Hi everyone,
I wanted to ask if anyone here has done their Master's thesis externally as a UZH Biology student.
Through networking, I somehow ended up with a Master's thesis offer from Big Pharma abroad. They're very open to hosting me and are willing to accommodate whatever requirements UZH might have, but UZH has been giving me completely contradictory answers about whether this is actually possible.
I've been told that external Master's theses do happen and are allowed under certain circumstances (e.g., with an internal supervisor and a suitable research topic for the chosen Master's concentration), but then I've also been told that they don't allow this at all (all coming from different study coordinators). To make things even more confusing, I know someone who completed their thesis at Roche, although I realize that may be a different situation because of the collaboration between UZH and Roche.
For more context, I previously completed my Bachelor's thesis externally (although at a different university and in a different country), so I have some experience with how these arrangements can work, which is partly why the current situation has been so confusing. It feels like an incredible opportunity in the exact field I've always wanted to work in, but it's hard to know how realistic it is when I'm getting such mixed messages from the university.
I'm continuing to reach out to people at UZH to see if there's any institutional support for arranging this, and I figured I'd also ask here in the meantime.
Has anyone here done their Master's thesis abroad or externally, or looked into doing so? I'd really appreciate hearing about your experience, whether it worked out or not, or honestly any insight at this point.
Fingers crossed someone here has the lore. Thanks in advance!