Practical Training in the Master's Phase

From Coursework to Independent Research Projects

The comprehensive education that our students receive in the Masters phase is designed to balance theoretical knowledge with practical experience. We believe in learning by doing! While the first-year places emphasis on learning the fundamental subjects required to understand and delve deeper into the field of Matter to Life, the second-year prepares our students to conduct their own research in this field. Exposure to cutting edge research done at any of our faculty labs and an opportunity to learn dry and/or wet lab/ computational techniques is guaranteed during the second year of your masters.

Lab Rotations

The third semester (six month) is dedicated to working on an interlinked project in two different labs, thus diversifying the repertoire of techniques the students can learn. Projects can either be self-designed by the students or chosen from those proposed by fellows. The uniqueness of this set up is that a scientific question will be probed from two disparate perspectives aligned with the expertise of the fellow, and the student foments the interdisciplinarity.

Master Thesis

The final semester of the Masters involves completion of a scientific project under the guidance of a faculty fellow, and summarizing your findings as the master thesis. Students will gain experience in designing scientific projects and experiments, technical proficiency and methodological competency, trouble shooting, interpreting results, and in general applying the scientific principle to the question(s) at hand. This understanding of research equips our student for success in their PhD phase.

Mobility Window and Support

During the lab rotations and Master thesis, students may be required to move to other cities depending on their choice of supervisor. Financial support that covers the moving costs is provided.

International internships or collaborations with groups based outside of Germany are also supported. Lab rotation projects wherein the collaboration partner is located abroad is possible, and this can be organized with prior agreement with the student coordinator. Travel expenses will be reimbursed in accordance with the applicable travel expense regulations. An individual monthly foreign allowance is paid to cover the additional costs of the stay abroad.

For questions and clarifications regarding such arrangements, please contact the Masters program coordinator, Dr. Dharanija Madhavan (mattertolife@maxplanckschools.de), or scientific coordinator, Dr. Nadja Miosga (nadja.miosga1@uni-goettingen.de).  You can find more information regarding the recognition guidelines in the Examination regulations (section 9).