Blogs

The past month has been a lot of work for me. It’s coming up to exam time and with that, of course, comes the inevitable stress, feeling like you never have enough time to do what you need, and for me, the consumption of many sugary sweets. Hey, your brain runs on glucose, right?

Last week, I headed back to my old university (the University of Reading) to talk to some students about some of the biggest issues that they face today. 

I met with a panel of second- and third-year students, and we chatted about pretty much everything that comes under the umbrella of student life: accommodation, studying, socialising and finance.

I had been planning to write about something else this month – something more politically charged. But then I had a bad day, one packed with frustrations, where you feel like you can’t do anything and nothing much gets done. So I thought I’d write about that instead.

It was a cold, bright Wednesday morning. If this was a novel, it would have been a gloomy and bitter day, the perfect scene for failure and disappointment. Instead the day was fresh, the sky was blue, and crispy leaves were strewn about the pavements: it resembled the backdrop I would choose for a happier experience.

I’m halfway through my first semester in New York and midterm season is finally over until the spring. I can now take some time to reflect on the classes that I have taken over the past three months.

On a typical Wednesday morning I emerged from my dorm, after a long night of studying. I was jarred out of my sleepiness by a chorus of shouts sounding across the yard: “It’s Bernie Sanders!”

“Your year abroad will be amazing!”, “you’re going to love it!” and “I’m so jealous”, everyone says when wishing you well on your year abroad.

This was no different for me, yet everyone skims over the reality of starting at a foreign university, and the challenges that this entails.

The student’s view

After reading a number of worrying reports online about phishing attacks on students, I want to make sure that I don't fall victim to them while registering for my degree course and organising my student loan and university accommodation. 

It’s that time of year when sixth-formers and their parents visit university campuses, and every dining-room table across the land is strewn with copies of Freakonomics or Why History Matters as university applicants put the finishing touches to their personal statements, striving to stand out from the crowd, as the 15 January application deadline draws nearer.

The apparent elitist nature of Oxbridge and other top universities has again come under scrutiny following the release of new research showing that numbers of black and minority ethnic (BME) and lower socio-economic students at the University of Cambridge remain depressingly low.

It’s a common misconception that designers should be employed in design companies – a misconception that the Design Council is determined to challenge; designers are needed in every organisation and in every industry.

As a design advocate for Google, Mustafa Kurtuldu is charged with championing design to the technology industry and everyone internally at Google.

“Design used to be seen as a bunch of creative people wasting their time,” he says. “But that is not the case any more as some of the most successful businesses are discovering.”