New academic year and new IT students at Karlstad University

Many first-year students participated in the annual IT dinner arranged by the liaison group Snits, collaboration between industry and IT students. The dinner marks the start of the activities that Snits organises to help students and companies to establish contact.

According to the show of hands, the dinner guests were mostly first-year students and Johan Eklund, in charge of Snits, was pleased.
- The fact that many first-year students attend the IT dinner can be interpreted as that they will continue to participate in Snits activities. This is in itself important if we are to boost the student-industry contact, which is the purpose of Snits.

This year again, the IT dinner was full with students studying IT related programmes at Karlstad University, and they had the opportunity to meet employees from the ten regional IT companies represented in the Snits group. They could also listen to and be inspired by Victor Isaksen’s professional experiences. Viktor talked about the importance of being passionate about work, following our instinct and aspiration, and, if possible, letting pleasure decide our careers. During the dinner students could discuss opportunities with the industrial representatives.
- There are many good reasons for students to network with industrial representatives. First, it can be an opportunity to get the dream job on graduation, but it can also open doors to interesting projects and a degree thesis in conjunction with a company, says Johan Eklund. Company contacts can also help sorting out what they want to do while studying and when they finish.
Snits, i.e. Collaboration Industry and IT students is a liaison group for IT programmes at Karlstad University. Snits organises field trips, guest lectures, breakfast meetings, mentoring, placements and degree project contacts for IT students at the university.
The Snits group consists of representatives of local IT companies, Compare, the departments of Information Systems and Computer Science at Karlstad University and the student society LINDA.
Quiz walk
Between the mingle and dinner, the students conducted a quiz walk and answered questions about the ten companies that are represented in the Snits group and participated during the IT dinner.