Thesis or Internship Project

Civil Engineering

Theoretical-practical classes of exposition, discussion, analysis and decision. During the presentation of subjects, students will be encouraged to participate actively, being encouraged to develop a technical-scientific approach to solving problems and achieving the objectives of the work. Students will be motivated to develop autonomous research work, organization and work development.

Provide a first contact with research and research methods in main fields of Civil Engineering, learning the basic knowledge and the technical-scientific approach in the development of Thesis, Project or Internship Projects.
Understanding and application of knowledge; development of skills of research, project or internship, promotion of teamwork optimization with supervision and ethics; making judgments/decision making; increased ability to communicate, to do presentations and discuss technical-scientific issues; development of critical thinking and self-learning.
Acquire skills related to the organization, development, analysis, writing and presentation of dissertation, project or internship; provide students with the skills to develop a work program, with critical capacity, initiative and motivation, to develop and present innovative and techno-scientifically relevant solutions.

1 – Dissertation, Project, and Internship:

– Introduction to the preparation, presentation, and discussion of dissertations, projects, and internships;

– Supervision and guidance of the work;

– Relevance of research in selecting the work topic and defining objectives;

– Planning the methodology, tasks to be performed, and financial resources;

– Ethics and deontology.

2 – Research and Thesis or Internship Project:

– Motivation and proactive attitude;

– Relationship with supervisors and the work/research team;

– Efficient bibliographic research strategies;

– Approach to analyzing results;

– Oral presentation (multimedia documents and oral presentation).

3 – Productivity Techniques and Tools:

– Structuring and writing dissertations, scientific articles, or technical reports;

– Digital productivity tools that promote the dissemination of work;

– Develop, present, and discuss research results through scientific articles and/or conference papers;

– The role of AI tools in work productivity;

– The role of conclusions and results in achieving objectives.

Assessment will be based on individual project work (thesis project or internship), graded on a 20-point scale, to be developed throughout the semester. The work will include the definition of the topic, objectives, methodology, and resources to be used. The projects are to be carried out individually and will be presented and discussed orally throughout the classes. The formatting of the thesis project or internship report must comply with the guidelines specified by the teaching staff.

Assessment will comprise three components/stages, with specific deadlines defined by the teaching staff for each stage:

1 - 10%: Presentation of the topic, general objective, type of work, supervisors, initial research justifying the relevance of the topic, and the hypotheses underlying the specific objectives.

2 - 20%: Definition of the research, project, or internship questions associated with the specific objectives, properly justified and supported by an detailed literature review.

3 - 70%: Final presentation of the work (oral and written), including all the components described above, together with a structured literature review and the methodology, including a work plan structured into detailed tasks and presented in a timeline, identification of the necessary resources, and an outline of the expected results and contributions.

Failure to meet the deadlines defined by the teaching staff for each stage will result in the following penalties:

1) Full loss of the corresponding mark (2 points);
2) Full loss of the corresponding mark (4 points);
3) 2 points (2/14 points); if the student fails to submit and present the final work by the deadline required for the submission of grades, a mark of zero will be awarded for the final assessment stage.

Students who choose a research project with the aim of developing a dissertation are encouraged to prepare and submit a scientific paper (literature review), which will be taken into consideration in the final grade.

Students who choose a project or internship are encouraged to prepare a concise technical report, including a literature review of the selected topic, focusing on the objectives and providing a summary of the proposed methodology. This report will also be taken into consideration in the final grade.

To pass the course, students must obtain a minimum final grade of 9.5 out of 20.

NAO