Maria Ørndrup Sørensen

MSc in Digital Design and Communication (renamed Digital Design and Interactive Technologies in November 2017). Analytics Consultant at Peytz & Co.

WHO?

I grew up in Northern Jutland, way out in the country. After living in Aarhus for a few years, I moved to Copenhagen to study. I have a bachelor’s degree in pedagogy and also studied musicology for a while. I played music for many years, was in a lot of bands and wrote my own songs. Then I didn’t feel like doing that anymore, so I completely switched direction and started studying at ITU.

WHERE?

Peytz is a web agency – we develop websites and digital solutions. I’m in the consulting team where we advise clients on websites, tracking, marketing and strategy.

WHAT?

I really like combining my “soft” background with hard data. As a student assistant in a hosting company, I worked with tracking and configuration. Because I’m a bit of a nerd, it got pretty technical. I became really good at Google Tag Manager, and then Peytz called me because they had seen that I was specialized in this program. I set up tracking for clients, do workshops and help them with measuring.

At ITU, I took a lot coding courses, so I ended up with a funny combination of service design and technical skills. I use that a lot in my job. Instead of just focusing on whether things are working, I use my focus on user experience to shape a direction.

WHY?

When I was a musician, I wanted a website and wanted to manage it myself. So I started fiddling with that and thought it was super interesting. Then I applied to three different IT programmes and got accepted into them all. ITU was actually at the bottom of my list, but then I talked to some people who had studied there, and ended up going there. Mostly because of the creative and cool environment I saw when I visited the campus.

BEST ADVICE

Don’t worry so much about what you’re going to be. Do what you think is exciting, because it may turn out your future job adjusts to who you are.