Ok, so this post is a little more personal in nature than my regular fashion reviews, however it's still linked to fashion in the academic sense!
As you'll know from some of my previous update blog entries, I had an interview at Northumbria University in Newcastle today to study a BA (HONS) Fashion Communications degree. Seeing as the interview was at 1pm, rather than getting the train down quite early in the morning, I decided earlier on in the week that I would head down on the train on Thursday afternoon and get a hotel for the night - that way I would be less flustered and be able to get my bearings a bit better. Well. Less flustered, I was not. I was just as shaky, nervous and sick to my stomach when I woke up at 9am this morning, as I was going down to Newcastle on the Thursday afternoon (Not having my laptop, or internet for my tablet PC didn't help matters either - a quick look at the first collections to hit London Fashion Week today would have surely calmed my nerves)
Seeing as the interview was at 1pm, I decided to head up to the City Campus East - School of Design building around noon, so that I had an hour to find out where to go etc. When I got into the building, I went straight to reception to tell them I was there for an interview and the guy behind the desk ticked my name off and handed me a plastic bag with various booklets about Newcastle - places to eat, drink and visit - a mini red sketchbook with the Northumbria University emblem on the bottom right hand corner, and finally, a questionnaire sheet which included questions along the lines of;
- Why have you applied for Northumbria in particular?
- What does Fashion Communication mean to you?
- Name a photographer, artist, musician and design company that inspires you and give a few words as to why that is.
After filling in the questions, the head of admissions for Fashion Communication came around asking people to go into one of the seminar rooms, as they were about to begin with the interviews. Once I sat down, a different lecturer (don't know her name, she spoke only briefly) came in and explained that everyone in the room was here for either Fashion Communication, Fashion Design or Fashion Marketing, and that if we were there for Fashion Communications, then we were to follow the head of admissions and go into a separate room - I think it was because we were the only course out of the three that didn't need to show a full on portfolio. Anyway, once we got into the other room (there were only 5 of us - thank god.) we each took a seat at the table and had our names ticked off the register. At this point, the head of admissions called our names, one by one to give our presentations. I was called third to give mines, but by this point my heart was in my ears, my leg wouldn't stop shaking, I was actually starting to feel my teeth chattering - it was truly horrendous. I've never been so nervous for an interview in my life so far - and it was all because after watching the first two girls present, all I could think about was, "Oh. My. God. My board is all wrong." Each one of the girls had media related projects included on their boards or power point presentations that they had studied at school or college. Things like their social networking sites, photographs/shoots that they had personally taken or styled etc, and I was just sitting there listening to it all and thinking that I had forgotten to put in the things that should have been obvious to me - my blog and Twitter for example. So when it was my turn, I put my board up on the table and felt the need to explain why mines was just so much more fashion/design related than everybody else's - which is fair enough, really. I mean, I've studied design since fourth year at high school. That's over five years now. Half way through my presentation though, I felt like I should have pointed out that I had this blog and my Tumblr account, so I mentioned it. However, at the same time, all I could think about was that they must think I'm a liar, and that I only said it because the other four girls all mentioned theirs and I just didn't want to look outdone. This could be paranoia, but I don't really know.
Moving swiftly on. After the presentations were done, a third year student came in to take us up to the studios to show up where we would be working, and to show us some of the first year students work. We got there and there were a row of sketch books and briefs up one side of the table, and up the other side were magazines that the students had designed and actually produced for one of the modules (this was what got me really excited, as working for a magazine company is what I really want to do for a career.) After having a quick look through the work - which was amazing, by the way - I started to ask the third year student some questions about how the industry has reacted to graduates from the course, what work placements people have been doing etc etc (I figured if I asked questions, then she would report back to the head of admissions and maybe say that I seemed keen and interested) Once we had a look around, we were taken back downstairs to the design lobby where the head of admissions was waiting for us. At this point, I thought we were going to be taken in for a one to one and asked the questions that the university website said to prepare for, however we were just thanked for coming, asked to hand in the questionnaire's that we filled in earlier, told that our presentations were all great and that we should hear back soon with whether or not we've been given a place on the course. This really had my jaw on the ground. I had prepared answers for these questions and was hoping that after my board being different from everybody else's in the presentations, that these questions would help me justify to them why I should actually be doing the course after all. So, naturally as you can image, I started to panic a little thinking that I had just blown my chances of getting in.
It wasn't until later on tonight that I remembered that the questions on the sheet we were given to fill out, were actually not that far off from the questions we were told to prepare for on the website. Having this realisation has calmed my nerves a little, but I don't think the sick feeling in my stomach will fully go away until I hear back from Northumbria. You have no idea how badly I want onto this course. There's nothing else like it in Scotland, and the other courses that I have applied for just don't come anywhere near it.
Everybody - keep your fingers crossed for me!
