Timing

You must have a project and a supervisor by the start of week 1 of the 2nd semester. If you do nothing about choosing one you will be allocated a project and will have to put up with what you get so read what follows carefully.  Work on projects starts full time after week 15 of the 2nd semester and continues until you submit your dissertation.   You may not go on holiday in the dissertation period.

Proposing your own project

Students are encouraged to propose their own projects and it is advisable to already have academic approval before submitting one. The deadline for students to submit proposals for their own MSc projects is the Friday before project allocation week.

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 1 (external project details may continue to be received and listed after this date). 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 12, 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 12 of the first 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.

In addition to any deadline you may receive in respect of an offer, there is a global deadline at 5pm on Friday of Week 12. 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).