Welcome to vibrant research world of IAS! We hope you will have a great thesis with us and are very happy that you have joined us.

Just a few points such that we fully understand each other! We want this experience to be great for you while yielding an outstanding thesis, at quality levels where it could be published at a premier conference or journal (and have done so with many theses). There are only four requirements to a thesis:

1. We expect you to regularly attend our Talks in the Oberseminar:

https://www.ias.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/Teaching/IntelligentAutonomousSystems

Please register for talk invitations at https://mail.ias.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/mailman/listinfo/talks

2. When you are at the stage that you know your topic sufficiently to write 40% to 50% of their thesis, you are supposed to give an Intermediate Presentation (Note: The intermediate presentation is only in front of your advisors and the immediate project members for the duration of the pandemic). This presentation is for your own good and remains ungraded.

3. You need to submit a thesis. We care about quality and even formatting but rather write fewer pages of higher quality than more.

4. After submitting your thesis, your need to defend the thesis in a Final Presentation. This presentation is graded.

Please ask your advisor to help with the scheduling. When you feel you want to register your thesis with the department, please go to

https://www.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/studium_fb20/im_studium/formulare_und_dokumente/abschlussarbeiten_formulare/index.de.jsp

and download the appropriate form for your thesis. Fill it out whenever you feel like it and hand it in to our outstanding secretaries (they will take over from here...).

I also strongly suggest that right at the beginning of your thesis, you do sit down with your advisor and ask the advisor what his or her expectations are (e.g., on your independence, your conduct, what results and what quality you need to accomplish to pass the thesis and for getting what grade).

Here, are also a few action items for the moment:

A. IT Usage and Robot Lab Access: - If needed, please check with Sabine Schnitt regarding the offered IT infrastructure (not for external students). She will contact you about the required admin forms separately. - Oleg Arenz will email you regarding robot lab access.

B. Check that your thesis appears correctly on the page

http://www.ias.tu-darmstadt.de/Theses/Abschlussarbeiten

and complain to your advisor if it does not.

C. Read the advice on theses:

http://www.ias.tu-darmstadt.de/Main/ThesesStudents

D. Get the thesis template:

http://www.ias.tu-darmstadt.de/Main/ThesisTemplate

Once you graduate, please make sure that your advisor removes you from the ongoing thesis list at

http://www.ias.tu-darmstadt.de/Main/ThesesStudents

and adds a PDF of your thesis below at

http://www.ias.tu-darmstadt.de/Theses/Abschlussarbeiten#Completed

as Completed Theses.

There is also a mailing list https://mail.ias.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/mailman/listinfo/students just for students.

One minor thing, if you are a computer science, Informatik-Bindestrich, or Computational Engineering student, you only need me as an advisor. However, if you are in electrical engineering (ETIT), maths or mechanical engineering, we need also someone from your department. For ETIT theses, we strongly recommend that you and your advisor contact Heinz Koeppl, who is one of our favorite collaborators and excellent scientist. For mechanical engineering theses and ADPs, we prefer to collaborate with Philipp Beckerle and Stefan Rinderknecht, who are both great guys.

We care about helping great students to big success in the world. Hence, please do talk to us early about your plans. Some of our B.Sc. and M.Sc. students have gone on to continue for doctoral studies at places like Brown, CMU, Berkeley, Georgia Tech and many more of the finest elite universities, while others stayed with us for their doctoral studies. All over, we have really brought a tremendous number of people to the next step which exceeded their expectations. Of course, that required blood, sweat and tears but you would not be here if you were from faint-hearted stock.

Have a good start! We expect great things from you.

All the best, -Jan