KTH Student Feedback
Academic
We’ve asked students to provide feedback on courses they’ve taken at KTH. While we split CSE from non-CSE courses, this list is in no particular order.
Basic Course Information
Although you are not required to speak the language, we strongly encourage participating students to take the opportunity to learn Swedish to enhance their experience at the university and in Stockholm, as well as to increase your course options at KTH.
Courses are taught in two different ways at KTH. First, the Master’s courses in scientific computing are taught entirely in English. Second, students can take ordinary KTH courses, with lectures given in English or in Swedish with English slides. To prepare for this, students can take intensive summer courses (paid for by KTH) in Swedish, starting in early July and early August, to have access to whatever classes they want.
KTH reports that they have had very good experiences with students taking the summer course – they subsequently manage very well, especially since most of the textbooks are in English. In lecture, students can also at any time ask a question in English and receive an answer in English. (Nearly every Swede at the university level will speak excellent English.)
CSE Courses
IL2206 Embedded Systems (Inbyggda System)
This is a five week course involving four projects with approximately 3 lectures per week. The emphasis is much more on the lectures and the goals and history of embedded system design than on the laboratory exercises, which give a basic introduction to programming embedded systems. This was an initially interesting course, but overall it was not very fruitful. I would have liked the lab work to have played a much larger part in the class.
Comparable to: CSE 466 – No final project, less focus on labs, more on design and history.
Probably requires: CSE 351 or 352?
DD2454 Semantics for Programming Languages (Semantik för programspråk)
Defining and understanding formal semantics of programming languages. Covers natural, structural operational, denotational and axiomatic semantics. Also covers topics of abstract machine implementation, fixed point theory, program analysis and verification. This seems to be a different class from any offered by our computer science department, perhaps straying a bit into linguistics (though keeping to programming languages only). I enjoyed this class a lot, but you will probably have to have enjoyed 311 or 312 (or proofs and grammars in general) to feel that way.
Comparable to: No ugrad equivalent. Most likely 490 credit.
Probably requires: CSE 311 or 312?
DD2426 Robotics and Autonomous Systems (Robotik och autonoma system)
An extremely interesting project course involving building small mobile robots from scratch to perform a task. Previous years have been RoboCup style soccer competitions. More recent projects (including mine) have involved maze-solving and search and rescue. This course is a great experience working in a real project environment, starting from scratch with industry standard materials and sensors and working and delegating within a project group. Programming was done on an embedded linux system using a sensor board designed by one of the professors. The sensors available included a camera, motors and encoders, infrared and sonar measurement, gyroscope and accelerometers. The class also involves lectures on mobile robot design and history (presented by groups of students). Subsequent quarters will probably be 12 weeks (full semester long) though mine was only 6. I personally loved this course and consider it one of my favorites of all time.
Comparable to: CSE 481c (Robotics Capstone)
Probably requires: CSE 351 or 331? (considerable c progamming experience), CSE 332
Might be useful: CSE 455
Non-CSE Courses
DS1513 Swedish 2, Advanced Beginners Level
The second level of swedish, probably equivalent to our second quarter here at UW. Focus on grammar rather than vocabulary, though this tends to vary from teacher to teacher. Class given once per week for 4 hours. There is an online placement test if you have swedish experience and want to skip Swedish 1 (or to Swedish 3).
Comparable to: SWED 102, 103
Probably requires: A good grade in SWED 101
Student Quotes
“You have to be very proactive about getting questions resolved with most of the professors I took classes with at KTH. Most of the time a single email was not enough to get a response, you’ll want to talk to them in person. KTH does have a lot of foreign and exchange students (it seems like they outnumber to Swedish ones!) so it’s not very difficult to find friends in your classes in similar situations as yourself. A project class or a language class is a great way to meet other students quickly.”