SO here I was, sitting in my front room of my house in Newport, and I suddenly came across this MA course in Architectural Studies. I got so excited that, to be honest, I didn’t really know what to do – I just wanted to apply! Maan, y’know buildings are so fricking amazing!
Anyway, back to my story of how I got to Scotland, I spoke to my lecturer about it and he said that I should go and check it out as there was an open day. So that’s exactly what I did. That night I booked a plane ticket from Gatwick airport as I was going to be in London the day before for an architecture talk to Glasgow Airport.
Whilst booking my flight and buses to London I thought to myself HEY! Why don’t I go and visit Freyja (one of my friends from school who has just started uni in Edinburgh)?! That got me thinking well I might as well check out the university while I’m at it eh?
Guess what? I found this amazing looking course called Art, Space and Nature – sounded like it was right up my street ! After a few emails I managed to get in touch with lectures from both uni’s and arranged to meet up for a chat.
Thursday 4:30am is when my mini adventure begins. I got up and got to the airport for my 7:20am flight to Glasgow. It felt really weird that I was flying there haha! But I arrived in Glasgow just before the hour of 9am and then I hopped on a bus into Glasgow City central. It’s the first time I’ve ever been to Scotland and the place looked amazing plus the uni looked like just what I was looking for! but then all my hopes and dreams of studying there started to fall apart. Some of the students were awkward to talk to, a couple of the lecturers weren’t very helpful and the pathway leader pretty much slated my dissertation and told me that I would never be employable as an architect and I should just stick to music.
So yeah I come from a music background, my current degree is called Creative Sound and Music, but within my degree I’ve been able to explore using sound within film, sound installation – and of course your typical singer-songwriter style songs that I am also a fan of, but my time in Toronto has made me interested in building, space and all the uses sound has with it. I don’t want to be an architect! I just want to study it and make it relevant to MY music practice! Silly man!
I got on the next train to Edinburgh where I met Meadhbh! Meadhbh goes to Dundee university so I messaged her and Liisa (who goes to uni in Edinburgh) to say I was going to be around at the end of the week. I havent seen either of them since Toronto so I was quite excited to meet up.
Meadhbh and I went for a bit if a wonder, got some food at a cafe called Urban something – can’t remember exactly but they had really good vegan and vegetarian food! After that we popped into the National Art Gallery and then we met Liisa at a pub called The Tron. I wasn’t meeting Freyja until later as.
After a lovely catch up Meabhdh and I rocked up to Freyjas top floor apartment (student halls) had some couscous for din dins then went to a couple of pubs. one was called Captains and there was a guy playing the bagpipes in there. And the other I can’t remember the name of but it was pretty cool. There are sooo many pubs here!
Friday 12:30am (ish) I met Freyja and one of her classmates at a cafe for Luncheon / breakfast. I’d been doing some dissertation work in the morning whilst Freyja went into uni. The cafe was called Billy Bongos – the food there was soo cheap and sooo good- I had pancakes… After that Freyja took me on a little tour of her uni and a few of her favourite shops including the notorious Armstrongs that everyone around here knows about! It’s such a cool place, it all cheap old vintage retro clothing. Yes I bought something ha!
At 4pm I went to the Edinburgh College of Art where the lecturer set me up with a meeting with one of his students on the ASN course as he wasn’t able to meet up anymore. She gave me a little tour of the department, showed me some of her work and went through any questions I had about the course and Edinburgh. She was awesome. I loved it there. I didn’t feel intimidated like I did in Glasgow. I love the fact that Edinburgh is so quirky and there are so many interesting people! I WANT TO LIVE HERE SO BADLY! I can’t wait to apply…! 😀
I have fallen in love with Edinburgh.
J Xx