Final state examination

The final state examination is the conclusive examination of the Master's degree taken after the successful fulfilment of necessary credit values and study requirements. Along with the Master's thesis defence it constitutes the legal basis for the award of your MA title.

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State exams in the IREP Master’s programme consist of three parts:

Master’s thesis defence, and two state exam subjects (International Relations and European Politics).

Master’s thesis defence.

You will be asked to introduce your thesis in 10 minutes. Preferably, you distil the core of the thesis by presenting your topic, the method you used for analysis and highlighting your results. Your supervisor and second reader will report, and you will be asked to discuss comments and questions that are implied by their reports (which you will have read beforehand, these are provided before the exam). The whole committee will subsequently have the opportunity to discuss your thesis with you.

State exam

Members of the committee will then draw on the topic lists and formulate questions connecting the thesis and broad discussion topic of the state exam. The aim is not to rehash compulsory courses but to have an expert discussion that will demonstrate overall general knowledge and capability to connect theoretical and empirical aspects of the discipline. As much as possible the discussion will be formulated in terms of the Master’s thesis.

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