Week 2/3 - Freshers and school start

Now the campus is full.

The freshers (1. years) has moved in, and the campus filled with people. Approx. 1000 people live on the campus. In the school hours over 4000 people wander around the campus, finding the next class, getting fresh air or general socializing. Though I don't really get to see the busy hours, cause I'm not on this campus. I'm on the Glyntaff campus, which is across the valley just 20 minutes walking.

Along with the freshers start, the school starts as well. Or the introduction of the tutors, classmates, courses, and so on. Our introduction with the tutors was pretty fun. The tutors on the animation courses aren't as normal lectures. They all have a background in the industry, and therefore they haven't gotten the "traditional" education. This causes them to be a bit more relaxed in their tutoring.

My timetable is pretty filled compared to other courses on the University. We have school hours from 09:30 to 16:00 every day. This is because we have a lot of practical time, where we work on projects and generally practising. The modules that we are going to cover is very planned out, and it looks nice so far. They have build the course up so you a good foundation in life-drawings and understanding of media. The course is not without any "text work". We'll have to hand in essays, which f.ex. could be an analysis of a movie. Just so people don't think that the course is all practical and no theoretical work.

Our first assignment was to make a series of animations with the characters from the game "Pacman". In the animations we had to cover; acceleration, deceleration, change of direction, showing different of weight and characterisation and emotions. And here's some of the stuff I made.

If you want to see more videos follow the link; http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-1148849394693293515. All copyright is reserved for the University of Glamorgan, Cardiff school of Creative and Cultural Industries.
The "Pacman" assignment was to be handed in Friday, and then the tutor are going to examine the animations over the weekend. Tomorrow (Monday) we will have our first critique. So for the first time my life I'm looking for to a Monday..

We also got our first essay brief in Contextual Studies (understanding of media). We have to take 40-60 seconds of an animation, film or computer game, and analyse it. The essay has to be 1500 words long, which at the current moment seems very long for me.

The first week of school also brought on the first Visual studies class, which basically is life drawing. The tutor there seems all right, he definitely wants us to be good and he tries to motivate us as much as possible.

Besides the first week of school not much else has happened. Was out in Cardiff yesterday, which was actually really fun. There was a rugby match on in the stadium; New Zealand v. France. Didn't see the match, but heard it was a good game with a close win to France; 18-20. When there is a rugby match on, the streets are filled with fans and that gives the city a good atmosphere.

That was the words from the last two weeks, hope you enjoyed the little reading.

International Welcome Week - Week 1

Finally!!

Been planning this for 2-3 months, and now I’m finally here in Pontypridd, Wales. I got accepted at the Glamorgan Centre for Art & Design Technology a month ago. In the meantime I’ve been planning the way over here; student loans, accommodations, student finances from the Danish government, and generally getting geared up mentally and physically.

If I knew the workload that it takes to start at a university abroad, I might have considered it twice. But when your dream-education isn't in your home country, you got to seek else where.

The UK was a pretty easy choice considering two thing; economy and language. There is some excellent universities, with computer animation (or there abouts), in non-English countries, but I’m a language idiot. Except for English, which everybody (in Denmark at least) almost gets in with breastfeeding.

The second factor was the economy in it all. At first I applied to a couple of universities, in the UK as well as the US. The problem with the US is that you can’t get financial support from the Danish government for any of the universities (not yet that is). So the choice landed on the UK.

After some searching I singled out two universities; Glamorgan Centre for Art & Design Technology and University of Cumbria. The initial choice of Glamorgan was a case of taste in course structure and references from former students.

After applying to Glamorgan, I took the chance of going to an interview. I got in, fortunately, but after hearing the prospects of place, I knew that Glamorgan was the right choice. Glamorgan Centre for Art & Design Technology has been bought by the University of Glamorgan, and the whole department is going to transfer to Cardiff. In Cardiff, the university is building a new department. MMMmmmhhhh, prospects of new facilities and new furniture, its always nice to be the first ones to use them. The new department is called Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries, so if I in future blogs mix between the two departments names, then you knew why.

I have really been looking forward to start; meeting new people, see how the school/course works, how I match up to the rest of the class, how well I do in a foreign country, and generally starting a new chapter in my life. For those that haven't seen any of my work so far, I might just plug my website: http://www.3d-presentation.dk/. For the non-Danish, don’t worry the site is in English. For those non-English, worry... To reach my personal work, go into the Personal Works category, or just follow the link: http://3d-presentation.dk/Personal_work.html.


Started the Welcome Week for the International Students, and it is definately recommendable to any one going to University of Glamorgan. Not only do they show you the area and rules of the place, you also get information about the does and don'ts of Wales. And not only that, everything is free in the Welcome Week; Sports activities, informations session, trips. Of course you´ll have to pay the initial rent for the Week, but still its worth it if you go on the trips and activities.


Moving on to the room that I got, which is a standard room (no bathroom), is not too bad. The room is about 14 square meters, with a sink, bed, desk, deskchair and closet. At first it looked really small, but after moving the furniture around you'll get at bit more space. These aren't from my room, but its the same size:-






I am really impressed of all the possibilities that there are on the campus like sport activities and study support centres. The sports center on campus has decent facilities, but they offer a lot of different activities, which are off campus. Like quad biking, which I tried twice during Welcome Week.




Wednesday - Welsh Night. Getting some culture from Wales; food and dancing. Really fun night, where everyone was having fun on the dance floor.

Thurdays - Went to my first rugby game; Wales v. Japan. They played in Cardiff, so it was pretty easy to get to the stadium. I can only say that you have to try to go to Cardiff when theres a rugby game on. The streets near the stadium gets blocked from traffic and gets filled with people thats either pub crawling or going to the stadium. The tickets for the match were quite cheap compared to the view that you get; 16 pounds, and then you'll get a view like the picture. This is something you should do when coming to Cardiff, and its definately not the last time for me.

Saturday - Night Out In Cardiff. The was arranged a night out for all the International students. Again everyone was having a very good time. Theres a lot of pictures in the online album, so I would advice you to go there and have a look; http://picasaweb.google.com/3dinwales.

So these were the first words on my adventure. Ill try and update the blog a couple a times a month depending on the amount of activity, and Ill post all the work Ill be doing here.