Final state examination

The final state examination is the conclusive examination of the bachelor degree taken after the successful fulfillment of necessary credit values and study requirements. Along with the bachelor thesis defense it constitutes the legal basis for the award of your bachelor title.

Questions are based on the following sections of these courses:

The final examination is in written form (anonymized PC exam), consists of 2 fields (International Relations; European Politics - graded separately), and 8 questions (4+4) reflecting the content of key compulsory courses of the bachelor program.

The duration of the exam is set to a maximum of 3 hours. The exam results in two grades. These are averaged with the thesis defense grade to form the final examination grade.

Here is a list of sections with model questions you would find on the actual written exam.

Required literature is suggested at the bottom of every section.

Required literature forms the basis but is not all-encompassing nor does it fully reflect the content of lectures within the given course.

All literature relevant to state exams is available after sign-in to graduating students here.

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Thesis defence - What to expect

The thesis defence unfolds as follows:
Students introduce their thesis to the committee - rationale, how they proceeded, findings, and what may have been challenging (approx. 3-5 minutes)
The supervisor and reviewer summarize their reviews of the thesis for the committee and pose questions (approx. 3-5 minutes)
Students address comments from the reviews, starting from the most serious ones and making their way to the questions (approx. 5-10 minutes)
Once the reviews are sufficiently addressed, the floor opens to questions from the committee regarding the larger context of the thesis (approx. 5-10 minutes)

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