Written in front of the words
"The value of knowledge lies in sharing" has always been a sentence that Kang Shishi personally believes, and it is also a sentence that guides Kang Shishi's personal practice. Every Wednesday, an industry insider or student in the field of art & design will be invited to share his or her personal experience, so as to provide more diversified information exchange opportunities for art students & prospective students.
To share your art study abroad experience, please contact the QR code at the end of the article
At that time, I took the offers of Edinburgh, Royal Arts × 2 and Lunyi, and read a lot of "rumors" about studying in the UK on the Internet. In the end, Royal Arts was able to win in my mind, mainly because it sent me more offers, one is Information Experience Design (IED) and the other is MRes.
Just kidding, after learning more about several master's programs, I found that Huangyi's IED was more suitable for me.
Therefore, today I would like to share some of my experiences after studying Huangyi with Mr. Kang Shishi, hoping to provide more students with ideas for studying abroad.
01 About the learning atmosphere of Huangyi
The overall atmosphere of Huangyi reading is relatively relaxed, like our major, if according to the normal course arrangement, there are only two or three days a week that require students to go to school. Therefore, there is plenty of time left for personal self-study after class.
In addition, in order to allow students to find more inspiration for creation from the details of life, in addition to arranging daily courses to learn design theory and report project progress, Huangyi tutors will also send notices to everyone to go to outdoor classes from time to time, sometimes to visit art museums, sometimes to simply find a place with good scenery to hike.
I'm a big hiking enthusiast, or I love walking. Every time you walk on the road, see the scenery and streets around you, or simply empty yourself, you can feel healed. Therefore, I deliberately chose the apartment where I live now, and I need to walk 15 minutes on the way to school every day, which I regard as my own alone time, and I can also see the flowers and plants on the street along the way.
And when I have time, I will go to find a more pristine park with my friends for a walk, and see that the "20-minute effect in the park" said on the Internet seems to be really useful, and when I go back and do my project homework, the ideas in my mind will be much clearer.
I remember that in the first semester of school, there was a project on the theme of "degree", and the tutor took us to hike by the Thames River, so that everyone could measure the theme of "degree" with their own steps. Along the way, the instructor becomes a tour guide, introducing the historical imprints and changes in the city, and in the process, he will leave us plenty of time to take photos and collect materials. When you come back, you will organize the information you have collected and share your feelings and thoughts.
It may seem like a stroll, but this outdoor class actually teaches us how to research, how to discover and collect inspiration from daily life.
Although we are accustomed to searching for some materials on the Internet or consulting papers, we can easily and conveniently obtain a lot of information, but we can get more useful information by going outside to find things related to our own projects, and then going to the library to find some references based on the information we have researched.
In short, Huangyi reserves a lot of spare time for students, and also assumes the role of a "window" for everyone to look out, all in order to encourage students to go out, see more and collect more, so that we can grasp the initiative in our hands and decide to train ourselves into ideal designers.
However, in addition to giving students a high degree of freedom, this teaching feature also tests students' self-discipline and learning initiative. Once we have a good idea, we have to make an appointment with the mentor as soon as possible and find the mentor to give guidance, otherwise the mentor will most likely ignore you for a period of time.
02 About IED as a major
The IED major is called Information Experience Design, but in fact, I think it can be called one of the "most abstract majors" of Huangyi.
For example, every time I report the progress of the project to the mentor, I will find that someone has handed in graphic design, someone has done a dynamic effect, and even someone has carried a sculpture in the past.
From the perspective of IED professionals, although everyone chooses different presentation methods, the most important thing is to do a good job in the user experience part. Every time our tutor evaluates an assignment, he or she asks the student, "Who is the audience for your work", "What kind of experience do you want the audience to have", etc.
So, a little advice: if you are planning to apply for this major, doing a good job of audience analysis in the project must be a necessary step in the foundation.
In addition, there are some changes to the IED professional subdivision of Huangyi. I heard the seniors say that there were three main directions for the subdivision of majors in the past, namely experimental design, dynamic image design, and sound design.
Since our students, our research specialization has become five or six sub-themes, namely future communities, future cities, future societies, and future biology.
I chose the theme of "Future City", and I don't need to be limited to the two labels of "future" and "city" in specific project research, but do the metaverse, technological design, etc., of course, I can do all of these. In fact, once this topic is chosen, anything that happens within the city limits can be considered a stand-alone topic. Therefore, in practice, it should be possible for everyone to do a wider range of designs.
However, this kind of major with a high degree of freedom and many fields may also have some drawbacks, compared with other majors of Royal Art, IED may not have too many external cooperation projects, and most of the time we still focus on the school's projects, trying to find new and shining points for our projects.
Although there are fewer opportunities for external cooperation and practice, the teachers in the school still advocate interdisciplinary cooperation and cooperation. For example, in the School of Communication, there are also video communication and animation majors, and the tutor gathers the students of the three majors together, divides them into groups of a dozen people, and then allows everyone to discuss and work on interdisciplinary design projects on their own.
This kind of project is really very fun, everyone assigns tasks according to their own strengths, although there is no clear design bias to which field, or which major is particularly linked, but the final presentation is that we combined the three fields of video communication, animation and IED to make relevant workshops for the students of the school, and solved the problem of VR equipment.
When everyone got together to rush DDL, it made me feel like I was dreaming back to Hanyi Winter/Summer Camp.
03 About the life of studying abroad
As mentioned above, I am more "like to walk", so when I think of Citywalk, I want to complain first.
Recently I was working on a project about "City Rafting". In the research, I used the way of walking, according to my own personal experience on the way, to organize and plan a file, and then to do research on information experience design.
The School of Communication of Huangyi is precisely assigned to the Baicheng campus, which is relatively remote and not very convenient to travel, so every time I go out to research, I can only choose a place that can be reached by public transportation, which is very blocking the pace of going out to research (going out to play), and I envy the students of the other two campuses TT.
Moreover, after living here for a while, I found that unlike many of my classmates, independent living did not train me to be an excellent "cook".
In most cases, you still have to rely on school cafeterias, supermarket pre-made dishes and hamburgers to solve the problem of food and clothing, and occasionally if you have time, go out to eat a Chinese meal with your friends, which should be regarded as improving the food.
Fortunately, I can grit my teeth in the matter of "eating", although sometimes on a whim, I will go to the supermarket to shop, buy groceries and go home to try to cook by myself, but every time I look forward to the full pot, and after tasting a bite of taste, I can only comfort myself, there is no talent for cooking, let's do a good job of design, this may also be a motivation to do design hhh.
However, sometimes I really miss the food of the motherland, and once I traveled back to China to Taiwan, and I tasted a bowl of braised pork rice in a small shop and confused me.
Among the "white people's meals" in the UK, the only thing that can make the list in my mind is probably Scottish food. That's what I tasted by accident when I went to Edinburgh with my friends. I think if I hadn't chosen Huangyi at that time, but went to the University of Edinburgh for the comprehensive arrangement, I might have been able to eat Scottish food every day.
In addition, I also went to some other places: to take photos at the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower and some famous attractions in France, to open a blind box shopping aimlessly on the streets there, to see unique churches and museums in the Netherlands, etc.
After experiencing an independent life and experiencing the culture and scenery of different countries, I know what kind of development I want in the future. These experiences are like a precious treasure, and the more you explore, the more possibilities you can discover.
Finally, I hope that I can have more new explorations in the future, and I hope that everyone can make their dreams come true!~
If you want to apply to study in the UK, or if you have any questions about postgraduate entrance examination, postgraduate examination, doctoral application, art study abroad, or portfolio creation, please contact Mr. Kang Shishi through the following ways.