Nottingham Trent Open Day

I visited Nottingham Trent and it was a very long journey, 3 hours on the coach, and an extra hour getting to the coach station....
They have an amazing virtual reality lab, with motion tracking, 3d scanning, hologram style technology etc. They also offer a placement year which would be a really good opportunity and would more likely ensure a job at the end of your degree, the only downfall to this is that I don't know how I would feel about going to work for a year, having a great time and then having to come back and finish my degree. Oxford Brookes don't do a placement year but seem pretty in touch with the industry, after graduation.
I felt much more at home at Oxford Brookes and wayyyy preferred their attitude , but Nottingham trent do have amazing facilities :/ dilemma.

Place in Question Project

Brighton University Open Day

Oxford Brookes Open Day

I LOVE OXFORD BROOKES! I can barely find any faults with this uni at all, the course looks really good and the Interior Architecture and Architecture courses are run together in year 1 so they follow the exact same syllabus. I think this is perfect because I was worried that with Interior courses it would become heavily based on 'decorating' rather than learning about architectural principles and concepts. Also pleased because in year 1 absolutely no computers are used (other than essay writing obviously....) which is awesome because I'm terrified of auto CAD haha (Normal PC's at Oxford Brookes unlike the Mac suites at UCA-another win win) The studio space is much larger at Oxford Brookes also. Each year has about 100 Architecture Students and 30 Interior Architecture students, and about 1300 people apply every year making it 10 applicants per place :/ Entry requirements for Interior is ABB (which is my predicted grades so I gotta work hard this year haha) The social life looks great, my cousin started there this year and he said its a really good uni in terms of nightlife. He showed me round his students accommodation flat and it looks pretty normal uni accommodation- small bedroom with en-suite with a shared kitchen of about 5-6 people. Also if I did end up going next year he'd be able to tell me all the good bars to go to/cheapest places to eat, etc

This is part of the Architecture and Interior Architecture Studio space with the computer area.

Students have 24 hour access to Studio space and the library which is amazing because you could literally go into uni at 3am and do work haha, also pretty handy to stay late on the night before hand-ins haha

The head of Architecture seems great! He gave a talk about the 2 courses and the whole time I was thinking 'this is perfect for me' and really like his attitude towards the subject and uni in general. I almost don't want to look at any other university's because I love Oxford Brookes so much- I will though, been convinced by sister because she said its good to have more places to compare and you never know I might find somewhere even better (unlikely..hahah)

(Above- Design for the new building which is currently being built which will be finished by the time I would go there which is awesome because there will be a brand new library in this building)

UCA Farnham Open Day

I went to look around UCA Farnham to see what the uni was like and to look at their Interior Architecture course. I'd always wanted to do Architecture but since looking at various courses I've realised that Interior Architecture is more suited to me and my interests. At the beginning of college last year I was thinking about doing Fashion Promotion but was never really that excited about the idea of studying that course,it was more just for the sake of going to uni. I'm 100% sure that I want to study Interior Architecture and I'm super excited to start uni next year. I don't really want to spend another year at college because I just want to start this course at uni ASAP! haha

Anyywaayyyy, UCA, The course looks absolutely amazing and all the students work is great but the town is pretty sleepy and I want to go to a uni with a good nightlife. The room we would be taught (and spend most of our time in) is really nice, it has a lot of windows so a good amount of light and there is a lot of table space and materials to use for model making. But another downside is that the uni uses Mac computers which (although the mac suite looks absolutely beautiful) kind of bothers me because I much prefer normal PC computers.

Example of students (year 2) work (below)

haha saw this as we walked in, its a man with a potato for a head, thought that was pretty funny

Some glass sculptures on display which I liked because they looked very elegant and polished.

My mum pointed out this bench/table

In summary of UCA Farnham- Perfect course, sleepy town :(

Self Portrait

It was so dark in the room that I was painting in so I set up a lamp, what I didnt realise until the next morning (in real day light) is that all the colours I was using were much paler than I thought because I was working under such a strong light. In daylight all the tones and colours I'd spent ages applying washed into one blurred cream colour.

Basic face shape sketched out onto canvas with pencil.

Stained Glass Studio

This is my mum's studio, she has been doing stained glass for 15 years :) This room is half studio half bedroom and it has south facing windows. 

                                               This is the Kiln, probably not that safe to have a kiln in your bedroom but its carefully monitored when on haha, it has shelves to stack the glass on.

This is the glass rack (which my grandad built to fit this space) and all the sheet glass is stored here.

But its usually overflowing so there's glass everywhere aha (even in bags??)

Led in stored on the floor next to the glass rack

scrap glass colour coordinated in jars

paintbrushes, paints, glue, feathers etccc

Every square centimetre of space us used haha

Glass window lying around on the floor....

eisel against the window to see how glass looks against light

noticeboard on glass rack for designs

work in progress on bench

a fusing expermient

led

old designs on tracing paper