Preparation for your master's thesis

The master's thesis is a compulsory part of the M.Eng. program. Our M.Eng. students are responsible for finding their own thesis placements among the wide range of different corporations and industry near by.

Master's thesis

Students usually complete their final thesis under the supervision of a professor and a company manager.

The aim of the thesis work is to further develop students' skills in independently setting up a paper and executing empirical research, and in drawing conclusions from this with regard to knowledge development and strategic policy.

At the end of the program, students prepare a presentation for their thesis defence. The goal of the thesis seminar is to bring together the individual disciplines covered throughout the M.Eng. program.

M.Eng. thesis statistics

To date, our M.Eng. students have written their master's theses at 121 different companies. Among our top companies for master's theses are: Bosch, Daimler, Porsche, BMW, Festo

During the MBA programme, our students are given the opportunity to

• visit successful German companies
• talk to company managers
• make contact with company leaders

One of the highlights of our MBA programme is the course "Industrial Solutions," in which students visit several companies from different branches of the industry and learn about their markets, products and business strategies.
During this course, students gain insights into the companies and learn the specific factors of success in the industry. At the end of the course, each student writes a report on one of the companies, viewing its current situation in the market, its history, products, services and production, marketing and sales, giving a clear SWOT analysis of its running and suggesting solutions.
In so doing, students learn more about the roles of companies in different industries and are able to view them in a global perspective. By visiting different companies and doing sound research, students gain experience in reporting on a company at a business executive level.

When Daimler subsidiary Evobus joined in a research project with Esslingen University's Institute for Sustainable Energy, Engineering and Mobility (INEM), the main strengths of the Esslingen MBA were called for: business competence and engineering know-how paired with internationality were the skills they needed. Putting their theoretical knowledge to practical use, MBA students created and completed a business analysis of technical solutions for a hydrogen infrastructure for fuel cell-driven city buses.

A part of the students' advisory services in this project was also to develop a business model for the regional usage of fuel cell buses, and to assess their opportunity / risk, all taking into account the legislative, technical and economic factors influencing the project.

 Professor Oberhauser, who was supervising the project, commented:

"The timely development of a reliable and economic fuel cell infrastructure is one of the most important prerequisites for the successful introduction of fuel cell technology in the vehicle. This project gave our international students the unique opportunity to work together with experts of the world leader in bus development, EvoBus, and the fuel cell experts from NuCellSys. Key to the success of this project was definitely the focus of the Esslingen MBA."

In the course "Entrepreneurship", MBA students worked in groups in the summer semester of 2017 to complete the challenges posed by this project, which was supervised and accompanied by INEM and EvoBus.

"This project was almost predestined to show the students the practical application of their theoretical input, which is a main focus of the Esslingen MBA course in Entrepreneurship," said Prof. Dr. Michael Flad, who is the Program Director of the Esslingen MBA in International Industrial Management.