Welcome, potential student!
If you got this far on the site, hopefully you are a bit curious of who we are and what we do. We are the STS-section, an association who is founded and run by students at the STS-program. STS stands for “System i teknik och samhälle”, or roughly translated “Sociotechnical Systems”, and is a 5 year long Master of Science in Engineering. The program offers a wide spectra of knowledge in regards to technology, but also social studies within different fields of study.
To be a student at the program means so much more than just studying.
The volunteers in the section arrange parties, pub crawls, corporate events and a lot of more things that makes student life more fun and engaging. It’s not unusual for the section to host balls, banquettes or sport related activities. Besides corporate events, the STS-section also host similar events such as job fairs, Case evenings, master’s dissertation events and much more to help students at the program prepare for life after the university.
On this site you will get more information about what being a student at the program means, and how it is to study in Uppsala!
What is STS?
Future society need technology that meets the complex and multifaceted needs of the human race. STS is the Master of Science engineering program that combines advanced mathematics, systems engineering and humanities relevant for society to solve these interdisciplinary challenges.
For now, the program only exists at Uppsala University.
STS stands for Sociotechnical Systems and the focus of the education is to form future engineers who understand technological progress and how the use of that technology in society actually works. It also aims to educate engineers who are critical in their thinking regarding these sociotechnical issues and at the same time possesses the same technical knowledge as other engineers. New technology and technological products are nowadays often part of a larger system or network. This brings a complexity which demands people that can see technological development and distribution with a bigger perspective. How is our way of using technology affected by historical, economical, social and political factors? The STS engineer is an expert answering these kind of questions.
The STS-program aims at in-depth knowledge about, and an understanding for technology and it’s function in society. During the education technologies are studied from many aspects - not only how it was created, but how the connections between the development and the usage appears. Technological development is not an isolated phenomenon, it is a part of society and is affected by many factors such as economics and culture.
The focus of the program is how to handle and develop complex systems and what opportunities or difficulties that can arise when these systems are integrated in society. The STS students are trained in classic problem solving, but also analyse how and why the problems appear. This gives the students great ability to predict problems and eliminate differing types of “bottlenecks”. The ability to take multiple factors into account, more than the pure technical, gives the students a great opportunity to be a part of a large project from the start to the end.
Do you want to know more about the program? Take a look here, at the program's website, where a more complex description of the program is given.
Shadow an STS student for a day
Do you want to know more about what it is like to study on the STS programme? Then there is the opportunity to shadow one of the program's students. You may accompany a student for a day to gain an insight into what a study day on the program looks like and what the study environment is like. Above all, you get the opportunity to ask an STS student about everything you want to know about the program, studies and student life.
Does it sound interesting? Get in touch with sts-rek@utn.se then we will help you get in touch with a student you can shadow, a suitable lecture or lesson you can attend and a time that suits. Of course, it's completely free. Hope to see you!