Course memo for prosamm17
(for students starting the Computer science master's program in 2017)
Intended learning outcomes
On completion of the course, the students should be able to:
- compare different workplaces and professions relevant to computer scientists,
- critically review and reflect in a deeper way over both the set-up and implementation of the education as well as the situation of the studies,
- plan and carry out assignments within stipulated time,
- identify their need of additional knowledge and continuously develop their skills in relation to the objective of the course and the future professional role
in order to
- obtain the most of the education in a long-term perspective,
- influence the development of the program.
Pedagogic setup
The Program integrating course runs through both years of the Master's program in computer science at KTH. The course uses reflections as the main educational instrument.
You will learn why the compulsory courses are compulsory in the program and how these relate to each other, how you should select courses and specialization to become well-prepared for your future employment, and how to study to gain the most from the program.
The program integrating course each year simply consists of four one-hour seminars in groups of about a dozen first and second year students, together with a professor as a mentor. Since the program is quite large there are 24 parallel groups and 12 professors as mentors.
Each seminar has a topic, some links to texts to read or videos to look at, and some questions to think about. You will write a reflection on the topic and also on your current courses and studies. Thereafter you will should read and comment the other students' reflections and discuss them at a seminar.
In period 2 each year, you will do a study visit at a Swedish IT company before the seminar.
Detailed schedule
Academic year 2017/2018
Period 1
Lecture
Introduction to the course and the master's program.
Lecture
Introduction to studies at KTH.
This lecture is only for students who have not studied at KTH before.
Reflection seminar 1
Topic: The computer science master's program.
D-dagen Career fair at Nymble
Period 2
Information
Information about elective specializations and courses.
Study visit
Reflection seminar 2
Topic: The study visit.
Period 3
Reflection seminar 3
Topic: International opportunities and contexts.
Program meeting (programkollegium) of the Master of science in engineering program
(only for students of civilingenjörsprogrammet i Datateknik)
Varje teknolog och lärare är välkommen att diskutera programmets nutid och framtid.
Period 4
Information
Information about the final year of the program: courses and degree project.
Reflection seminar 4 including a questionnaire on the education
Topic: The education in retrospect and life-long learning.
Academic year 2018/2019
Period 1
Lecture
Introduction to the second year of the master's program.
Reflection seminar 5
Topic: The computer science master's program revisited.
Period 2
Information
Information about the degree project (exjobb).
Study visit 2
Reflection seminar 6
Topic: The study visit.
Period 3
Reflection seminar 7
Topic: Getting specialized knowledge in certain areas of the field: the track and the degree project.
Program meeting (programkollegium) of the Master of science in engineering program
(only for students of civilingenjörsprogrammet i Datateknik)
Period 4
Reflection seminar 8 including a questionnaire on the education
Topic: Scientific, social and ethical aspects of computer science.
Examination
The course has two Ladok components: UPP1 and UPP2, each of size 1 hp.
UPP1 consists of the four seminars during the first year and UPP2 consists of the four seminars during the second year.
For each reflection seminar you have to pass the following:
- write a reflection document, fulfilling the requirements,
- comment other reflection documents of the group,
- participate actively in the seminar.
There are three results in Canvas corresponding to these three requirements, marked "hand-in", "comments" and "seminar". You will need a "P" (passing grade) for each of them.
The seminar instructions might specify some other small tasks as well, such as a study visit or answering a questionnaire. These tasks are mandatory.
For more information regarding these requirements and how to do if you miss one of them, read below.
The reflection seminars
There are eight mandatory 50-minute reflection seminars in the course. See the detailed schedule for the entire list. The instructions for each seminar will be placed in the sub-menu to "Seminars" one week before the deadline for posting the reflection document. In the reflection seminars, you will meet in groups of about a dozen students and a computer science teacher (mentor). Half of the students are studying in their first year of the Master's program and half of the students are studying their second year.
Before each seminar, you need to do the following
- Read the instructions for the seminar.
- Read the material that you are asked to read about the topic for the seminar. There may also be some videos to view.
- Write a reflection document, answering and reflecting on the questions of the seminar. Use any document format that can be converted to a Google Document (for example .txt, .doc, .docx, .rtf or .html) and name the file for example My-Name-prosamm-period-Y. The document should be between 500 and 600 words and written in English. You may also be asked to fill in a questionnaire or perform some other task.
- Make your Google document readable and commentable by others.
Put the URL to the Google document in a text file in your group's seminar directory. The name of the file should be your first name dash second name, without any dots or accents. Example: if your name is Håkan Idé the file name should be Hakan-Ide
Here is a video showing the exact uploading steps Links to an external site.
- Read the reflection documents of the other group members and write at least one comment in six of them. You may choose which six group members you like, as long as there are at least two from year 1 (prosamm17) and two from year 2 (prosamm16) among them. You also have to comment on a comment in your own document (if there is any). The comments should have some sort of content, not just "I agree".
- Read the other group members' comments on your document.
After these preparations, you should go to the seminar and actively discuss the topic.
One of the intended learning outcomes of the course is that you should plan and carry out assignments within the stipulated time. Therefore it is very important that you submit the reflection documents and comment on the other documents on time.
What if you don't want to share your reflections with Google Docs?
If you don't want to submit your reflections as a Google document you should put both your reflection document and your comments of the other documents on the group's seminar directory. Then use PDF as the document format and name the files Hakan-Ide.pdf and comments-by-Hakan-Ide.pdf (if your name is Håkan Idé). Each comment will then need to cite the part of the document that it comment. When the group members comment Hakan-Ide.pdf they should write the comment in a file named Hakan-Ide-comments-by-Firstname-Surname.txt or Hakan-Ide-comments-by-Firstname-Surname.pdf, depending on if they would like to use text format or PDF, where the group member's name is Firstname Surname.
What if you cannot participate in the seminar?
If you know in advance that you will not be able to participate in the seminar, you should in good time contact the administrative course co-ordinator (viggo@kth.se), who will then try to find a time with a different group. If this is not possible, you have to write a two-page reflection on the others' reflections instead and mail it (as a PDF document) to your mentor.
You must still submit your reflection document on time and comment on the other documents.
What happens if you do not submit your reflection document on time?
The course is based on everyone submitting their reflection documents on time. If you do not, you have to write a double length reflection (at least 1000 words) and mail it to your mentor (as well as putting it in Google Docs etc. in the usual way).
What happens if you do not comment on the other documents on time?
If you have not commented (relevantly) on six of the other documents on time, you will need to do this later, and also comment on every comment the other group members have made in your own document. If there are no comments of your own document, you will need to write a relevant comment in each of the others' (i.e. all group members') documents, which might be a comment of a comment. Collect the URLs to all documents you commented and mail them to your mentor.
What if you study abroad?
If you are studying abroad for a period, you should carry out the reflection seminar tasks remotely. Then you get the chance to share your experiences of the exchange studies with the rest of the group.
Pay attention to when it is time for submission of reflection documents of the course. In addition to the usual reflection, you should reflect on the exchange studies, if possible in the context of the topic of the seminar. You should write a little more than usual (about 800 words), but on the other hand, you won't need to participate in the reflection seminar. You will of course still read and comment on the other group members' reflection documents. Your mentor will report the results as if you had participated in the seminar. Add a note at the top of the reflection that you are reflecting on your exchange studies instead of attending the seminar.
If you are on exchange studies during period 2 you should try to organize your own study visit in the city where you study. You should visit an IT company or IT research group at the university, and the visit should last between 20 and 60 minutes. If it is not possible to find a study visit you will have to do an extra assignment described in the instructions to the seminar in period 2.
Literature
No textbook. The course material will be found on the course web and in the Canvas activity of the course.
Mentors and groups
12 teachers act as mentors for the 24 groups at the seminars. There are different groups during fall and spring. During fall the groups are numbered 1-24. During spring the groups are divided by tracks and are numbered 101-124. You will find your group in Canvas when the first seminar is published.
Groups during fall 2018
| Group numbers | Mentor | Division |
| 1-2 | Örjan Ekeberg | CST |
| 3-4 | Cyrille Artho | TCS |
| 5-6 | Tino Weinkauf | CST |
| 7-8 | Mads Dam | TCS |
| 9-10 | Viggo Kann | TCS |
| 11-12 | Mårten Björkman | RPL |
| 13-14 | Stefan Nilsson | TCS |
| 15-16 | Joakim Gustafson | TMH |
| 17-18 | Sten Ternström | TMH |
| 19-20 | Christian Smith | RPL |
| 21-22 | Danica Kragic | RPL |
| 23-24 | Sonja Buchegger | TCS |
Groups during spring 2019
| Group | Track - subtrack | Mentor |
| 101 | individual track, bioinformatics, scientific computing | Örjan Ekeberg |
| 102 | software technology - software engineering | Örjan Ekeberg |
| 103 | software technology - software engineering | Cyrille Artho |
| 104 | software technology - software engineering | Cyrille Artho |
| 105 | visualization and interactive graphics | Tino Weinkauf |
| 106 | visualization and interactive graphics | Tino Weinkauf |
| 107 | computer security | Mads Dam |
| 108 | theoretical computer science | Mads Dam |
| 109 | natural language processing | Viggo Kann |
| 110 | algorithms, complexity, cryptography, programming languages | Viggo Kann |
| 111 | machine learning | Mårten Björkman |
| 112 | vision and robotics | Mårten Björkman |
| 113 | software technology - programming languages | Stefan Nilsson |
| 114 | software technology - programming languages | Stefan Nilsson |
| 115 | cognitive systems, conversational systems | Joakim Gustafson |
| 116 | software technology - software engineering | Joakim Gustafson |
| 117 | software technology- software engineering | Sten Ternström |
| 118 | interaction design | Sten Ternström |
| 119 | data science - machine learning | Christian Smith |
| 120 | software technology- software engineering | Christian Smith |
| 121 | data science - machine learning | Danica Kragic |
| 122 | data science - machine learning | Danica Kragic |
| 123 | computer security | Sonja Buchegger |
| 124 | computer security | Sonja Buchegger |
On the course web, on the page Rooms for seminars, you can read instructions on how to find the rooms used for the seminars.
Code of Honor
There is a code of honor for students and teachers at all courses and programs given by the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer science. Every student should have read this code of honor.
Course evaluation and course analysis
One of the intended learning outcomes of the course is:
|
critically review and reflect in a deeper way over both the set-up and implementation of the education as well as the situation of the studies |
At each seminar during the whole course, it will be possible to present your opinions on any course or part of the education. At the end of each academic year, a mandatory evaluation questionnaire will be sent out. The results of the questionnaire will be analyzed by the course coordinator and a course analysis will be published on the course web.