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Several Master theses in my department contain a CV of their author. I don't really see the point in doing that - anyone you're sending your thesis to that would need your CV, you'll probably be sending your CV already anyways. So why do people do that?

(I've edited this question so it's less of a 'does your university do that' kind of thing - sorry to the guys who already answered.)

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    The standard question: what is the opinion of your advisor about this? And in what field are you writing your master thesis?
    – felice
    May 24, 2017 at 8:33
  • What would you even put in there? Your high school grades and the student exchange you did back in fifth grade? If you have any uncommon things to mention (e.g. accepted publications during the masters), you might put this in. But then again, this can't be common practice, see the word "uncommon" above.
    – Dirk
    May 24, 2017 at 10:26
  • This will likely vary by country and school. The ONLY place where you'll get an accurate answer is the office of your Dean of Graduate Studies, or local equivalent.
    – Scott Seidman
    May 24, 2017 at 11:06
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    In Germany in any fields I have been related to somehow this is not common. But honestly, this is somewhat of a "shopping question" as we already have two kind of contradicting answers (Forbidden in Vienna, but common in the rest of Austria?!) and any result will only be a list of information about separate countries/fields.
    – skymningen
    May 24, 2017 at 11:23
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    @skymningen: "If someone looks at a thesis with no intention of hiring the author, they probably don't care." - is it only about hiring? When I've encountered a CV attached to a thesis, I instinctively always saw it as the equivalent of a brief presentation of the author's background as it is common e.g. in novels, especially hardcover ones.
    – O. R. Mapper
    Jan 8, 2019 at 16:44

2 Answers 2

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At the University of Vienna, it has been forbidden to add a CV to master's or PhD theses since 2016 (see e. g. here: http://web.archive.org/web/20170415151405/https://ssc-lebenswissenschaften.univie.ac.at/formulare-und-infoblaetter-download/diplom-und-masterstudium/).

Internationally, I have seen this practice very often, though I cannot see a clear advantage of it (I think most people would prefer not to look through a long thesis to find a CV, but would rather look for it on your homepage).

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  • It is also not a requirement at Texas A&M. The OP should consult their university for their rules on theses and dissertations.
    – Sean Roberson
    May 24, 2017 at 13:54
  • Well, it seems like it's only forbidden since you need to send it to a plagiarism checker. And not everyone got a homepage.
    – user64845
    May 24, 2017 at 14:04
  • As it was necessary to publish this rule, it seems that putting a CV into the thesis was common before 2016
    – arved
    May 24, 2017 at 22:33
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Here in Austria it is common practice to add it to your masters thesis and it's mandatory at most universities in a PhD thesis.

The benefit is that the reader can get some information about the author.

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    At ETH Zurich I had to add a CV to the hard copies of my PhD thesis and to remove it for the online PDF version.
    – FuzzyLeapfrog
    May 24, 2017 at 10:05

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