Supervision

At the start of the year

A student first discusses his or her interests with the student advisor for ST. Together with the student advisor a student chooses an individual program that suits his or her background and interests. This program may be adapted through the years. It is best if the student first discusses changes to his program with a staff member. This is one of the roles of the mentor.

Mentorship

A student is assigned a mentor who will guide the student through the master program. His main task is to keep track of the progress of the student, to assist him when he has questions regarding (changes in) his individual program (especially when it concerns the elective courses) and other matters related to his study. The name of the mentor for each student can be found on the Students pages, following the name of the student.

More specifically, two weeks after the start of the course year, the mentor verifies that the student has in fact enrolled for (at least) two courses in each period, and that the collection of courses can lead to a master in ST. This process will be repeated two weeks after the close of each period. Then the mentor also checks whether the student is doing well enough. If not, he will make an appointment with the student to talk about it. Naturally, the student can also come to the mentor on his own initiative.

During the final thesis project the role of mentor can be taken over by the supervising staff member.

The role of lecturers

The role of the teacher of a course or seminar is that of a supervisor, rather than a lecturer. A student is given room to take initiatives, and is challenged to pose problems, propose solutions, and perform both theoretical and practical experiments. A student writes papers, does assignments, and presents his or her results. The active acquisition of knowledge and experience is central to the master program, for individual students as well as for groups. An exam is often in the form of one or more projects, writing reports, etc. An assignment that has been handed in is evaluated, and feedback is given to the student. The grade often also depends on the number of iterations before a good (not: just acceptable) version is produced.

The thesis project

The final thesis project, when done within the institute, will be conducted in close collaboration with researchers. A student will be assigned a desk in the research group and actively participate in the discussions. A thesis supervisor will monitor the progress and advise the student. When the final project is done in a company, both a local supervisor in the company, and a supervisor in the institute are assigned who together monitor and guide the student.