So far my university experience has been pleasant. I am not a fan of my main teacher and his lessons but I am happiest when I am able to complete my work and assignments without the computers breaking or with unneeded interruptions like the "live project". The start of the course started well due to the University taking us on trips to Birmingham to the EGX convention. However, they no longer put on trips. The start of the year also stated that assignments would be due with a few weeks between them but this has not been the case. This has stressed myself and others out due to teachers over-extending the assignment deadlines.

Our facilities for the course have its ups and downs. A lot of the time we have computers and software that works. However, the rest of the time the software crashes, the Internet goes down and the computers break. This usually happens when we've been given assignments which really messes with our deadlines. We only have one room which we have been told belongs to us so no other classes can use it. However, we have had some problems with other classes (mainly college courses) using our room when they don't need all the hardware and software in there. This makes working at the college extremely hard.

It depends on the teacher we have. Two of them are great, especially with feedback. They walk around the classroom trying to help and it shows they really care. However, our main teacher seems to push his career path onto us and doesn't really show that he cares much for what we want to do in our futures. As for personal counselling, the college provides counselling from trained professionals that both work for the college and from an outside company. This service is amazing and has helped myself and others quite a lot.

At Middlesbrough College we don't have a students union for university as it is partnered with the open University. This means I am unable to get involved. Teesside University has a Students Union however our tutors have yet to say whether we are allowed to go there or not.

I enjoy the city life here in Middlesbrough. The college is quite close to the town and all the shops are accessible. This means a lot of equipment is easy to get and there are a lot of places to eat nearby. The nightlife is alright with some of the bars and night clubs being open around our university hours.

There are no clubs or societies at Middlesbrough College for university students so I wouldn't know.

I like how we don't have to sit in a lecture theatre for our lessons, it's all hands on. This is great when it comes to working on assignments for say 3D environments or 2D and 3D art. Another thing I like is how the teachers roam around the classroom making sure that we understand the assignment and they can have conversations with us about how to further improve on our skills. Personally, I'm not a fan of the live projects. These tend to interfere with assignments that we have been given and sometimes the teacher tries to merge them with the assignments when they don't sound anything like our brief.

18

We have a lot of "live projects" which involve us working with outside companies. This allows us to build upon skills we already have and can also give us contacts for the future. We also have assignments which focus on developing our skills and how we can get jobs within the games industry.