Former student in Software Engineering and Manament
Samaneh Tork Abadi from Iran was when the interview was made a third-year student in the bachelor’s programme in Software Engineering and Management.
What I like most with the programme is the bridge you get to industry.
Team work and project-oriented education
‘The education at the BSc programme in Software Engineering and Management is highly project-oriented and prepares students technically and socially to be part of an international team in a company’, says Samaneh.
‘The problem based way of learning at the programme was a bit of a shock to me first. In problem based learning the responsibility is on your own and nobody tells you how to solve things. But the teachers and supervisors monitor the work to make sure that the students are on the right track. I have also been lucky to study in a very friendly environment and have nice classmates. We have shared the knowledge and helped each other a lot’, says Samaneh.
'In the fourth semester the whole class was working in the same project, to make us learn how to work in a large scale project, says Samaneh. We were almost 40 people divided into several subgroups and the success of the project depended on the success of all groups. There was a lot of interaction and communication going on between the groups in order to integrate the output and solve the problems. Just as in real life’.
Well prepared for working life
‘You get well prepared for working life on this programme’, says Samaneh. Almost everything when it comes to IT is about team work, and then you have to handle the problem of cultural differences, different working habits and people’s different ways of expressing themselves.’
‘It was difficult for me to handle all the cultural differences when I started at this programme. I had group mates from four different nationalities in the first semester. But we learned how to cooperate and we overcome the difficulties. That is how you have to do it when you start working on your first job.’
‘Now I appreciate the problem-based learning methodology. You get far more independent this way and I start looking for my own solutions automatically, you learn to think in a creative way.’
‘But you have to find your own driving force. If you are motivated there are almost no limits for how much you can learn on this programme – on the other hand there is no one to push you if you don’t do it yourself.’
Theory followed by practice
In an ordinary semester there are 15 credits divided into two or three theoretical courses and 15 credits which are allocated for project work. Students learn specific concepts from the theoretical courses and then apply their knowledge during the project course.
‘You can say that we are forced not only to learn things, but also to understand how to use our new knowledge hands on – that’s a difference from many other programmes.’
Interview: Catharina Jerkbrant, 2011
In 2022 Samaneh Utter (new surname) is working at Amazon Web Services, after a long row other interesting employments, of which several within Volvo and Volvo IT.