“Courses in the humanities provided a great deal of insight”
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Hello there, Gabriella Hammarin, a graduate of the Master’s Programme in Sociotechnical Systems Engineering in 2012 and currently working on game development for interactive entertainment company King in Stockholm:
What is your job at King?
“I’m Senior Quality Analyst in the Candy Crush Soda Saga team. That means that I work with game testing and quality control among other things. I hadn’t considered working in computer gaming until after a few years of working life. When I did apply for the position, I had enough breadth and depth of knowledge to switch to the gaming industry, despite not having read any game development courses.”
What was your experience of the Master’s Programme in Sociotechnical Systems Engineering?
“STSE is a technology whose time has come, these systems are everywhere in our increasingly high-tech and globalised world and it is important to be able to see the big picture in different situations. I would also like to put a word in for all of the knowledge one gains through studying engineering and science subjects, in terms of how knowledge develops and how research is actually conducted. I think it’s really great to stay on top of which information and sources you can trust."
"It’s also a really enjoyable programme. STSE offers a rather unique opportunity to read both engineering and the humanities. Courses in the humanities provided a great deal of insight and important perspectives that might otherwise be somewhat more uncommon when teaching engineering. Of course, technology is never independent of people and society.”
Gabriella uses to test code.
Photo: Private
What have you carried with you from your education?
“If I were to highlight one thing specifically, it would be the ability to analyse and figure out what needs to be done. In reality, there are rarely predefined tasks and off-the-shelf methods. Much of the knowledge from the programme is very universal, especially the overview of technological development. I find that knowledge of programming, optimisation and statistics and probability is extremely useful even outside work.”
Tell us about a favourite memory from your time studying in Uppsala.
“How am supposed to pick just one! Perhaps Reccegasken [formal student party] 2007, or the first exam, when the older students gave us muffins, or working on UTN’s [Uppsala Union of Engineering and Science Students] new songbook for Jubileumsgasken 2012, arranging a UTN Saint Lucia Day procession and baking saffron buns for 400 people, or the warm Walpurgis week we spent sitting on a sofa outside Pollax eating cinnamon buns and watching the river rafting... there are so many memories!”
Lovisa Svensson