First year summed up

One year gone, gosh that was fast! I suppose now is the moment to look back and recap over my first - and hopefully not last! Year of university.

 So what about the course? I believe its the first time I have done something I actually really enjoy. I pretty much hated my life through all of school as all kids do. I have always had a passion for art but could never express it through GCSE or A level art as my teachers hated photographic or realistic art, its all about modern art and expressionism which caused many arguments and me getting into a fair bit of trouble. I knew I had made the right choice in choosing DMU from the very first open day I went to and the course most definately has not left me down.


 Visual Design I have particularly enjoyed this year as it is everything about what I love - drawing. Ok, I hated the two character projects because I am awful at drawing people but that can be improved, but other than that it has been great. I feel like  have been taught so much more than what I had been taught in school about perspective, tones and shape and have actually enjoyed it. Everybody has been friendly even if I have not been the most social of people but I have met some great people who I actually have things in common with. I mostly enjoyed being out and about most days, be it drawing or out with friends - especially the trips to Bradgate, but it is always nice to get out of the city for a while. The life drawing sessions have been incredibly useful in the improvement of my understanding of female anatomy however I would've liked to study the male body as well. It's all good being able to draw one but not so much the other.

 I have never had any proper proper 3D software experience other than CAD back in year 7 and 8 so it was all very new, however the courses structure helped me improve these skills incredibly fast and I feel quite confident in my abilities in 3DS, now as for Photoshop, that's another issue... Hopefully I will learn more about working with Photoshop next year though.

 I've also loved critical studies, even if I have been a bit... Ok, incredibly lazy with my blog posts. Writing has never particularly interested me, which probably seems an odd comment coming from one who studied English Literature. The main thing I think I would've liked to see more in Critical Studies is more presentations! I know this will pick up within the next couple of years but from my first presentation to my third I can feel that Improvement in my organisation and confidence, which I would love to keep building upon. Although writing is not my strong point I have enjoyed reading through articles and the research in general because I feel it gives me a much greater understanding into the course and the topic of gaming.

There isn't anything I can particularly think of to improve the course as it seems to be running perfectly well, I haven't heard a single negative comment on the structure or coursework (other than there's too much and we won't get it done in time, but that comes down to laziness and motivation, the third term seemed a lot slower than the first two.) However I cannot wait to -hopefully- start year 2 and improve myself further! Lets see what waits ahead shall we?