Visiting media companies

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I have spent the major part of this past week and a hefty part of the week before organizing visits for 250 students to some 20 different companies where our media technology alumni have welcomed them. This is part of our program-integrating course - our students do these visits come May every year, and it is an activity that is enjoyed and appreciated by most of our students. Beyond organizing the visits, I have also spent time preparing instructions for the seminar that will follow these visits as well as the practical work of coordinating 9 teachers and 36 seminar groups (and booking seminar rooms) for the upcoming seminars.

So, the visits are popular, but somebody has to do the actual work of recruiting alumni and companies and then organize and coordinate the 20 visits and 250 students - and that's my job for the moment. I've been responsible for this course for two years in a row by now (as well as several years further back in time), and I feel like taking a break after this year - it feels like it is time for someone else to take over the baton.

However, we got 20 great alumni at 20 great companies to sign up and to welcome visits of up to a dozen students each this year. The more well-know of these companies were Microsoft, Ericsson, Spotify, Skype, TV4, Expressen, Schibsted and Adlibris. Because we were late and had small margins in terms of time (have really do have to go out 1-2 weeks earlier to get companies to sign up next year), we missed signing up Swedish Television (SVT) and the game developer Paradox Interactive. They would have been popular among our students so that really was a pity. We also "lost" quite a few companies compared from last year, of which the most popular was definitely the game developer DICE.

Beyond these larger actors, there was also a healthy number of smaller, less well-known companies, of which the most popular might have been a film production company that was started by two brothers who studied media technology just a few years back and who ran their company already at that time.

Something like 3/8 of all students visited "their" companies this past week and the rest will do it the coming week. We teachers will get to know more about the visits when we meet the students one week later.

The one thing that I really regret is that I didn't have the time to accompany the students to one of these visits. I was very interested in the company and in meeting the former student in question who works there (I was his advisor when he wrote his master's thesis). The company was Adlibris - and I order 90%+ of my books from them. It would have been great to have a peek behind the scene - I hope I will get the opportunity to there next year!
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