Welcome to Linnaeus University 

Welcome to the English version of Network Security, 180 credits at the Faculty of Technology. 

Introduction

My name is Ola Flygt and I am the Programme Director for the Bachelor programme Network Security at Linnaeus University in Växjö. In what follows, I will give you brief information related to your upcoming bachelor studies. 

Please visit the web page for our programme

Programme start

The official mandatory introductory meeting for the programme is Monday 2 September in Växjö. It is at this meeting that you confirm your place in the program. Please note that you are required to notify us (see academic contact below) if you cannot attend this meeting. 

Important

Late registration is not possible! If you do not register in Ladok, you will lose your admission to the programme. Registration means that you decided to participate in the courses, and you cannot request a refund after registration. 

There will be orientation days for all international students the week before the semester starts. The International Relations office will give more information on this. In the programme room in Moodle, you will also find more information about the orientation days.

Preparations before the programme start

If you are not an EU citizen or already have a residence permit in Sweden, you need to apply for a visa. To get a visa, you must contact the Swedish embassy in your home country. The administrative process associated with visa applications is often very slow. Hopefully, you already know this and have started the process. If not, apply for a visa immediately! The university is not involved in the visa process and we cannot help you with that. For more information, please visit https://lnu.se/en/student/preparing-for-your-stay/residence-permit/

Study period (required in visa applications)
2 September 2024 to 6 June 2027.

Accommodation
You will need a place to stay (accommodation) when you arrive in Växjö. Finding accommodation can be difficult, especially if you wait too long. Hence, start looking immediately! You should already have received information about this from the admission office. The university helps fee-paying students find accommodation. For the rest of you, the student union give some help finding accommodation, see https://linnek.se/eng/bostadsportal/

General information about preparations
Please visit: https://lnu.se/en/student/new-student/

On this page, you will also find information about how to get a student account to register and log in to different online services provided by the university. Registration is necessary to start the education to which you have been admitted. 

Prerequisites
As you hopefully are well aware, the prerequisites for the programme are a degree from secondary level school and good knowledge of Mathematics and English. All education is in English. The two courses that you will start studying are Basic Mathematics and Introduction to Programming (in Python). If you don't pass these courses, you will probably have difficulties in passing upcoming courses as well, and if you don’t pass these courses you might not be allowed to continue with your studies in the programme since most courses have prior courses as prerequisites. To avoid this from happening, I urge you to repeat and train your skills in Mathematics and English, starting today!

We do not have any specific requirements for computer skills (especially not in programming), but we do expect you to know how to use a computer for ordinary day-to-day activities like writing documents, sending e-mails, finding information on the Internet etc. If you have never done any programming, you might find the first year challenging. We do start from the beginning, but the pace of the courses is quite high.

To increase your chances of success, I therefore encourage you to start learning some programming on your own during the summer. There are many online courses and tutorials you can use. The first programming course is on Python, so look for that. Here are some examples:

• https://www.dataquest.io/blog/learn-python-the-right-way/
  
• https://www.learnpython.org

Computer
You need to have your own laptop during the education. The reason for this is that it is very difficult to get a good personal development environment on shared computers and the development environment you will be working in will be an important part of your education. It does not have to be an extremely high spec. laptop, but a low-end computer will not be enough. More memory (at least 16 GB) and a faster processor are more important than high graphics quality. Windows/MacOS/Linux all work well.

Slack
To communicate with the course management, socialize with other classmates, carry out presentations etc. we often use the messenger service "Slack". Here you also have an excellent opportunity to get all the help you need at the start of your studies no matter what time of day. Sign in as soon as you get your university account! To log in, you need to create a new account on Slack with the email address associated with your university user account.

• https://coursepress.slack.com

Syllabi/ Course literature

Information on courses

During your first semester (September 2024–January 2025) you will study four courses:

• 1DV501 Introduction to programming, 7,5 credits (timetable)
  
• 1MA441 Basic Mathematics for Computer Scientists, 7,5 credits (timetable)
  
• 1DV503 Database Technology, 7,5 credits (starting in November)
  
• 1DV505 Programming and Data Structures, 7,5 credits (starting in November)
  

Please note that schedules might not be complete until close to the course start. Check the online timetables regularly for changes, also once you already started on the courses. 

The course syllabus contains detailed information about the content, expected learning outcomes and course literature for each course. Please visit: Course and programme syllabi

Sometimes there is a need to change literature after the syllabus has been decided. For that reason, it is always a good idea to check that the information in the syllabus is correct before buying any books. You do that either by checking the information in the course room in Moodle (the learning management system used for most courses) or by contacting the teacher of the course. Course rooms open at the latest one week before a course start.

Student guide FTK

Student Guide Faculty of Technology

Contact information

For more information please contact:

• Academic contact: e-mail: Ola.Flygt@lnu.se
  
• Administrative contact (concerning admission, tuition fees etc): Admission office, admission@lnu.se
  
• Student Union: info@linnek.se
  
• Linnaeus University: +46 772 28 80 00
  

Looking forward to seeing you this autumn!

Ola Flygt, Programme Director