All students who intend to graduate must submit a thesis. If the thesis is not submitted by the stated deadline, the student will be unable to graduate in the expected term.

The thesis must be submitted as a PDF exclusively through the submission system. Do not submit it by email or send physical copies directly to advisors or the department office.

At the time of submission, the thesis should be substantially complete. The only section that may remain incomplete is the Discussion, which can be completed after the Greenlight Evaluation (thesis evaluation) and before the final defense.

⚠️ If a thesis is not submitted for review or is missing substantial content, it will not be reviewed. Consequently, the student will not be permitted to proceed to the final defense and will be unable to graduate in the expected term.

Other graduation requirements include completing the required course credits. Further details will be provided by the department office.

The topic presentation is a short presentation to introduce all the faculty to your interest. From the feedback you receive, you can finalize your final topic and decide which professors might best fit your committee.

• You may present any topic of your choice. The topic might change after the feedback or later in the process.

• The presentation is 10 minutes long, followed by a 5-minute Q&A session.

• The presentation is free-format, but typically a PPT is expected.

• If you use slides on the cloud (Figma or Google Docs), ensure they work well before the presentation.

• The date of the presentation and the exact schedule/order of the talks will be notified shortly prior to the designated day.

Following the topic presentation, the Master coordinator will ask each student to indicate their preferred committee members through an online form. Students may rank the professors they wish to include in their committee and are encouraged to contact the professors beforehand.

However, professors are not automatically assigned to committees, as the number of committee memberships must be evenly distributed among them.

Students may choose up to one external committee member (for example, from outside the industrial design department), but they must obtain approval from both their advisor and the external professor individually. In the committee selection form, they can simply state that such approval has been obtained.

The thesis must be submitted as a PDF exclusively through the Greenlight submission system. Do not submit it by email or send physical copies directly to advisors or the department office.

The thesis must be submitted as a PDF exclusively through the Greenlight submission system. Do not submit it by email or send physical copies directly to your advisor or the department office.

First, create an account by registering with your KAIST email address. You can then create a new submission.

A new submission includes several required fields:

• Thesis title

• Contact email address

• Student ID

• Detailed author information

• Thesis abstract

• Thesis type: Research or Development

• Progress Check Report in PDF format

Before making your final submission, you must upload your thesis as a PDF file. All fields will remain editable until you submit the thesis for review.

A note on the distinction between Research and Development theses:

• A Research thesis is a standard thesis whose primary contribution is new knowledge. It is submitted as a written paper in either English or Korean.

• A Development thesis focuses on the presentation and evaluation of an artifact, including a fully functional demonstration. It must be accompanied by a short written report, which should be uploaded as the “thesis” in the submission system.

The defense presentation is your final thesis presentation in front of your advisor committee members.

Submit the final version of your thesis using the submission system at least one week before your planned defense presentation. The submission should include a version with highlighted changes made after receiving the GreenLight, as well as a clean version without highlights for readability. The system will ask for the following material at submission:

• Final version: PDF of the final version of the thesis.

• Thesis with highlighted changes: PDF with the final thesis with the changes highlighted in the text.

• Summary of changes: a summary explain how comments from reviewers were incorporated in the final thesis.

• Optional supplementary material: any additiona material as PDF.
  
  

 The format and procedure of the defense presentation remain the same as before.

• All defense presentations will be scheduled for the same day (pre-announced by the department office). If a student or a committee member is unable to attend on such a date, the student and their advisor should independently schedule an alternative date.

• The presentation should be about between 15-20 minutes long and the Q&A session is typically between 15-20 minutes. 

• Using the KAIST Graduation system, download the appropriate graduation evaluationform and prefill it with your title and your personal information.

The final step is to submit the final thesis and printed copies to the department office within two weeks after the defense. The department office will email all students with details about the final submission requirements. Additional information can also be found on page 1 of the following form (English, Korean).