How KTH prepares you for your career

Studying at KTH often means learning far beyond the traditional classroom. In this post, Ruban and Annysia share their personal reflections on how KTH has shaped their professional journey so far.

Ruban’s Perspective: Designing With Purpose

Learning Through Projects

Coming from the product design and interactive design side of KTH, most of my learning happens through hands‑on, project‑based work. What I’ve especially enjoyed is how many of these projects focus on socially impactful challenges, working with municipalities or companies who genuinely want to improve everyday life for people.

Designing a clever product is one kind of joy, but crafting a solution that truly helps someone and makes their daily life better gives me a deeper sense of purpose. These projects push me to think beyond aesthetics and functionality, encouraging me to consider the emotional, cultural, and societal layers of design. That mindset has shaped how I approach every new brief and is something I know will stay with me throughout my career.

Exploring the Professional Landscape

THS Armada was my first big career fair in Sweden, and it quickly helped me understand just how diverse the design and tech landscape here is. Even as a first‑year student, simply walking around, talking to companies, and observing what they look for gave me clarity about the types of roles and teams I want to aim for.

The Swedish work–life balance is something I’ve genuinely grown to appreciate. There’s a calming rhythm to the culture — a quiet belief that good work comes from people who also have space to breathe, rest, and be human.

Small moments like fika breaks, open conversations with teachers, and the informal way everyone interacts make it easy to understand how Swedish workplaces value trust and autonomy. These everyday experiences are helping me feel more confident about entering the job market here. It’s not just about learning what to design; it’s about learning how to live well while designing.

Looking Ahead to the Degree Project

Even as a first‑year student, I already know I’d love to do my degree project with a company. It’s the perfect way to work on real challenges and understand how design teams operate in practice.

At the same time, I really appreciate the freedom to choose any experienced teacher in our programme as a thesis mentor. We have incredibly experienced faculty who’ve worked in the design field for years, and I’m genuinely excited about learning from them. Pairing their academic guidance with a company collaboration feels like the ideal setup. It might not guarantee a job, but it does guarantee growth, insight, and a meaningful final project.

If there’s one profound thing I’m learning here, it’s the importance of following what truly excites you. In design, your genuine interest shows — it fuels your ideas, sharpens your process, and raises your energy. That passionate engagement is often what helps you stand out.

So my advice to new students is simple: stay curious and choose courses, projects, and opportunities that spark something within you. Talk to teachers, explore different areas of design, and don’t hesitate to step into projects that feel meaningful. When you follow your passion, the right opportunities tend to follow naturally.

Annysia’s Perspective: Growing Through Collaboration and Curiosity

Learning Through Projects

The project‑based courses have helped me develop both my technical and soft skills. On the technical side, I get to explore technologies I wouldn’t have encountered yet and apply them to larger projects — great additions to a portfolio. On the soft‑skills side, working with diverse, multicultural teams has taught me how to collaborate and build something better together than I could have imagined alone.

A standout project for me was the final assignment in the Search Engines and Information Retrieval Systems course, where we created a recommendation system for academic works. It combined everything I enjoy about working with data: cleaning, preprocessing, training, and designing an interface to interact with the system.

Navigating Career Fairs and Swedish Work Culture

I’ve attended both THS Armada and D‑Dagen, the career fair focused on Computer Science students. In my first year, I mostly wandered around and asked questions. By the second year, I realised how important it is to research companies beforehand — that’s when you can have more meaningful conversations and network effectively.

Outside of career fairs, studying at KTH — and living in Sweden — teaches you that work isn’t everything. You need moments to unwind. Lots of fika with friends, friendly conversations with professors, and the first‑name basis culture helped me appreciate the Swedish approach to balance.

Preparing for the Degree Project and Looking Ahead

For my degree project, I plan to focus on referential integrity in microservices. I’m hoping to work with a company, but I’m also collaborating with one of the KTH labs, which is great for both industry connections and research opportunities. It’s valuable to explore advanced solutions in a lab, but also to experience a different work culture outside academia.

What helped me feel most confident about the job market was simply applying for things that genuinely interested me — student societies, internships, thesis opportunities. Even when I didn’t get something, I learned a lot from the process. At the same time, using all the opportunities at KTH to discover my interests made a huge difference. Being proactive in courses helped me learn about the labs my teachers and TAs were involved in, and researching companies made it easier to connect with representatives at job fairs.

By taking these steps and maintaining good relationships with the people I met, I eventually found thesis opportunities and received offers. So don’t be afraid to explore everything KTH has to offer — each step builds your confidence and helps you understand exactly what you can bring to the job market.