Whether you are a 4th, 3rd or even 2nd year engineering student, you probably heard about the bachelor project and you might be curious how things work and how to prepare for the biggest project in your undergraduate studies. You might also want to do a research internship earlier and you want to know how to start. or you are just curious and want to read some blog posts. Anyway I hope that you can enjoy reading the post and also benefit from it 😄
In this guide, I will try to explain the whole process and give you some tips and tricks that will help you get a decent project quickly! but you must bear with me as this is gonna be a long guide 😂
Why & Who should read this post 🤷♂️
I encourage everyone who want to get involved in research field, curious about the state of the art in his field of study, searching for a decent project to work on, having new experience, looking for publishing papers, making great connections with researchers and having opportunities for graduate studies, and finally having fun discovering more about your field.
People who should read this carefully are “EVERYONE in 7th Semester”, and I mean everyone even if you are the (1st ranked student). I am sure this post will help you get better projects than the ones offered by the university and they will be more close to your interests as well! :))
Before You Start 🙄
So before you start thinking about your bachelor project, you will need to prepare yourself first by
- Explore your major research topics I am not joking :D your major is way BIIIGGER than you might think! you will need to be aware of your majors’ topics globally and find about the current research. watch these videos & search for similar ones for your major
- Map of Computer Science & Math might help IETians but not sure!
- Perioritze your research intersets
- pick 3 of the most exciting fields to you
- Select some top universities that you want to go to
- You may also try to search for specific (research labs / companies) rather along with universities
- Have some experience in your research topics
- Take some courses to get familiar with what you are seeking, and always keep learning new things
- Update your Resume, LinkedIn, (GitHub for METians :D)
Nice things to have:
- Cover Letter / Research Statement: One pdf file describe your research interest in some fields and why you want to work on those fields
- 1-3 Recommendation Letters: Some people might ask you for recommendation letters or you might need it if there is an apply application for the position
- Transcript: Prepare your transcript. (you may take screenshot from student portal and combine them in pdf)
- One file: One file contains, your cv, research statement, transcript, some selected projects and contact info
- 1-2 Friends: this is very important to surround yourself with friends than encourage you and to stay motivated!
Searching 🕵️♂️ 🕵️♀️
This is the most exhausting and time-consuming part
When you start searching, the first feeling that will come to you is (I’m lost, I don’t know what to do!) and it will stick for a while, but here is some info that will make this feeling go away and accelerate your searching to find a good project.
Let’s start searching, searching, searchingggg 🔍:
you will need to be as ORGANIZED as possible and there are three ways you can do searching
- Picking universities/labs randomly and searching for staff people and try to contact some of them (exhausting)
- GERiT – German Research Institutions: this website has all the institutes/labs in Germany!
- Searching for universities ranking, picking a range from those universities (i personally picked them in reverse order to avoid mistakes when I started searching e.g. starting from bottom up universities)
- Make a google sheet and put those universities in the sheet
- Pick one university, and explore the institutes and research labs in the uni.
- Select the research labs that interest you and put them in the sheet (you may need them later on)
- Finding available projects/theses that they are offering. you might find them on
- Research: they give you a description of the current research and projects
- Teaching: they list it as student projects or bachelor/master theses
- People: some people from the lab offer the project on their personal pages of the lab, so you might check some people and check their work and project too!
- Put the selected project on the sheet along with the contact person
- Update the status of universities and people you contacted.
- why? some people might not reply to you, so you may check after 2-3 weeks if they didn’t reply, you can then contact other people from the same group!
- Move to other universities and repeat! :D
- Searching though Google, Google Scholar and ResearchGate for a particular project/topic/person in specific city
- You may also use GUC Research Journal to find previous colleague’s supervisors
- Search for this word: ctrl + f => “System System System”
- You may also use GUC Research Journal to find previous colleague’s supervisors
- (Optionally), You can check the people I am following on twitter, most of them are great researchers and professors (I have talked with some of them). :))
Contacting & Email Writing 📧
Prestigious part and time for showing-off!
So now it’s time to prepare what you are going to write and how to start communicating, first you will need to visit the project/person page and try to discover if they require some docs (cv, transcript, research statement, …), how to contact them and how often they respond to emails or if they want you to write for their secretary or if there is a specific application that you should fill before contacting anyone. You should read these instructions carefully before you write an email
Now, Time to distinguish yourself from anyone else !!
you & all your friends probably have done the same previous steps, the only thing that will distinguish between you is how you will contact the people and your style of typing and expressing is the key for an initial approval!
I will only give you some tips to write a good email but you will need to improvise and express your interest and experience on your own
- DO NOT USE A TEMPLATE !! instead try to personalize the email as much as you can
- briefly introduce yourself and why you’re writing the email
- SHOW GREAT INTEREST in the person work & research
- if possible and you are really super interested, you might read a paper that he/she published and discuss briefly why you liked it
- Express why did you select this particular project and what are you aiming to do in the project.
- Try to write some of your biggest acheivements along with some cool catchy projects you have done before!
- Try to be nice in your writing style and End the email with a thank you
Some people read your email and response in one week, others take time 2-3 week but if you want to check if they read it or not, you can write a follow up email. Some people might forget about your email or forget to response (it happened to me and got a response after ONE month! 😂), but that’s totally normal. we are all humans!
Interviewing 🗣
If you are lucky, you may not even go through this part
Some people after reading your email, might be interested to know more about you and discuss with you a couple of projects and your background and why you contacted them.
DO NOT WORRY, this is not a technical interview or something like that, it’s just to get to know you more and have a nice conversation with you.
The important part is to try asking all the questions you might have and also get to know your professor and his background and the team you will be working with along with the environment there and also, if you need to prepare yourself to learn more about a specific topic.
Acceptance 🎉
following up with the email response or the interview, you will be (99%) sure that you are accepted and will receive an invitation letter in the coming weeks!
Voilà, time to celebrate! 🎉 🕺 💃🏻 🎊
and start preparing yourself for an amazing journey!
After Acceptance 🤔
Get accepted for 3-5 projects, to have the freedom of choice
I would recommend you to reach a couple of people and try to find the best project that suits you well, the best senario is to get accepted in a couple of projects and try to figure out with one will be great for you, along with the environemt, the people who will be with you, the city you will be visiting, etc…
Because, In some cases, you might not be able to continue with this researcher as the project might get canceled or someone who might supervise you leave the research lab and so on. ALWAYS have a (PLAN B).
Travel Preparation 🛤 ✈️
Time to prepare your visa and tickets! ✈️ 🌎
If this is your first time traveling abroad, you will be confused and have a lot of questions. What is important is to prepare your passport and if you don’t have one, try to get it early. Also, preparing money for the blocked account and opening up the bank account and verify your identity.
Most probably, GUC will help you in the travel and visa process like what they did with us. but if you want to take a glance about the papers you need to prepare, see this list:
- 1 duly filled and signed visa application form
- 1 duly filled and signed instruction
- 2 recent biometric passport photos
- 1 health insurance, that covers the full stay in Germany
- 1 inviting letter of their respective university with enrollment for the selected period
- confirmation of a blocked account in Germany with 720 euro per months for the whole stay
- 1 certificate of enrollment from the Egyptian university
- passport (REMINDER: The passport has to be valid at least 3 month LONGER than the intended stay in Germany! The passport remains at the embassy until the visa is issued.) Plus 1 copy (only of pages that have entries, stamps etc.)
Acknowledgement 🙏 😄
I would like to thank all the amazing people who helped me during the process and answered all my annoying questions. Thank you (Mohamed Al-morsi Al-shaer, Omar Kojak, Mahmoud Dagher, Mohab Tarek, Mazen Tarek, Ahmed Tawfik, Mostafa A. Elmenabawy)
A special thanks to my best friends (Mahmoud Saad, Ahmed Rafeek, Mohsen Gaafer, Ahmed Adel, Abdullah Elkady, Abd El Rhman El-Moghazy, Mohamed Ibrahim, Abdalrhman Mahdy, Marawan Azmy) who supported me during the 7th semester (I wouldn’t have passed the semester without your help) and encourage me all the time!