I have never seen a city that is this astonishing and beautiful with its historical buildings – gorgeous!
It is always a pleasure seeing the city’s scenery when coming out of the underground. London is a truly diverse city in which you meet many people from all over the world! I am not only fascinated by the city, the University of Westminster also proves its diversity throughout its numerous campuses all over London.
The Media Art and Design Department is located at Harrow Campus in northern London. There we live in Harrow Halls, which is located directly at the Campus so that we only need 5 minutes to go to university. It takes us about 15 minutes to get into the city, for example Baker Street.
I briefly want to explain my first day arriving at the campus and how this went:
We needed to check in first and get our keys and beddings. The staff and students were very friendly and you felt immediately comfortable and welcome. So we got our keys and we had to find our rooms but what we didn’t know is that there are NO escalators! So be prepared to work out the day you arrive here. But don’t worry! Everything becomes easy as you make friends during the same day as you help each other! Oh, I want to mention the doors! Don’t panic, as I did, if you can’t open them straight away.
It is a completely different system and you have to get used to the way opening doors here… Everyone got upset because of that, haha! So after I finally stored my luggage in my room I went grocery shopping (very adventurous)! There is a Sainsbury’s only 10 minutes walk from here and guess what, you don’t have to carry your bags, just drive your trolley with your things in it home. See, easy! In the first few days lots of students were doing the same thing. So funny! In Germany, everyone would stare at you as you drive the thing through the quarter of town. The only thing I suggest is to bring a lot of money for the first week, because London is really expensive! I would also recommend you to go to any Lidl or Aldi as it’s definitely much cheaper to buy food there!
Generally, the first week consisted of sightseeing, Harrow Halls Inductions, Student Welcome Events and a boat party! The boat party was amazing! There was a breath-taking view of London’s scenery from the boat looking at the Tower of London as well as Tower Bridge. Seriously I have never seen a city this stunning! We’ve also been to Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, St. James Park, Buckingham Palace, London Eye, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, National History Museum (my favourite one), Victoria and Albert Museum as well as the Science Museum. Most of the museums are free and incredible beautiful. Can’t wait to see all other different places the coming weeks as well as taking part in the Harry Potter Tour and visit Oxford!
During these days it is terrific how many new things you see and people you meet! We met students from Australia, Canada, America, Finland, Sweden, Lithuania, Spain, India and so on! No wonder the University of Westminster is named most diverse University in the UK!
The Media Art and Design Department is completely different than other campuses in central London. There, you just feel the creativeness in the air while entering the forum! We have classes three times a week and two lectures twice a week. We are a bunch of international students and yet we still don’t know each other quite well but this will also change in the next few weeks.
The Graphic Design Department offers a lot of different equipment we can use. The only thing I personally don’t like is that the classroom we are in is not completely divided from other classrooms. This becomes a problem when we (or the others) start discussing things and start to disturb each other. However classes in general are very interesting, very organized and structured. Lecturers are quite motivational and they really want to push you further in creative thinking and in developing great ideas. This is what you need as a media and communication design student. This university’s department offers you outstanding education in this field. It’s awesome!