Questions about Uppsala

Someone asked me some very good questions about Uppsala and the MSc in Computer Science, so I decided to share them here.

1. How are the living expenses in Uppsala in general?

Sweden can be a bit expensive. In my opinion, housing is not too expensive (I used to live in Madrid and Barcelona before moving here, so that's my reference point). You'll pay about 3000-3500 SEK/month including Internet. The major problem is that it is hard to find accommodation. Prices for other things are: about 20-25 SEK for a bottle of water or soda, same or cheaper for coffee/tea. You can get a (reasonably big) sandwich on campus for 45 SEK, or a caesar salad for 65 SEK. You can buy lunch (salad + main course + coffee + bread or fruit) for 70-80 for lunch. Another option could be a frozen meal for 20-30 SEK. Fruits on one of the campus restaurants are 1 piece 7 SEK (and of course cheaper in the supermarket). A pizza is about 70 SEK and frozen pizza 25-40 SEK. Alcohol is EXTREMELY expensive!

2. Is it easy to find jobs at the university in research? in general, is it easy to find a job anywhere?

Getting a job at the university is hard. Normally they hire students as TA or the sort once they know the student, so it probably won't happen during the first year and it is not as common as in other universities. It is also hard to get a part-time job without speaking Swedish (it is a lot easier to find a job once you graduate or an internship even if you don't speak the language). You can work at the student nations but the money is not great. It might be good for making friends, paying some meals and drinks but you won't support yourself with this kind of job. These student nations are great for having cheap food and cheap drinks as well as meeting many students. You can always consider studying Swedish before you come here and continue getting free lessons once you're here.

3. How good are the professors in Computer Science?

Professors are GREAT! They really care about preparing their material and explaining things. The atmosphere is very relaxed and informal. You're free to pick the courses you want, you have access to tons of papers and extra reading, and people are really open to comments and suggestions. I really enjoyed my time as a master student here. You can easily approach TAs and professors and they will happily answer your questions (well, maybe not if you ask for the solution to the assignment).

4. Which areas should I stay in? I don't mind using public transportation.

Like I said before, finding accommodation can be quite hard in Uppsala. You should rent whatever you find and once you're here you can try to move. Most people use bicycles. Buses are quite expensive (between 20-30 SEK depending on how you buy your ticket and about 500 SEK unlimited for a month). You can find used bicycles and everything is really close. If you're studying computer science, then you should live as close as possible to Polacksbacken. But again, 15-20 min by bike from most parts of the city anyway.

Enjoy your time in Uppsala!

International Women's Day

Well, first of all, I hope you don't think I'm turning the blog into a girls club. Gender inequality is sort of a big issue in IT and I'm happy to see that people at Uppsala University are aware of it. More importantly, people here actually care and want to do something about it! So, in my humble opinion, celebrating international women's day with a networking event might not make a difference for everyone, but hopefully some of the people on the event now feel less alone. At least I hate to hear these stories about women who didn't (or couldn't) study computer science because people made them feel less capable and not adequate.

Anyway, regardless of the gender inequality angle, it was a great event! I had the opportunity to meet many people, I enjoyed discussing different points of views about Sweden and computer science, as well as planning activities that the UU ACM-W student chapter can (and want to) organise. And we did all these with fruits, bullar, coffee and tea! :-)

Flash Mob in Ångström

I know I've been so busy that I haven't written much around here but I just got this video and I couldn't help but share it with all of you thinking about coming to Uppsala! I didn't see it myself so maybe it's not so frequent but I do have seen other fun stuff around here. Really guys, not everything is about studying!

Enjoy :-)

A new year just started

Hej everyone!

I'm happy to see a lot of new students in Uppsala this year! As you might guess, I'm not taking any courses but you can still see me around Polacksbacken working as a teaching assistant for the Artificial Intelligence and the Constraint Programming course. I'm doing more things than just that... I'm also writing things... Figuring out what to do next... and FINALLY I'm taking a Swedish course! and Chinese... Maybe it's a bit late to start formally learning Swedish but I like to think that never is too late. Am I rambling today? Well, let's go back to the original point... I'm glad to see many new students in Uppsala. I think every year new people bring with them culture, experiences, ideas and smiles.

I'm also really happy to see here a couple of Chinese friends that I met in Shanghai. They remind me of all the great times I had there and how much I miss it! Don't worry, when I was there I was missing Uppsala as well. For me that's the hardest part about moving: you get to experience great things but at the same time you always end up missing the good things about that other place were you used to live. I believe I enjoy Chinese food a bit more right now and it brings back a lot of happy memories. So, to all of you who are here now and those who would like to come I'm warning you! After you come here you'll miss Uppsala for the rest of your life! You'll miss the friends, the nations, the outdoor activities, learning and many many other things depending on what you like.

I won't finish the post without saying that the weather is still pretty nice, but it is autumn already. Don't be fool by what you learned in your own country: it is autumn and it will be winter pretty soon!

As I always say, feel free to ask any questions about the University, the city or whatever I can help with!

A little bit about this period

You might already know that courses in Uppsala University are mostly taught only during one period (half semester). All courses range from 5 to 15 credits and if you plan to finish your degree on time, you should take 60 credits per year. Nevertheless, do not believe that the workload of each course is 100% based on the credits: many students (including myself) complain about this problem. There are courses of 7.5 or 10 credits that are actually OK, but many 5-credit courses seem to require a lot of work, sometimes even more than a 7.5-credit course.

This period I’m taking User Interface Programming II (5) and Machine Learning (7.5). It’s less than 15 credits but I already took extra credits the previous semester. You might be interested on following on twitter how much I’m actually working on each course. As a spoiler, I’ll probably be working more on the UIP2 course than in ML. Why? Well, it’s a project-based course without final exam, which means that the whole evaluation is made on one single project that has to be developed during the course. Be careful with project-based courses: they are usually very good and very interesting, but in order to make the most of them you have to work A LOT every week. In fact, when I tool UIP1 I have to say that I learned way too many things about developing graphical interfaces and I met very nice people, but I spent most of the period working only on this course. My advice: combine those courses with regular courses so you can get a better balance and some free time.

If you want to know more about the courses just follow these links: User Interface Programming 2 and Machine Learning.

A little bit of everything

This post doesn't really have a specific topic: it's more like a summary of the latest weeks. First I have to say that I haven't have the time to write much since this period has been kind of crazy: a lot of programming and a lot of reading!

In case you were wondering, there are many courses that are project based. In my particular case I'm taking User-Interface Programing, but there are many other courses like this one, where you need to develop a group project during the whole period (or even 2 periods). The idea behind those courses is really good and you can learn a lot. At the same time they require hard work every week, group communication, researching and again: more work. This courses will also give you the opportunity to work with people with different backgrounds and make excellent friends.

For all those non EU/EEA citizens how are planning on coming to Uppsala, read this article about future University's fees.

http://www.thelocal.se/25092/20100219/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=136

Constraint Technology

This course is about presenting a set of techniques and tools for solving combinatorial problems. For example, a Sudoku puzzle is a combinatorial problem where you need to place distinct digits from 1 to 9 in each row, column and 3x3 squares. Other examples include scheduling, planning, molecular biology, finance, linguistics, and so on.

This course combines theoretical foundations with hands-on experience in modeling and solving combinatorial problems.

You can find this course interesting if you like apply logic, reasoning and optimization. It’s not like any of those backgrounds are necessary for taking the course but it is that kind of course. If you are also interested in research you’ll really enjoy it. On the other hand, if you are more industry-oriented you can also find it useful but you need to give it a try. There are many examples during the course about how this is being used in industry and there is a guest lecture from a company working with CT that will try to attract you to work there.

In order to pass the course you will need to do 2 assignments with a partner and one final project by yourself. There is also a final exam. The assignments can take time if you are playing with them and testing different concepts. I think that really helps to understand better the theory. For the final exam is important that you manage all the concepts in the class. There are not so many concepts and everything is related, but you need to be sure you know how things work. If you go to class, do the assignments and solve some old exams you’ll be fine. But you really need to understand the class! If you feel like nothing makes sense and you don’t start understanding by the time you are working on the second assignment then the exam is going to be really hard!

Notice that it is just my personal opinion mixed with some comments I heard in order to give you an idea. If you like it, don’t let anyone tell you it’s too hard!

Welcome to Uppsala University!!!

The first week in Uppsala University is the Welcome week! During that time you’ll get to know your classmates, some teachers and received a lot of useful information. Also, during this week we all had to select our courses. Everyone in the master program had an individual meeting with someone from the CS department. In my opinion this meeting is an excellent idea. I had the opportunity to talk about the subjects that I like and discuss whether or not it was a good idea for me to take them. You can ask questions about the course syllabus, difficulty, pre requirements and whatever you feel you need to know to make an inform decision. It also shows that teachers really care about what you are learning. It’s also good to know that it’s possible to take few basic courses so you can learn things that you didn’t had the chance to learn during your bachelor degree.

Another activity we had was a BBQ! While enjoying a nice weather, soft drinks and hot dogs I talked to all the other people in the master and tried to get to know them. I started to learn their names and I asked them questions about their home countries and hobbies. I also found out who are going to be my classmates and we made study plans. There were also some old students who kindly talked to us in a very informal situation and asked our questions about living in Uppsala and gave us their opinion about the teachers and courses.

And in case you were wondering, I got my UpUnet account by Thursday so I now can use Internet at home!!!