University rating
Tell us about your overall university experience so far.
The university is fairly new and improving tremendously with every passing year, and already, it's a wholly different place to what it was when I started in 2021. I've found that I'm able to delve into events, workshops and talks I never had access to before as well as try the practises of other arts in the building. I've been able to join fabric dying workshops and clay working, working alongside other departments and creating something together and influence my own course and the direction it's taking. I'm frequently attending showings at the Arts Cinema at discounted prices and having a chance to see more indie films, I wouldn't on the big screen. The opportunities to promote my arts and make an earning off them from frequent markets and sales have been useful in getting things out there, too. I feel like I can really get involved, without taking on extra responsibilities to open doors.
As a student rep since year one, I've also been able to largely feedback on my course and together with lecturers, shape it for future terms and years, and that has been massively beneficial to my studies. I've regained my interest in art, which at the time of applying, I had largely fallen out of, and now want to create and work on my projects eagerly again.
However, there have been some issues we've not been able to tackle, institution wide. Across the building, changes take much longer and often continuous personal effort, before results, which can be straining. The food on campus has become more expensive and often inaccessible and the building is only so big, so it can lack the spaces you might need for breaks. This is often substituted by dedicated quiet rooms, student union and cafeteria, but be mindful if you're expecting a large campus.
There are really nice outside spaces nearby, with Drake's Place 5 minutes away and Beaumont Park about 15 minutes away. Plymouth is a much quieter city than most, though. There isn't much to do in town in the winter months, past 5pm.
Arts University Plymouth is changing and improving with every year, and has been able to rekindle my lost interest in the arts, over my course. I'm now passionate about my works and submissions again and wish to continue working in my chosen field. The city itself is a little too quiet and the campus isn't as expansive as most, but studying here has been a massive help for me to expand creatively and think about the world in artistic ways again, so I'd recommend the university to others a hundred percent. If you choose to study here, you have a real chance to shape it forward.
Course rating
Course rating
The course is mainly led in-person, and sometimes this can be troublesome in relating everything that's gone on online. We have not been able to get recordings of lectures in my two years here so far, though I have been told this is an institution decision.
We've always had two full days of learning, from 10am until 4-5pm, with a lunch break inbetween and a mixture of practice and theory between these, with two units per semester, one being taught on each day. In these, you might learn processes, softwares, follow tutorials or listen to core lectures, looking at philosophy, essay writing, creative thinking, presenting your work. The rooms are equipped with PC's powerful enough to run heavy softwares and render expansive projects, and nearly every PC is mounted with a Huion Tablet, and where there isn't one, there is ample supply of plug in ones, you can add.
Lectures look at concept art creation, thumbnail sketching environments, some character design, modelling, rigging and animating in 3D as well as some live drawing. Your tasks are very guided in the first year, but become less so as you progress, and by your third, you're creating your project on your own ground. There is only a lack of some 2D processes as I go on to explain later - in storyboarding, concepting and animating.
The years are in on different days so they can use the space without the rooms being crowded, though the third years now have their own room as well.
Thus far, cross-university units haven't been as successful, but I hope they will be in future. Unfortunately they struggled to fit in the specifications in which students of different pathways create their art.
One main critique I have for the course is the lack of 2D Animation content. Over the course, we've had very limited and spread apart sessions looking at 2D Animation, and haven't learned nearly enough software for this specification. The course has been very heavy on 3D modelling, rendering and animation and has put people who would choose to go on a 2D animation pathway in their final year in a place of having to teach a lot of it themselves. The same has gone for most aspects of 2D work creation, as we've not had as many lessons in colour theory, composition, perspective, etc, as I would've liked.
The course is also leaning a lot into Game Arts, and doesn't provide a lot of lessons on 2D Film Animation or Stop Motion Animation, which I have found challenging.
I have expressed some unhappiness about this and tried to change things, and though I have seen some improvements, unfortunately, it's not been enough to feel confident in creating the kind of artworks I wanted to by this stage.
I'm very grateful for having my creativity and passion in art return from my studies here, but I worry my skillsets cannot match my ideas entirely, because of this missed content.
For 3D animation, there is a lot to learn and expand on, so if that's what you're looking at, it's very useful in that department. I'm afraid the 2D Animation side of it still needs improvements and really hope that this will happen soon.
