I chose Oxford Brookes for a number of reasons.
I think because it was like the most practical course I'd seen because I wanted to do media, but a lot of it was theory based, which I didn't mind, but I also wanted to do more practical work, and that's what Digital Media Production at Oxford Brookes offered. Brookes also offered a free language course in the first year and I really wanted to do that as well so that I could learn Japanese.
From the first week you're using camera and sound equipment.
You might assume that you'd only use each piece of equipment once, but we're constantly using and familiarising ourselves with them. Also, if there's a piece of equipment we don't understand or haven't used much, the academics are happy to provide additional tutorials. And they might get a group of people who are also interested and show everyone as you use that piece of equipment.
Collaboration is a really important aspect of the course.
Lots of our assignments, especially in first year, have a collaborative focus. This comes with a unique set of challenges, but ultimately it’s a very important skill to learn. There’s beginning to be more collaboration between different courses within the School of Arts too, which is great. So if someone is shooting a piece for their Film assignment, they can request to work with students from my course to help with technical aspects we have better comprehension of.
I did find first year quite difficult,
I’m not very good with change. So entering into a new environment is something I really struggled with. I think that was an aspect that I didn't really like, but there wasn't much I could do to change, so I had to kind of get over it and start meeting people. I think that meeting people and making friends on your course can be an awkward process because no one knows each other. But now we're all definitely one big group. I think it just takes a while to get used to it.