The Role of the Tutor
The Master's degree programme in Energy Science and Technology (MEST) is a tutor driven programme, meaning that each student is supervised by a tutor. New students choose their tutor before the start of the first semester.
The tutor:
- supports the student in planning their individualised curriculum and completing the Tutor/Learning Agreement;
- supervises the semester project or the master thesis (these should be supervised by two different Professors).
- may help the student with questions concerning the industrial internship.
Furthermore, tutors will coach their students throughout the programme, monitoring their progress and, if required, propose any necessary measures to enhance their performance.
Tutor Selection Process
As soon as a place on the MEST programme has been confirmed, each new student is invited to submit the names of three possible tutors in preference order. The student will have made this selection based on the tutors' research and teaching activities, ensuring that there is an overlap of interests.
The list of available tutors can be found on our Tutors page. The student sends their prioritised list of preferred tutors to the Energy Science Center (ESC) who, in turn, contacts the tutors in the prioritised order. If a tutor accepts, the ESC confirms this to the student before the semester starts. In the rare event that none of the three tutors accept, the ESC contacts the student directly to find an alternate tutor.
Once a tutor has been confirmed, the student must contact the tutor prior to the start of the first semester to make an appointment to plan their academic programme with them.
Exceptionally, and with the agreement of both the original tutor and the new one, a student can change their tutor.
If this happens, the student should email Dr. Christian Schaffner (ESC Executive Director) with a Cc to Katharina Bosina (Responsible for teaching activities at the ESC) and the D-ITET Coordinator of Studies Reto Kreuzer, and update their Tutor/Learning Agreement accordingly.
Additional guidance can be gained from the D-ITET Student Office.
Tutor/Learning Agreement
The Tutor/Learning Agreement is an individualised study plan, listing the courses (both compulsory and elective) that the student will take during the MEST programme.
The compulsory courses must be selected from the courses offered.
The elective courses can be freely chosen, in agreement with the tutor, from any energy-related courses on offer at ETH Zurich.
None of the other credit categories of the MEST programme - the Science in Perspective (D-GESS) courses, the semester project, the internship, and the master thesis - are included in the Tutor/Learning Agreement.
MEST students, together with their tutor, need to complete the Tutor/Learning Agreement within the first four weeks of the first semester. The Tutor/Learning Agreement is updated online via myStudies following these guidelines: DownloadMEST myStudies Tutor/Learning Agreement (PDF, 1.1 MB)vertical_align_bottom