BA Semester Programs in Arts and Design

I highly recommend attending this program! It was truly a transformative experience, one that encouraged me to expand the way I think about art and artmaking. I felt fully immersed in the program and was not treated any differently from the local students. I did find London, in general, difficult to navigate safely - being followed home by strange men several times. Overall, though, I definitely recommend attending this program! It was really great.

Well sheeeesh, my UAL expereince was something special. So much so that I had to pinch myself each morning to make sure I was aware and taking in everything. I lived at Will Wyatt Court in Shorditch x Hoxton area, a prime spot to live. In that building I met studies from all 6 UAL schools, including Chelsea College of Art where I was attending. This afforded me the opportunity to make friends from around the globe who had come to London with unique focuses and were attending slightly different universities. At Chelsea I met more people throguh the Y2 Fine-Art program who welcomed me in and together, we began to create. Within the first week, we were each given a few studios to choose from and share. I am very grateful for the studio space and group of people that I was able to work with. If you get the chance... just do it. oh and lastly, ArtRabbit. Cheers

Studying in London opened my eyes to an amazing city and encouraged me to rethink my creative practice. I joined the BA Hons Ceramic Design course for the winter term at Central Saint Martins while I was a student at Massachusetts College of Art & Design. There, we were tasked to work in small groups as a design consultancy for real clients. My group produced a set of ceramic measuring cups, mixing bowls, and cookie stamps for a London-based lifestyle magazine to promote slow living and family values in an urban setting. From the ceramic pieces themselves to the packaging design and magazine article, we created prototypes and marketing materials for all aspects of this project. As part of our research, we attended Ambiente in Frankfurt, one of the largest design and consumer goods trade fairs in the world.

This experience offered a true glimpse into the design world and the English educational model, which is much more focused on independent work in comparison to the American tendency to emphasize in-class contact hours. I really appreciated this experiential approach to learning. Outside of my main course requirements, I took a short course in Modern Art History at the Tate Modern. It was incredible to meet at the museum each week and discuss the techniques, meanings, and concepts of the works while they were right in front of you.

London is such a vibrant city and there's so much to explore by just walking around all of the markets, neighborhoods, and parks. I stayed in the university accommodation near Elephant & Castle which was pretty nice and safe. I shared an apartment with 6 other girls from all over the world who were studying through the UAL system. I was the only one studying abroad, so it was great to be fully integrated with the full time degree students. We did a fair amount of traveling together on the weekends and during break. London is an easy hub to access other parts of Europe, even for a few days.

Looking back on this experience, my semester abroad continues to carry meaning. I worked with fantastic studiomates, designers, and tutors who I've been able to keep in touch with as I have navigated through art school, graduate school, and my professional career as an artist. The new facility at King's Cross is a gorgeous space, and I'd go back in a second to work in those studios.

While I appreciated my semester at UAL Camberwell, I couldn't help but end it feeling disappointed. The course content, rigor and schedule is very different from that in the US, which is what I wanted (my goal while studying abroad was to become immersed in British culture and this definitely happened). But I couldn't understand the connection between our projects and graphic design. All of the instructions were vague and any and every idea was acceptable with no critiques from professors or students.
I used Adobe software one time the entire course, otherwise I was writing/researching for either a rather conceptual programming project and a film project. The film project was especially disappointing, as I felt that graphic design was the last thought while all the other components of the project like filming, writing, acting, etc were placed front and center.
My least favorite part about the course was the constant group work. There was not a single time except for the research paper where I could be alone with my work and be productive. I understand the importance of group work but it seemed the other students did not. People were constantly late to class, tutors included, or didn't show up altogether. This was extremely frustrated and I became so fed up that with 2 weeks left in the semester I left my film group and did 7 weeks worth of work on my own within the last 2 weeks. It was an unproductive, frustrating, and semi-inspiring semester.