Only one supervisor but two reference letters required I am in the last year of my Master in Physics, I am writing the Master Thesis and I am looking around for some PhD positions. It is something totally new for me.  I have seen that people in general require 2 reference letters.
The problem is that the only person who knows me well is my supervisor of the Master Thesis. I got good grades in general in the courses but I do not think the other professors know, or remember,  who I am.
I do not think I can ask also my professors of the Bachelor (I did it in another University), with whom I had anyway a good relationship, because I finished it three years ago.
So my idea was to contact a professor of my university, or of other universities, and maybe ask if I can do a &quot;mini master thesis&quot; or a project or something, so that he/she can understand that I am motivated and so on, and eventually can write for me a recommendation letter. What do you think?
For the second letter find someone who knows you well enough and has a high enough opinion of your work that they can recommend you without qualification. They need to make a prediction about your future success. Someone recent is better but absent that, an older relationship should work, generally. And someone in academia is better than someone else.
But there is probably no reason to delay your application to do another project. At worst, you could apply in parallel with starting another project as a backup.
Note, however, that my perspective is US, not Germany.