Setting the Scope for M.S. Thesis Projects Early Career Faculty Workshop 2015 Matthew Gilmore Andrew Goodliffe

Examples of problems/solutions from Gilmore and Goodliffe! A few words on our own challenges

What are the student’s goals after completing the master’s (why are they doing this)? What are the student’s skills, interests, and abilities? Should a master’s project be published? What are your overall learning outcomes for an M.S. student? Meeting the Student’s Needs

What are the needs of your research program (data collection, data analysis, experiments, measurements, modeling, etc.)? How can an M.S. project feed into other aspects of your research program? Can you adapt a larger-scale project into a smaller M.S. project? Meeting Your Research Goals

How much time is allowed for the Master’s student to work on research? Should a master’s project be published? Does funding need to be procured for the student’s work? Meeting External Constraints

General Considerations Keep it simple and keep it small. –An M.S. thesis is not about solving the world’s problems but about preparing a scientist for the next step (a job, a Ph.D. program) while making a contribution. Think of the M.S. degree as a certification of technical proficiency, rather than as a ticket to the scientific research enterprise. An M.S. student is VERY different to a Ph.D. student. If the first idea doesn’t work then redirect the student’s focus earlier rather later.

Challenges Writing, writing, and writing – particularly abstracts, introductions Presentation skills Most students are not like us – i.e. type A, perfectionists Recruiting the best students – how is this done in your department? Limiting the scope of the project (avoiding the 5-year M.S.) Student takes off for the summer (internship) Others?