Administrative Steps

We encourage you to plan the completion of your degree in advance, taking into consideration the published degree deadlines.

Please note that in order to register for graduation you also need the grade for your Master's thesis. This means that you have to plan the submission of your master's thesis early enough

• to be able to hold the Master's thesis presentation (maximum within 4 weeks)
• and have received the grade from your supervisor. 

There are two different procedures for the Master's Thesis (depending on the supervising professor)

• Master's Thesis Process - Dean's office
• Master's Thesis Process - OLAT (only UZH supervisors, not possible for ETH supervisors).

The following steps have to be followed for your Master's thesis:

Think on a quantitative finance-related topic you are interested in and on a supervisor. Make sure that you are already familiar with the subject area through lectures, seminars or your own reading.

If you consider to do your Master's thesis with a DF supervisor please proceed via the DBF Thesis Market. You can either submit your own topic proposal or choose one of the provided topic proposals. 

For any other professor of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics please look at WWF supervisors for guidance or ETH: Dep Math supervisors and explain why you want to choose this specific topic for your thesis.

Chairs may set additional requirements and have the option to reject a student's proposal or the supervising of the thesis.

In case of several rejections please contact the Program Director.

Your supervisor will tell you if the following procedure will be either via the Dean's office or via OLAT.

Master's Thesis Process - Dean's office

Once you have a commitment from a supervisor, your supervisor will send the project definition to the Dean's Office of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics of the University of Zurich, subsequently called "Dean's Office". Please be aware that the written project definition is issued exclusively by the Dean's Office!

Request your project definition by email to  deansoffice@oec.uzh.ch (please only use your uzh-email address for this purpose) and attach the following documents:

• Proof of matriculation (e.g. student ID card).
• Proof of admission to the Master's program (Admission letter).
• Completed registration form.

The completion period begins with the personal delivery of your project definition by the Dean's office via email and lasts 6 months. The exact deadline is explicity mentioned in the email.

Master's Thesis Process - OLAT

Your supervisor will upload the definitive topic into OLAT and will invite you to the OLAT course. Once you have joined the course you must select the topic within 24 hours. Then the 6 months’ completion period begins in the personal workflow.

The Master's thesis has to be finished within 6 months, no later than the communicated submission deadline! The period of completion starts on the day you collect your Master's thesis project either with the Dean's Office's email or in OLAT.

Master's Thesis Process - Dean's Office

The Master's thesis has to be submitted as a PDF at the latest on the last day of the deadline (23:59) by email to deansoffice@oec.uzh.ch

Master's Thesis Process - OLAT

The student submits the final thesis by uploading the PDF directly in OLAT, no later than the communicated submission deadline.

Atttention:

Theses submitted late are considered to have been failed!

Extension of Deadline

If a student becomes partially or entirely unable to work after starting his/her Master's thesis, or if other reasons beyond the student's control prevent him/her from submitting the thesis on time, the student has to submit a written petition to the Dean's Office before the deadline. petitions

The examination delegate (= Program Director) will then decide

• whether to extend the deadline - an extension up to two weeks is possible (with doctor's attestation); or
• cancel the thesis. Master's theses canceled with approval are considered not to have been started. 

In case of a failed thesis you have one possibility to do it again.

You will have to make a 30 minutes presentation of your thesis within 4 weeks after the submission of the Master's thesis.

Please proceed as follows:

• First arrange a date and time for the presentation with your supervisor.
• Inform the Study Coordinator of the program (msfinance[at]bf.uzh.ch) at two weeks prior
• about the exact date and time of the agreed presentation
• including the Zoom Meeting Information in case of an online presentation
• and a PDF of the Master's thesis as well as a PDF of the abstract of the thesis.
• The Study Coordinator will organize a room at UZH or ETH in case of an on-site presentation and make the public announcement by email and on www.msfinance.ch.

After the presentation the supervisor will communicate the final grade in written form.

Once you have all the ECTS credit points (including grades) required for the program you can apply for the final degree. All the information related to the graduation process can be found under graduation.