Graduation
The following is a 9-step plan to graduate in the MSc Logic. This plan will take 8 to 12 months. You should start preparing at the beginning of your second year, or in case you do the Fast Track, you should start thinking about this soon after arrival.
Please note that you can only defend your thesis once you have completed all course and project elements of your programme and all corresponding grades have been offiically registered.
Step 1.
10 to 6 months before the thesis defense.
You start to discuss potential thesis supervisors with your mentor. You talk to these
potential supervisors and discuss possible topics.
For a few hints on how to find a thesis supervisor, see this page.
Step 2.
6 months before the thesis defense.
You reach an agreement with your supervisor. Together you write a short description
of the project and fill in the form called 'Approval of individual programme content MSc Logic'
(PDF file). The
form is signed by you and your supervisor.
Very Important (1). You can only fill in your 'approval form' if you
have finished all of your coursework except for at most 20 EC.
Very Important (2). The courses that you list on
your 'approval form' are FINAL, i.e., they will be the ones that
appear on your transcript. If you list courses on this form
that you don't finish, then you cannot graduate. If you forget to list a
course on that form, then it will not be on your final transcript.
For more details on how to fill in this form, see this page.
Step 3.
6 to 1 month(s) before the thesis defense.
You write the thesis.
Step 4.
1 month before the thesis defense.
Your thesis committee should get appointed by the Board of Examiners at least one month before your defense, following a proposal of your supervisor.
Discuss your thesis committee with your supervisor early on.
The committee consists of
your supervisor(s), one member of the
Board of Examiners who will chair the defense,
and at least one independent committee member,
not involved in the supervision of your thesis.
Typical thesis committees have four or five members.
The committee must satisfy the following requirements:
- All committee members must hold an MSc or equivalent degree.
- At least three committee members must have a PhD.
- At least two committee members (possibly including the chair) must be experts who were not involved with the supervision. The number of these experts must not be smaller than the number of supervisors.
- The majority of the committee members should be affiliated with the ILLC (exceptions to this rule may be granted by the Board of Examiners in exceptional cases).
Either you or your supervisor should coordinate the discussion of a suitable date and time for the defense with your committee. Please note that the MSc Logic has no budget to reimburse any travel expenses incurred by members of the committee in order to attend your defense. Therefore you should inform any prospective committee member about this in advance, in particular when the member in question will come from outside the Netherlands.
Please note that for a graduation date during the summer months, you have to plan your graduation well in advance, in discussion with all parties involved. We recommend that you aim for a defense in June. The latest possible defense date in a given academic year is the 31st of August (if you defend later you have to re-enrol for the next academic year). Please beware that although the Education Service Centre is open all summer, your committee members might not be available.
Step 5.
1 month before the thesis defense.
You fill in the 'Arrangement of Thesis Defense' form
(PDF file) and you get the signatures of the
MSc Director and the Board of Examiners. The form is handed in to the MSc Administration
(Tanja Kassenaar). Tanja will arrange a room for the defense, announces the defense to
the members of the defense committee and adds the defense to the News and Events section
of the ILLC webpage.
Step 6.
3 weeks before the thesis defense.
At least three weeks before the defense date, you send the final version
of your thesis by e-mail in PDF format, including an abstract, to the committee members with a
copy to Tanja.
Very Important. At this point you also have to submit your thesis
to UvA scripties online. For the details of this procedure, see
this page.
Step 7.
The public thesis defense
You present your thesis for 20 minutes and the committee asks questions for 30 minutes.
After that there is another 40 minutes in which the committee withdraws to discuss the grade and write the grade report,
calls you in to inform you of its decision and give you the opportunity to ask some short questions. After that you and the committee return to the defense room, where there is
opportunity for your supervisor to congratulate you and give a short speech.
Step 8.
After the thesis defense.
You go to the Education Service Centre of the Faculty of Science to apply for your diploma, bringing:
- the thesis grade report,
- a copy of your passport or identity card (a driver's licence is not good enough),
- a copy of the diploma which allowed you to be admitted for the MSc Logic programme (although most of the time nobody will actually ask you to show this)
Very Important. As you have to sign your diploma to make it official, you have to pick it up at the ESC desk in person.
In case you are not around anymore to do this yourself, please have a look here for other solutions.
If you need a document to confirm your graduation before you receive the diploma
(for applications for instance), please also ask at the ESC desk or contact them by email.
Also very important: You deregister from the UvA through Studielink and use 'login via Studielink' in case you do not have
a DigiD.
Please note that your graduation date will be the last work day of the month in which you have your defense. You can be deregisted as of the first day of the month after that, but you have to do
so before the start of this new month.
Step 9.
About 1 month after the thesis defense.
You have four weeks to make changes to your thesis in line with comments you received during your defense. After you have done so, you should send the new version to
Tanja for her to put your thesis on the websites of the MSc Logic and the
ILLC.
You do not have to make changes to your thesis. In that case the defended version will be put online.
About 4 to 6 weeks after you applied for the diploma and the diploma supplement you can expect an email from the ESC to come and collect it (or have it collected, see step 8).