I often tell you about leisure activities and fun things to do in Stockholm in my blog, but I haven’t shared much about my studies yet. Time to fix that and tell you more about my study experience at KTH.
My programme is called Media Management. It focuses on developing and marketing media products and services, combining skills in media technology and business management. It also provides us with expertise in sustainability, intercultural communication, innovation and product development.
This was my dream programme for a couple of years. As I told you before, I also applied for a master’s in different countries and universities. Still, this programme at KTH was eventually one of the key reasons I chose Stockholm over London when I was provided with full scholarships to study in both cities.
Before applying to this programme, I got my bachelor’s degree in Public Relations in St. Petersburg. I also had an experience of studying abroad, as I spent a semester at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, USA studying integrated marketing communications and screenwriting. I also had several years of professional background in marketing and communications in IT and telecom, so this programme in media management at a leading technical university was a natural choice for me. And I didn’t regret it for a second!
Many of my classmates have creative backgrounds, such as graphic design or film and tv studies. In contrast, others studied business, social sciences or arts. In my previous post about meeting internationals in Stockholm, I told you that my classmates come from all over the world. I’d say that having such diverse backgrounds in terms of previous experience and country of origin certainly benefits the educational process. I get to learn so many things I have never even heard before, not just from my professors but also from my classmates.
When it comes to the subjects, we have both mandatory classes and optional ones. Here are some examples of what I studied during these two semesters so far.
Media Production
One of the best classes I’ve had. During the last semester, we worked in small groups and created an interactive documentary film from scratch. Our iDoc was about the pros of second-hand shopping, centred mainly from the consumers’ perspective, talking about environmental agenda, fashion value and the economic pros. Our aim was to educate people about second-hand shopping and inspire them, as we believe this is the future of fashion. We had so much fun creating the scripts, thinking through the production process, collaborating with local second-hand shops and making the audience evaluation. Other than that, we had a lot of guest lectures from prominent people from the media and creative industry, including, for example, Erik Gandini, the director of The Swedish Theory of Love documentary film.
Managing Digital Transformation
During one theoretical and one practical course on the topic, we explored complex strategic challenges and worked on live cases with companies across a wide range of industries that are going through some sort of digital transformation. My group of five people is currently doing a consultancy project for a communication infrastructure company in Stockholm. We’re communicating directly with the CEO and company’s top management, understanding their business needs and sharing our recommendations for their further development.
Execution — Running your own company
This is my elective this semester. It is offered by Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship, a nonprofit collaboration between KTH, Stockholm School of Economics, Karolinska Institutet, and some other universities in Stockholm. Every class, we have a guest lecture from an active entrepreneur who shares their experience in starting a business, what challenges they had to overcome, and answers any questions. Most of them are also very open to providing advice or support to the upcoming entrepreneurs, expanding our network. As a final project, we’re creating a business plan in groups. Who knows, maybe some of them will become actual companies after that!
Although my field is quite unusual for a technical university, many things are true to every programme at KTH: group work, practice-oriented, internationalisation, and support throughout the process.
Hope I could give you a glimpse of what studying at KTH feels like! Feel free to ask questions about it in the comments below.
\\ Valerie