Opleiding: Master's Thesis Actuarial Science and Mathematical Finance

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Writing an academic paper in which a research question is developed and analysed through original empirical and/or theoretical research, supplemented with a literature review. Such a Master's thesis has the following components:

• A research question with a thorough explanation why this question is of interest;
• a discussion of relevant literature related to the research question;
• an overview of relevant methods in the literature to analyse the research question;
• a more detailed description of the methodology used in the thesis;
• a synthesis analysing the research question based on the methods described;
• a section summarising the conclusions of the research.

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Registration for the Master's thesis is mandatory.

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Starting with the thesis

As a first step a student approaches the thesis coordinator with a draft of a thesis plan. A thesis plan should contain the following items:

• Research question: a central research question with several sub-questions;
• explanation of the research question (basically the introduction to the thesis);
• a short description of related theory and a preliminary list of references;
• suggestions for tackling the problem and research methods by sub question: for example literature study, data collection, model building, statistical analysis, application of existing software, market research and so on;
• draft of table of contents of the thesis;
• time schedule specifying concrete intermediate goals.

The thesis coordinator appoints a staff member as the first supervisor as well as a second assessor. The thesis plan is fine-tuned in cooperation with the first supervisor.

Supervision period

A student is entitled to supervision for a period of six months after the start of the thesis. After this period no supervision will take place, and just once the students may ask what remains to be done to get a passing grade for the thesis.

At the end of the process

• There is no defence of the thesis, the process is finished with handing in the final version;
• the final version of the thesis will be made available on UvA Scripties Online;
• if the thesis contains confidential material the student may request to delay the publication for three years (six in exceptional cases) or hand in a restricted but parallel version of the thesis;
• the first supervisor determines which of the elements below will be considered in the evaluation of the thesis and how it is weighted. The student has a right to be informed about this at an early stage and also to get an explanation of the evaluation in the end. For the thesis itself, the following elements are considered: statement of the research problem, structure, originality, choice and processing of the literature, choice and processing of the research methods, quality of the analysis, quality of the conclusion, use of language and technical presentation. The attitude of students will be judged on the basis of: independence, pace of work, handling suggestions, contacts with supervisor and possibly other elements to be specified;
• the first supervisor determines the mark, the second reader may suggest an adjustment, limited in principle to a half point. After the final version is handed in the verdict (passing mark / revise) should be given within four weeks;
• the thesis evaluation form must be filled in by the supervisor, discussed (if needed) with the student and handed to the UvA Economics and Business Student Administration which will register the grade;
• UvA Economics and Business uses software to detect plagiarism (Ephorus).

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Deadlines 2018-2019 academic year

The thesis has two deadlines per semester:

Semester 1: 15 December 2018 (exam) and 15 January 2019 (resit);
Semester 2: 15 July 2019 (exam) and 15 August 2019 (resit).
If you do not hand in your thesis in time by the first deadline or your grade is insufficient, you will have to hand in your thesis no later than the second deadline. Moreover, if you have missed the first deadline, you are not entitled to an extra resit. You can retry next semester. Missing both deadlines in summer means that you will have to comply with the new deadlines set in the 2018-2019 academic year. For each deadline missed a NA-grade will be registered.

Registration date for the grade

The grade can only be registered on the exam date or on the resit date. If you hand in your thesis before the deadline you will have to wait for registration until this deadline. Make sure you stay enrolled for your Master’s programme up to and including this deadline.

Opmerkingen

The Master's thesis will be written in English, unless thesis coordinator and supervisor agree otherwise.

Unless permitted otherwise by the thesis coordinator, the thesis should be typeset in LaTeX. Visit the site Master's Thesis Actuarial Science and Mathematical Finance on Canvas to find information on how to obtain the software MiKTeX/TeXworks that can be used as well as a template for the thesis.

As a guideline, a Master's Thesis Actuarial Science and Mathematical Finance should contain 25 to 40 pages, excluding tables and appendices.

The thesis may be combined with an internship. The activities performed during the internship are used in writing the thesis, e.g. results from interviews, observations or desk research. The performance at the internship will not in any way influence the grade for the thesis.