Hi there!
My name’s Adam Bruce, and I’m a Second Year Writing, Directing and Performance student here at the University of York, and I’m thrilled to be writing these blog posts!
I really look forward to telling you about what it’s like to study and live here in York. It’s only a year and a bit ago that I was in your position: applying for and having interviews with Universities, and preparing to pull an all nighter with everyone’s favourite website UCAS the night before Results Day (I still have nightmares about it from time to time…).
Anyway, throughout my series of blog posts (and in all of the other student blog posts too!) you’ll get to hear straight from the horse’s mouth what life’s really like here. From studying to socialising and everything you can think of in between, you’ll get a great insight into this vibrant and brilliant place to study!
In this first post, I’ll tell you a little bit about myself and why and how I came to study here at the University of York. So, let’s get started!
I’m originally from near Leeds, and have been writing and performing in one way or another for as long as I can remember. I love to write blogs (of course), articles and theatre reviews, the latter of which I’ve been doing for over two years for a company in London. I also love music, and sing, play guitar and love going to gigs whenever I get the chance!
I studied Theatre Studies, English Literature, English Language and BTEC Media at A Level. I started looking around unis pretty much as soon as I started Sixth Form, and I’d found my top five by around June the next year. That’s when I first came to visit the University of York, and came to look around the Department of Theatre, Film and Television to study BA Writing, Directing and Performance (that’s quite a mouthful, I know!).
But it’s actually the title that brought me here to York – it wasn’t one of the standard Drama degrees that you see at so many unis, and when I came out of that first subject talk of the day, I was one hundred percent certain that this was where I wanted to be. The lecturer spoke with passion and honesty, and affirmed my thoughts that this was nothing like Drama at other unis; it was writing, directing and performing for theatre, film and television. But that was only the beginning; the facilities here in the TFTV Department are amazing, with lots of practical, well-kitted out spaces for the three courses it houses (the other two are BSc Film and Televsion Production and BSc Interactive Media).
I tentatively applied for York, knowing that my predicted grades didn’t fully match the entry requirements: I and all the other English Lit students fluffed up our AS exam after being taught completely the wrong content by one of the teachers. I spoke to the lecturer who gave the subject talk, and he happily listened to my plight, after which he simply said, “Nevermind all that. Apply, and prove to us you can do this.”. And that’s exactly what I did! I sent in a second Personal Statement (after all, the more the merrier…) to the Admissions Tutor, had my interview for the course, worked hard in my A2 exams and hey presto, I got in! I make it sound much simpler than it was; those several months of studying hard certainly weren’t simple!
It felt like a lifetime waiting for the day I’d move to York, but it was incredibly exciting when I arrived. I moved into my college and Fresher’s Week began. Me and my flat partied hard, and in the coming weeks, I started to realise how much harder it was studying at University. It took me a while to fully settle in, and it’s only in my second year now that I think I’ve managed to do so!
Everything that I do here at York is still as exciting as it was when I first started studying here. I’ve learnt that the sky really is the limit when it comes to taking hold of opportunities and learning and trying loads of new things. Over the next few posts I’ll go into more detail about what sorts of things you can do here and how studying and everything works – I thought I’d tell you about myself, along with how I came to study here first, since that’s the stage you’re likely to be in while looking at York and going through the nightmare exam period.
I look forward to telling you lots more about the University and the real student experience here! Feel free to comment on my posts; I’ll always reply! See you in the next blog post!
[…] that the Department produces. Last year’s production was Demons, which I briefly mentioned in my first blog here, and it was incredibly fun. To get an idea of how it all worked, I’ll let you have a read over it […]