Timing

Projects are allocated towards the end of the academic year before the 3rd year so that students have the chance to work on their project over the summer.  So in what follows the dates, for most students, mean dates during their 2nd year however students taking a year in industry should engage in this process during their year out.   All activities and discussions can take place on line to ensure that students who are not in Sheffield can still take part.

Proposing your own project

Student are encouraged to propose their own projects but you must have academic approval before submitting one. The deadline for students to submit proposals for their own level 3 projects is in week 6 of the 2nd semester.

Projects proposed by academic staff or external bodies

Projects proposed or supported by staff will be available on MOLE to view from week 8 of semester 2. This is the start of a consultation period between students and staff. Discussions should take place via the MOLE bulletin boards.   Staff will eventually pick students  they want to do their projects based on student suitability so it is in your interest to actively engage with members of staff.  No projects will be allocated before Week 11, so you have plenty of time to investigate the possibilities.

Please have more than one project in mind as you may not get offered your number one choice.

Project Allocation

Week 11 of the second semester is Projects Week. Taking into account the various discussions they've had with interested students, supervisors will decide which student they would like to have on each of their projects, and will make them an offer. This offer will be time-limited, i.e. you will be given a deadline, typically 24 hours. You may receive offers from several projects, but you can only accept one of them. To accept an offer, you should reply to the supervisor saying that you agree to do the project (the supervisor will then tell the relevant members of the admin team); you are now committed to doing that project - you cannot change your mind and accept a different project later. If you reject the offer (or if you miss the deadline) the project may be offered to another student instead. You cannot accept more than one offer.

You are strongly encouraged to attend the third year poster session which also occurs during this week. After the poster session there will be a social event for all second and third year students, MSc students, staff and Industrial Liaison Board members.

In addition to any deadline you may receive in respect of an offer, there is a global deadline at 5pm on Friday of Week 11. Any students who have failed to secure a project at that point will be assigned an unallocated project by the Projects Officer (in practice this happens the following Monday, so that supervisors have time to notify us of late acceptances).