I think it's a great place to study because the facilities and other students are great, and also are some of the staff. I think the student well-being is just a tick box and the actual university doesn't actually care about the students. The location is great and I really like being able to eat by the river every day, and also the studios are kept very clean and tidy, apart from all our things obviously. The price of printing keeps going up, and I heard recently from a friend that printing used to be free, which makes me think why do university fees keep rising.

I think this year has been way better than last year, and that of course is down to coronavirus, however this year I think could still be better, a tutor usually would be available most of the time, however, one of the strands has been removed which a lot of students wanted to be part of because the tutor left, and she wasn't replaced with a likeminded tutor, and therefore the strand has been removed.

I study at Kingston School of Art, part of Kingston University and the location is really good as it is very close to London so there is always places to go and visit which can be helpful for studying. The teachers are great and always happy to sit down an help you on the course if there is something which you don't understand or you want to improve on. I would say that my first year experience has been like doing an Art Foundation all over again but my foundation course felt more fast paced and I did feel like I learnt a lot more then I have in first year, so I am looking forward to progressing to second year with more structured briefs and projects.

Our course has been basically all in person which is great, I would say the course content could be improved. I would have preferred if we didn't have so many briefs based around publications because I feel although it is important to learn layout design, the publication industry is dying and it would have been better if we had projects around web design/app design. However, these briefs let you explore print design which is really good to know and to start off with using analogue techniques rather than digital so you can become a well-rounded designer. We don't have a lot of allocated time with our tutors, mainly only seeing them for group crits and reviews but they are always around if you have questions and you can go to the Graphics study rooms where all the other students are so you can do your work together.

Living in Kingston is great because it's not in a central London city location so you get a bit of a breather from the crowds, although it is a big town so there's enough going on. It's annoying that there isn't a tube station nearby but only the buses or train but it is easy to get into London. Kingston is a very expensive place to live if you are looking for student accommodation that is outside of the uni's own accommodation and I feel it is important to live near the train station if you are thinking of travelling to and from London when its dark outside, however the area I have found is pretty safe when walking at night.