses.

In addition to supervision, you are expected to participate in the chair's thesis colloquium,  which takes place jointly for bachelor and master students who write their thesis at our chair. The aim of the colloquium is to promote the exchange between students and to strengthen your presentation skills and feedback competences.

To this end, you are expected to present your work at least once. A good time to do this is around the middle of your editing period, when you already have a good idea of your topic but can still incorporate feedback.

Please adhere to the following time guidelines: Your presentation should have a duration of 10 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of Q&A.

Participation in the colloquium is mandatory during the editing period, even if you do not present. The colloquium usually takes place on the second last Thursday of the month. An invitation is sent separately to the respective students as soon as they officially registered for writing their theses. 

The next dates are:

• Thursday, 12/07/2023, 1.45 p.m.
• Thursday, 01/18/2024, 1.45 p.m.  (takes place online!)
• Thursday, 02/25/2024, 1.45 p.m.
• Thursday, 03/21/2024, 1.45 p.m.
• Thursday, 04/18/2024, 1.45 p.m.
• Thursday, 05/16/2024, 1.45 p.m.
• Thursday, 06/20/2024, 1.45 p.m.

(Subject to change.)