The students are able to acquire knowledge of a new topic by autonomously studying suitable literature.

The students are able to present their topic in a way comprehensible for their fellow students who have not studied the topic themselves.

The students pick up new mathematical concepts from presentations of their fellow students.

The students gain experience in working in teams, and presenting their work in several ways.

The students are able to present newly acquired mathematical knowledge orally and in a written form.

Important Note: The presence at the seminar sessions is compulsory for all students taking part in the seminar. The students are expected to actively participate in the lectures of other groups.

The Master Seminar is divided in two parts:
- First semester: small groups
- Second semester: two large groups

An important component of the Master seminar, which should take place during the first term, will be to lay out the organisation of the entire MSc programme for each individual student. This will be done in one or two meetings of the student with the study advisor and the programme director, leading to a written plan for the rest of the programme.



First semester

Choice of the topic

There will be a list of topics suggested by staff members, providing a short introduction, a guide to the literature and suggestions of issues to address.
A group of students can also propose their own topic, if approved by the instructors.
Students will be divided in groups of 2-4 people according to the preferences that they expressed on the topic to study.


Preparing the presentations

Each group will work together on studying the material as a team. The members will benefit from each other's strengths. They themselves should decide how deep they dig into the subject and which specific questions they address. In case of questions, they are welcome to ask assistance from staff members (including postdocs and PhD-students). There will be no coaching on a regular basis.

Each student is responsible to carefully plan and prepare their own 45 minute presentation and to hand in a 1-2 page planning of their lecture to the instructors one day before the lecture. The presentations of the group have to be coherent (notation, story). The goal is to provide an attractive and accessible series of lectures for your peers.
To give the students more occasions to improve their presentations, each group will practice their presentations with another group that will provide feedback for improvement.


After the presentations

After the presentations are given, each student will write a self-evaluation of their talk based on the video recording, on the anonymous feedback from the students, and on the feedback from the instructors. This self-evaluation will be carefully read by the instructors. Moreover, the entire group will prepare a report in a unique LaTeX file summarizing the mathematics presented in their talks. This file will be revised by students of another group, who will be responsible to make sure that the material presented during the talks was
understandable and coherent with what was presented in the report.



Second semester

There is one main difference with the format of the first semester: students will be divided into two large groups (pure and applied), depending on what track they chose. Each group will work on a specific and rather substantial piece of literature (e.g. a recent monograph or survey paper). The goal is then to organize a mini-course of 1 hour per week around this topic, taught by the students themselves.

As for the first semester, students are expected to study the material together, but each one is responsible for their own presentation that has to be nevertheless coherent with the others. To give the students more occasions to improve their presentations, each person will practice their presentations with several other students who will provide feedback for improvement.

After the presentations are given, each student will write a self-evaluation of their talk based on the video recording, on the anonymous feedback from the students, and on the feedback from the instructors. This self-evaluation will be carefully read by the instructors.

Moreover, each student will prepare a report summarizing the mathematics presented in their talk. This file will be revised by other students, who will be responsible to make sure that the material presented during the talks was understandable and coherent with what was presented in the report.