#UCAS Apply 2016

[dearibstudents]

Need help with applications?

Hello everyone! How is everyone’s summer going?

As you may or may not know, I graduated from the IB in 2016. It has now been four years, and going into fall I would like to help you in the way I can - both by answering your questions, but also by providing you advice on University applications.

A little about me: I graduated from the IB in 2016, and started studying BSc Business Management at Queen Mary University of London in September 2016. I graduated university in 2019 with a First Class Honours. In September 2019 I began the Graduate Diploma in Law, which is essentially one law degree packed into 10 months. I hence graduated in July 2020 with a Commendation on the Graduate Diploma in Law. 

If you or anyone you know want some advice on your University applications, please feel free to send me a message and I will help you in any way i can!

I have applied both through UCAS and the Common Application (to the US). 

/Clara

[msdiamandieva-blog]

Приключихме кампания "Кандидатстване Бакалавър - Великобритания 2017" в срок

Приключихме кампания “Кандидатстване Бакалавър – Великобритания 2017” в срок

За 10-та поредна година приключихме в срок кампания “Кандидатстване Бакалавър – Великобритания” в определеният от UCAS срок (15 януари).

Благодаря на екипа и нашите партньори за добре свършената работа.

Към момента от 100 % подадени апликации през UCAS Apply 2017, са налице следните резултати:

Кандидати получили максимален брой оферти и потвърдили желания университет – 8%;

Кандидати получили…

[architectnews]

Brexit "a major factor" as EU applications for UK design courses fall by more than 50 per cent

The number of European Union students applying to study art and design in the UK has fallen by more than half compared to last year.

Applications from the EU fell 52 per cent from 22,860 in 2020 to just 10,940 this year, according to data from the UK's Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS).

Applications from the rest of the world rose seven per cent from 26,680 to 28,530, meaning there was a net fall of just over 10,000 overseas applications.

Jeremy Till, head of London art and design school Central Saint Martins, said the fall in EU applications was "undoubtedly" due to Brexit, which came into force on 1 January this year.

Brexit a "major factor" in drop

"Brexit has undoubtedly been a major factor in the downturn in EU applications," Till told Dezeen.

"The fact that EU students now have to pay fees at the higher international level and are no longer eligible for loans is certainly putting off prospective students," added Till, who is also pro vice-​chancellor of the University of Arts London.

Overall applications to courses grew slightly compared to 2020, when the pandemic caused a small drop in overall student numbers compared to 2019. More UK students have applied this year, bringing the total number of applications to 256,420.

Predictions that an uptick in EU student applications in 2018 was a pre-Brexit surge appear to have come true.

EU students must pay international fees

In 2016 The Council for Higher Education in Art & Design warned Brexit would have a "significant impact on staff and student recruitment, competitiveness and prestige of UK creative higher education and creative industries at a time when global competition in these areas is likely to increase steeply."

Since Brexit, students from countries in the EU are no longer eligible for home fees status, meaning they now have to pay higher fees than UK students.

EU students also have to apply for a student visa costing £348 using the UK's new points-based immigration system, as well as paying a £470 surcharge upfront to access the country's free healthcare system.

UK institutions "concerned" at loss of diversity

After graduation, EU students will need to apply for a graduate visa to grant them permission to stay and look for employment for up to two years, posing a further disincentive.

"We are concerned about the effect this will have at UAL, not least because students from the EU have been an important part of our diverse community," said Till.

"Our EU graduates have made important contributions to the creative economy in the UK," he added.

"To mitigate the potential loss of this important constituency, UAL has therefore put in place an extensive bursary scheme to support EU applications."

Fall in numbers could cost universities £66.5 million

The drop in EU student numbers is not entirely unexpected. A report published by the UK government's Department of Education in February 2021 estimated that Brexit could cost universities up to £66.5 million in fee income as EU student numbers dropped.

Travel restrictions introduced in response to the coronavirus pandemic and the UK's high rate of infection could also be putting off potential students.

Further impacts of Brexit on the UK's creative industries include small design firms moving their production abroad to reduce costs and UK architecture qualifications losing automatic recognition in EU countries.

The post Brexit "a major factor" as EU applications for UK design courses fall by more than 50 per cent appeared first on Dezeen.

[freenewstoday]

New Post has been published on https://freenews.today/2020/12/07/eu-students-studying-at-british-universities-could-face-a-1000-hit-due-to-brexit-and-covid/

EU students studying at British universities could face a $1,000 hit due to Brexit and Covid

The U.K. is home to three of the world’s top 10 universities, according to Times Higher Education, including Oxford University.

Joe Daniel Price | Getty Images

LONDON — European students that have enrolled in British universities could face a hit of about £818 ($1,084) if they do not arrive in the U.K. before the end of the year. 

The issue is one of the first practical implications of the U.K.’s departure from the European Union.

Some students, currently in their first year of study, have struggled to move to the U.K. due to the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting travel restrictions. As most institutions have offered their classes online, it has allowed them to remain in their home nation.

But this situation puts them at risk of having to pay more to move to the U.K. as their right to move for free expires on Dec. 31.

The U.K. stopped being a member of the EU in January but agreed to a transition period until the end of 2020. During this time, EU nationals have retained the right to freedom of movement — meaning they can move to the U.K. to work or study without the need for visas.

However, this will no longer be the case from January onward and European students moving to the U.K. after Dec. 31 will have to apply for a student visa in order to have a legal status. They will also have to pay a health care fee as part of their application.

It costs £348 to apply for a student visa from outside the U.K. and the health costs amount to £470 for every year of study.

As a result, EU students that have started their studies with U.K. institutions are being urged to journey to the U.K. in the coming weeks.

“We urge EU students enrolled in U.K. universities to familiarize themselves with the EU settlement scheme in the U.K. and with the new U.K. immigration rules, especially if they are currently following their studies remotely from another country,” an EU official, who did not want to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, told CNBC via email.

Students arriving in the new year will not be able to apply for the EU settlement scheme — an immigration status that allows EU nationals living in the U.K. to keep their current rights going forward, despite the U.K.’s decision to exit the EU.

The number of EU nationals choosing to study in the U.K. started dropping in 2016 — the same year that the U.K. voted to the leave the EU. In the latest academic year, this figure fell once again by 2% from 2019, data from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) showed.

City University in London, where about 10% of its undergraduate and postgraduate students are from EU countries, told CNBC: “We have been able to offer online seminars where our international team can answer student questions and advise on the EU Settlement Scheme application process.”

“We also regularly send targeted emails reminding students about deadlines and providing the most up-to-date information,” the university said.

Source

[astralbooks]

Radio Silence - Alice Oseman

Read: 14/11/17 - 15/11/17

Rating - 5/5

Review - also posted on goodreads

Frances Janvier is determined to get into Cambridge. She spends practically every moment of her life doing extra reading and schoolwork in order to help make this dream a reality. She is also a massive fan of a sci-fi podcast, called Universe City, about an agender person called Radio Silence who is sending out SOS messages as they try to survive. One day, Frances discovers that the mysterious person behind this podcast is the boy who lives across the road, and the two quickly become friends. They do not fall in love.

I was supposed to read this book when it came out. I was anticipating it prior to its release but then just didn't pick it up for some reason. I literally told someone at one point that I'd have read it by the end of 2016. This did not happen and I am a moron because this book is amazing. It would be a lie to say there's no romance at all, but it is not between Frances and Aled, or even a main focus. Frances and Aled become really close, but their relationship is completely platonic. It was honestly beautiful to read. More books should be like this. This book focuses a lot on exams and university applications, specifically in the UK. I am currently in year 13, and have recently sent off my UCAS form, and am applying to Oxbridge, so this was very relevant to me. Yes, it is stressful. You can certainly tell that Oseman is writing from experience. Another main focus is how people on the internet can behave. Once you've been online for long enough, you've probably seen instances of people being tracked down alarmingly quickly based on very little information. People in fandoms can also be utterly awful to the creators. Again, it was clear that Oseman was heavily influenced by events she has observed and possibly experienced. It was true to life which made the events even more hard hitting. This book is really diverse!! Frances is mixed race and bisexual, Daniel is Korean and gay, Carys is gay, and Aled is demisexual. They all describe themselves as such. On the page. With words. This makes me very happy. This book made me very emotional. I'm not an easy crier, but I came close and to be honest if I hadn't read this at school then I probably would have been in tears at some points. Alas, I was in public, so I held it together. If you're thinking about what you want to do after school, or if you're part of an internet fandom, then this book is extremely relevant to your life. Personally, the focus on friendship alone would have made this book worth reading. The addition of these other factors makes this book truly fantastic! I just wish I'd read it sooner.

[qmcareers]

How Careers and Enterprise helped me become an Analyst

Lisa Mistry studied BSc Chemistry at Queen Mary between 2013-2016. Since graduating, she has gone on to work in the petrochemical and upstream oil and gas sectors.

Thinking back to the time when UCAS applications were kicking off, I knew I wanted to stay in London. London has some of the best universities in the world, so it was an obvious choice. I also knew at the time that the STEM route was for me, but I was undecided on a specific course.

Finding out about Careers and Enterprise

In my first year, after Welcome Week, my cohort and I had a careers talk with Maya, our school’s careers consultant, who discussed the vast amount of support available as a QMUL student and graduate. This could be anything from a chat with the Careers and Enterprise staff about various career paths to a full mock interview session.

Accessing our support

I began with small discussions with Maya and her colleagues, and then began booking sessions to discuss my CV and cover letters in greater detail as I was applying for internships, graduate schemes and full-time jobs.

After graduation, I got back in touch with Maya to discuss possible MSc applications. I wanted to continue my education and felt a masters around the oil, gas and energy space would aid my career in the long run, as I’m extremely passionate about the sector. Once you graduate, you are still allowed to access the Careers and Enterprise service for 2 years. I highly recommend doing so, as it is often the case you need a different person’s perspective on your ideas and written work!

How it helped

The support provided was truly invaluable. Discussing career paths with staff who have access to an array of information on internships and graduate schemes was extremely helpful.

We would brainstorm different career paths and then work backwards by highlighting key skills the roles would require. By doing this, it helped me to see which skills I needed to improve, and by having these discussions very early on in university, I was able to work on them until the day I graduated.

When applying for MSc programmes, Maya was extremely helpful in providing me feedback on my personal statement. We went through each paragraph and discussed the positives and negatives. The technical knowledge I gained during the MSc has helped significantly in my current role, as an Analyst in an energy advisory company in London. Careers support helped with my MSc application, and I am truly grateful for their time and support.

If you would like to book an appointment with a careers consultant, or have someone check over a CV or application, you can find out how to do so here. 

from QM Jobs Blog https://ift.tt/3at7nZL via IFTTT

[bunchofrosies]

UCAS and University Experience

Hi All!

So, to begin my university series I have decided to start with my University Application experience through UCAS, and how my AS Levels went and reveal what university I will be going to. So in 2016, I completed my AS exams in Psychology, English Literature, Business Studies, Philosophy and Ethics and General Studies (GS was forced on us by our school – yawn). And much to my disappointment I did not do brilliantly at AS, I received BBBDD, with the D’s being in GS and English Literature. This was a huge disappointment for me as I was potentially considering applying for Oxbridge had I got good grades given recommendation from a progression tutor at my school. However, while this had not been my main goal it was a disappointment to find I had not done great in one of my favourite subjects. Now, this was my own fault to some extent, while my school did not provide us with the right resources or even the right criteria to pass the exams, I should have taken it upon myself to find out what was on the specification and mark scheme.

However, my not so brilliant grades became my saviour as I am the type of person where when something becomes difficult I immediately push myself to achieve and prove that I am better than what originally happened. And so, because I preferred English Literature to Philosophy, I dropped Philosophy. After all, what’s life without a challenge. And so when it came to UCAS predictions instead of AAA I got predicted AAB, since my English grade was 2 raw marks below a C. Now, those were the grades I sent off to UCAS with my application as discussed with my Head of Year. He had full faith in me, and only allowed my high predictions due to the earliness of my application, since I handed my personal statement draft to him a week after term had started since I finished it in the summer. I was so proud of my personal statement and I am so happy with how it turned out, and I think it really did help doing it over the summer to help me get my offers. Since everyone usually submits their applications in November/December, the universities have more time to really study your application, and they have more spaces to offer. Think of it logically, if I had sent my application off in November, the universities may have only glanced over my application and I would have been in competition with multiple people, and those people potentially having more experience or better grades than myself.

So, I had my reference being written, my head of year had checked over my application, and I had to think clearly and cleverly about which universities I wanted to apply to. So since I couldn’t apply to Oxbridge I decided to stay close to home, and living in the Midlands is the best place to be for that. And so, my five choices were the University of Warwick, the University of Birmingham, the University of Worcester, the University of Coventry and Aston University, and I applied to study their individual versions of Management.

The first university I heard back from was the University of Birmingham, around two weeks after I’d applied, and at that time I thought this would be my firm as the grades were AAB, and a Russell Group uni! Next, I received Worcester’s offer of 112 points (equivalent to BBC), which I always knew would be my insurance. Then I received Aston, with an AAB, or a ABB if I firmed. And then, I received Warwick’s offer of AAA maybe a month after I had originally sent off my UCAS. And finally Coventry sent me an offer last of ABB. So I received offers from all 5 of my choices. And I genuinely believe that that was mostly because of how early I got my application in!

Now one amazing thing that happened was the day before my applicant day at Warwick I had received an email telling me to check my UCAS as I was applicable for a reduced contextual offer. This offer basically meant that because I went to a school that was a lower performer I was able to get a lower offer, and it is the reason why so many of my friends and people I went to school with got unconditional offers (honestly, I think half of my year got unconditionals and at least two people had all five offers unconditional). This is an amazing system that has been added and I’m so grateful because I got an offer of AAB from Warwick. So I went to the applicant day and I absolutely loved it, I loved the facilities, the campus, the lecturers, the course, everything I fell for. And so I firmed it. (I did visit UoB but it wasn’t for me if I’m honest).

And so I got cracking, I really knuckled down and I achieved A*ABD, (the D was in GS, which no one cares about anyway). And so, I have a place at Warwick University. The 8th best university in the UK, and the 5th best business school in the UK. And honestly I could not be happier.

So I’m ready to start the next chapter of my journey. And I’m going to blog about as much of it as possible – mainly to share this experience with others, especially those hoping to attend Warwick as I’ve been obsessed with university bloggers and vloggers since I was accepted.

Whoosh,

-Rosie

[catherinelloydassignment6]

Courses at University

Nottingham Trent University 

Explore all aspects of what it means to be a professional photographer in the 21st Century on this degree course.

Learn practical skills including exposure and metering, digital workflow, colour and black and white printing, studio lighting, large and medium format, planning and installing exhibitions, professional photographic portfolio development and moving image.

You’ll work across the subject of photography choosing to focus on areas such as art, documentary, editorial, commercial, advertising and critical writing on photography, tailored to your own personal interests and career aspirations.

On this course you will.... 

NTU is leading arts provider and is ranked 8th in the UK for Art and Design (The Complete University Guide 2019).

This course produces graduates that are in high demand - 96% of our students are in employment or further study within six months of graduating (DLHE survey 2016/17).

Work with industry-standard facilities, learning skills in traditional photographic methods, digital media and emerging technologies.

Work broadly across the subject, including art, documentary, editorial, advertising and fashion photography, and critical writing.

Develop your professional skills through work experience placements, industry competitions, and collaborations with organisations.

Benefit from our guest lecturer series, with speakers from a range of photographic practices.

Opportunity to apply for an international exchange to one of our partner institutions around the world.

Take part in the development and organisation of a photography festival in your final year, showcasing your work at venues across Nottingham, with further opportunities to exhibit at other graduating events.

Alumni have gone on to roles such as creative director at Jamie Oliver and companies such as Getty Sports Images.

Entry Requirements  

A-levels – BBC; or

BTEC Extended Diploma – DMM; or

112 UCAS Tariff points from three A-levels  or equivalent qualifications; and

GCSEs – English and Maths or Science grade C / 4.

https://www.ntu.ac.uk/study-and-courses/courses/find-your-course/art-design/ug/2019-20/ba-hons-photography

Sheffield Hallam University 

Acquire digital and traditional photographic analogue skills, digital capture and production and image management and manipulation, using industry standard equipment.

Develop core practical skills through creative professional practice and a critical engagement with image making.

Have the opportunity to study abroad — with Erasmus funding available for European placements.

Refine your ability to solve problems, manage complex projects, and communicate your ideas effectively.

Engage with a distinctive, independent approach to a wide range of photographic contexts with this professional and practice-based degree. You are encouraged to take risks in a highly creative environment, developing your understanding and knowledge of the medium to enable you to fulfil your potential in the constantly-evolving discipline of photography.

On this course you will learn..

You learn through a creative, practice-based approach to self-directed production which emulates the independent nature of professional practice within photography. This is underpinned through an exploration of historical and contemporary approaches and relevant theoretical issues in order to help situate your work in a critical context.

You learn through

specialist workshops

technical surgeries

large group lectures

smaller group seminars

group critiques and review sessions

individual tutorials

There are opportunities to study abroad at one of our partner universitieswith the possibility of funding through the Erasmus programme. 

Entry Requirements. 

UCAS points

112

This must include at least two A levels or equivalent BTEC National qualifications, including at least 32 points in a relevant* subject. For example:

BBC at A Level including a grade C in a relevant subject .

DMM in BTEC Extended Diplomain a relevant subject.

A combination of qualifications which must include a relevant subject and may include AS levels, EPQ and general studies.

You can find information on making sense of UCAS tariff points here and use the UCAS tariff calculator to work out your points.

GCSE

English Language at grade C or 4

Maths at grade C or 4

https://www.shu.ac.uk/courses/digital-media/ba-honours-photography/full-time/2019

Falmouth University

Work at a professional level, in a supportive and collaborative environment and explore the history and theory of photography, while being encouraged to experiment and innovate in your own work. You'll learn actively through workshop based teaching, with sessions in our open plan Learning Hub, around the campus and beyond.

On this course you will...

Have access to our state-of-the-art facilities, including studios and dark rooms, with access to a range of digital and analogue cameras.

Exhibit your work and enter competitions with support from our staff.

Do at least two-weeks of work experience in your second year, with options for local, national and international placements.

Have a number of opportunities for professional development in your third year including publishing magazines, curating events and organising exhibitions.

Be able to join MAYN, our in-house creative photography agency.

Entry Requirements

104 - 120 UCAS points, primarily from Level 3 qualifications like A-levels, a BTEC Extended Diploma or a Foundation Diploma.

We’ll also consider you based on your individual merit and potential. So get in touch if:

You’re predicted points below our requirements

You’re thinking about transferring from another institution

You have other qualifications or professional experience.

https://www.falmouth.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/photography 

DE Montfort Universality 

n the first year you will choose options in: painting, sculpture, printmaking, video and photography. In addition, you will study drawing and contextual and professional studies. The second year develops your individual studio practice in one or more of these areas. You have the opportunity to explore a range of approaches to fine art via projects, workshops and self-directed study. In the final year you negotiate and develop your individual creative practice, culminating in an exhibition, part of DMU’s Festival of Creativity.

On this course...

Individual studio space and well-equipped workshops cover the practical aspects of printmaking, sculpture, photography, video, digital media techniques and the skills associated with contemporary approaches to painting. This is supported by skilled technical staff and a wide range of academic staff. An art materials shop is conveniently located on campus where you can buy a wide variety of art materials to help you with your studies.

Entry Requirements.

A good portfolio and normally:

Art and Design Foundation or

112 points from at least 2 A ‘levels and including grade C in Art and Design or

BTEC Extended Diploma DMM  in an Art and Design related subject or

International Baccalaureate: 26+ Points including Art and Design

GCSEs - Five GCSEs grades A* - C  (9-4) including English Language or Literature at grade C/4 or above.

Access - Pass Access with 30 Level 3 credits at Merit in Art and Design and GCSE English (Language or Literature) at grade C/4 or above.

We also accept the BTEC First Diploma plus two GCSEs including English at grade C/4 or above (if required as part of our standard requirement).

https://www.dmu.ac.uk/study/courses/undergraduate-courses/fine-art-ba-degree/fine-art-ba-degree.aspx

Loughborough University 

It uses both practical and theoretical classes to develop your unique and individual artistic abilities, and fosters your creative skills by developing your critical and analytical insight.

The Fine Arts degree emphasises the relationship between practice and theory, enabling cognitive skills to be intrinsic to studio based practice, where exceptional facilities and expertise supports a range of fine art practices, ranging from drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramics, moving image, photography, to temporal performance.

On this course...

Our BA Fine Arts degree aims to provide a supportive and intellectually stimulating environment through which to facilitate your acquisition of advanced practical and critical skills in contemporary fine art practice.

This is achieved by embedding the development of core practical skills – ranging across traditional and new media, 2D and 3D forms, analogue and digital processes – within an innovative and conceptually challenging curriculum.

This is supported by a core art history and visual culture lecture series, which facilitates an understanding of diverse contexts for art production and consumption (within the studio and beyond) and fosters a critical engagement with art’s historical, theoretical, cultural, political, social and ethical dimensions.

Entry Requirements.

A-Level -A typical offer for applicants without a Foundation course is ABB from 3 A-Levels.

(International Baccalaureate) IB- 34 (6,5,5 HL)

BTEC -Applicants with a UAL Level 3 Diploma in Art and Design – Foundation Studies, BTEC Foundation Diploma / BTEC National Extended Diploma (or similar) will be considered.

https://www.lboro.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/a-z/fine-art/#modules_year_1

[gemginabpk-blog]

Introducing me...

Hi, I’m Geor(gina). I’m a 20 year old biomedical science student (currently embarking on a foundation year first) at Northumbria University. I am aiming to make a blog where I can write about my passions, successes, fears and failures in my long journey to becoming a doctor via the route of Biomedical Science. 

So, I am now going to write a brief (if I can!) ‘about me/background’ section, so others can get to know me and my motivations behind my future ambitions. So here goes...

For as cliche as it sounds, becoming a doctor is all I have wanted, all I have strived for. I couldn’t imagine embarking on any other career than medicine. So when I got my predicted grades at 12/13 (year 8), and is stated I was to leave school at 16 with all A grades, I thought “I can do this. It’s looking likely if I apply myself.” Or words to that effect. So when life started to go south at around 14 (year 9), my grades slipped - as did my attendance. I was just scraping C’s and I actually left school with 5 D grades, a handful of E’s, F’s and even G’s. Battling depression/anxiety and other various health conditions as well as being in the middle of an abusive divorce with my parents - I didn’t care about my future. I didn’t care about my grades. I just wanted to sleep all day, everyday. And this is what I did. Due to this, I became isolated, lost nearly every friend I had and became very withdrawn. However, the day I collected my GCSE results, something changed.

Personally I think the prospect of not getting into sixth form due to not meeting minimum requirements and my head of year at the time telling me A-Levels would be too hard for me, flipped a switch in my brain. So, heres where my new chapter started.

I enrolled into York College to study a Health and Social Care (Level 2) BTEC and to pass my maths and English GCSE in September 2013. I achieved both of these at grade C and passed my BTEC with flying colours (distinction*)! So, I embarked on my level 3 in September 2014. And by June 2016, not without its challenges, I also passed my level 3 with D*DD. So after a long slog at college for 3 years, I had my two main GCSE’s under my belt, as well as two high level BTEC’s. Besides the grades, I was so proud of myself for turning things around, and starting to see clearly again.

I didn’t apply to university straight away. As soon as I had finished college - I landed myself a bar job to get some money behind me, went on holiday, got my head straight, and made sure that I was in the best possible place to apply to university. 

During my times at college, I knew that my qualification wouldn’t be acceptable to gain entry into medical school outright. So after doing my research, I found out about Graduate Entry Medicine (GEM). I knew that I would have to go through a 3 year degree before I would be eligible to apply, so after some careful consideration, I decided biomedical science would be an amazing degree to choose, as I have always been a bit of a geek where biology and chemistry is concerned, and as my best friend puts it (”you make science your bitch!”), so I decided to go for it. However, I didn’t know which universities to apply to. And after speaking to my cousin who graduated with a First Class (with honours) in Biomedical Science at Northumbria, I went ahead and emailed the admissions, to state my circumstances and to see if there would be any point in applying. I promptly received and email back stating that with my qualifications, getting on to Biomed straight away, wouldn't be possible. However, there was an applied science foundation year that would be perfect for me, as upon successful completion of this year, I would automatically be eligible for a number of 3 year degree courses - including Biomed.

So September 2016 came around and I started writing my drafts for my personal statement and filling out all of my personal details. My application was sent off and paid for by the 13th of October. By the 20th of October, I had an unconditional offer. I had never felt more elated in my life. 

So what have I been doing ever since? Well, I’ve been preparing, working and going on holiday. I have been counting down the days since I heard back from UCAS. Now I am only 27 days away from moving to my halls up in Newcastle. I have been waiting all of this time and now it is nearly here, it just doesn’t seem real.

So, thats me - well, my academic past anyway. Here’s some general info about me:

1. My star sign is Sagittarius

2. I have 2 ginger and white cats. One regular omg called Simba, and a 4 month old Maine Coon called Dougal and I want more

3. I am a crazy cat lady

4. I am a perfectionist and will drive myself mad being so

5. I support Manchester United

6. My dream is to live in Australia as I have family out there

7. I am an only child

8. My favourite colour is red

9. I’m the clumsiest person you would ever meet

10. I am a natural born worrier

11. If I was to be reincarnated into any animal, it would be a bird

12. I am very opinionated

13. If I had one wish, it would be to be fluent in every language

14. I would take a cozy night in over a night out any day

15. Titanic is my favourite film

16. Noodles are my favourite food

17. I’m a day person

18. I am still scared of the dark

19. I believe in ghosts and anything paranormal

20. My favourite celebrity is Katy Perry

21. My biggest fear is my mum dying

22. I don’t smoke

23. I’m the jealous type

24. I was named after my great grandad

25. As well as Australia, I’d love to live in Santa Barbara, CA

26. If I was to never become a doctor (for whatever reason) I’d love to do a PhD

27. I’m an insomniac

28. I find intelligence, manners and respect very attractive

29. I’m a talented drawer (or used to be!)

30. Demi Lovato is my woman crush

31. Heart disease runs in my family

32. I have 3 tattoos (I want more, but I want a career in medicine more!)

33. I have controversial views

34. Autumn is my favourite season

35. I am the closest with my mum

36. I have a phobia of insects (especially bees/wasps and spiders)

37. Five things that makes me happy right now is: going to university, my mum, my cat, more medical school places have recently become available and my hair

38. I wish I was good at athletics

39. My favourite feature about me is my eyes

40. I don’t have a middle name

41. Mac over Windows

42. Favourite number is 250 (don’t ask why, it just always has been haha)

43. I am such a sugar addict

44. I love sociology

45. My two favourite places to visit is California and Kenya

46. I despise cheese

47. I have won medals for swimming as a kid, and I continue to love it!

48. I am heterosexual

49. My biggest insecurity is my weight

50. I have about a dozen allergies

I didn’t mean to write 50 things about me, but I got a little carried away. But I hope I have shed a little light onto the weirdo that is me, and I hope you will all share this long and incredible journey with me (and have patience with me while I figure out how this whole thing works!)

I will hopefully sometime in the near future shed some light on my choice of career and why I am seeking a career in medicine. So, for now, thank you for reading!

Love and best wishes,

Gina

xox

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/business/i-love-concrete-says-woman-causing-stir-in-construction/

'I love concrete', says woman causing stir in construction

Image caption Emily Burridge, 22, is a technical production manager for a string of quarries and concrete plants

Why don’t more girls and young women opt for apprenticeships in well-paid, male-dominated industries like construction?

The government’s annual celebration of apprenticeships, National Apprenticeship Week, starts on Monday, but, behind the fanfare, some of the statistics on gender make depressing reading.

The latest available official figures, for 2016-17, show that only 620 females started apprenticeships in construction and the built environment, compared with more than 20,000 males.

‘Concrete is my passion’

Emily Burridge, 22, climbs the ladder at the back of a concrete tanker, parked at Weeford Quarry in Staffordshire and peers down inside.

Just by looking inside a concrete mixer, she has learned to tell by the way the liquid moves over its turning blades, whether a batch of specialist concrete has the properties it needs.

“It’s going to sound sad, but it’s my passion, my newly-developed passion, I do love it,” she says.

She has been in her post for less than a year as technical production manager for a string of 25 quarries, concrete and asphalt plants with aggregates giant Hanson.

Image caption Tanker driver Kim Hudson (l) has worked for Hanson for decades

The person she replaced, after completing a higher level apprenticeship, was a man of retirement age.

Her staff are overwhelmingly male and much, much older – but she says it has not been a problem.

“As long as you’re honest about what you know and what you don’t, you show that you actually want to grow your knowledge, and that you appreciate their side of things, then they’re perfectly respectful and they acknowledge any feedback you give them,” she says.

Quality control and complaint handling are a key part of the job but when, as a very young woman, she turns up on construction sites, she admits, people can be “taken aback”.

“Some try and avoid me. Others are very up front…

“They always ask the question, ‘why are you doing this?’.”

Hi-viz orange

Four years ago, graphic design was Emily’s favourite A-level subject but now, instead of palettes and pixels, she has her own set of personal protective equipment in hi-viz orange, including hard hat, goggles and steel toecap boots.

The regulation kit does not come in women’s sizes, but she says that the first time she put it on: “I actually thought I looked quite cool. I stood out.”

In sixth form, she had realised a conventional university course was not for her and, while her friends were busily applying through admissions service Ucas, she was working in a pub near her home in Somerset.

Some of Emily’s friends wondered if she would be there for ever.

Using tools made me feel like a superwoman

How girls can be some of the best welders

It was her grandad who suggested trying for a degree apprenticeship, where the employer pays your tuition fees and you earn a salary.

But graphic design apprenticeships were hard to find, so she decided to widen her search.

“This one grabbed my attention because it offered working outdoors, which I hadn’t considered before. But seeing as my family were all very hands on as well, my dad’s a mechanic, my grandparents were farmers, it appealed to me.”

Applying was “a punt”, she admits: “I’d never visited a quarry.”

She says the recruitment process focused on resilience, resourcefulness and people skills.

She was the first girl ever hired on the scheme and, two weeks after starting, she and a fellow apprentice were thrown into the deep end.

They were asked to research and create a roller-compacted concrete for a customer – it is a drier mix than conventional concrete and something Hanson had never made before.

“I like a challenge… It’s a brilliant management technique.”

Emily started her management job last year on a salary of £30,000, shortly before graduating from University of Derby with a foundation degree in mineral extractives, and she is currently working towards honours.

It was a distance learning degree and so, apart from occasional short courses at the university, she spent four days a week in her job, with the fifth day studying on her own in an office.

She likes to tease her boyfriend, a student on a conventional degree course, about the fact that, unlike him, she has no student debt.

‘I drove a train’

The Young Women’s Trust, which campaigns for disadvantaged young women, says many feel “locked out” of better-paid apprenticeships and funnelled down a narrow range of career paths, with gender stereotyping and fears of workplace bullying major deterrents against jobs in male-dominated industries.

In contrast, Emily says her experiences have been positive and that, despite being one of only four females out of about 40 apprentices since the scheme began seven years ago, she has felt incredibly well-supported.

She wants more young women to come forward: “I think they’re very put off by the fact that it’s working outside and you can get dirty… but mostly I think it’s that they don’t consider it an option, I didn’t consider it an option.”

Hanson’s head of recruitment, Helen Johnson, says hiring female apprentices is “a no brainer”.

“Historically females were not told about opportunities in the construction and building materials industry as it was assumed only males would go into it. We need to change this. There is no reason why females cannot enter our industry,” says Ms Johnson.

Deborah Edmondson, early talent and apprenticeships director with recruitment company Cohesion, believes things are slowly changing, and that “women are seeing increasing opportunities and challenges in a diverse and fast-paced sector”.

Ms Edmondson believes hiring a more diverse workforce of people from varying economic and cultural backgrounds can only benefit employers.

“Diversity within the workforce increases employee morale and teamwork, and increases innovation and innovative thinking, through alternative perspectives and ideas on the same issues,” she says.

At 22, Emily feels there are no barriers to her future progress and can already list some career highlights.

“I flew a drone to assess the size of stock piles of aggregates and I also drove a train, which was a big tick on the bucket list, and I loved it,” she says.

[paleconda]

blog- 8th february.

so i told myself that i would start a daily (or weekly) journal of some sort for the new year and that i would start on the 1st of january... better late than never, i suppose. i don’t know that any of you will be interested to see how things are going for me and what my life is like, but, in the grande scheme of things... who cares.

i’ll start with a bit of a background of myself. i’m currently 20 years oid, turning 21 in may. i attend university in somewhere in florida (i won’t say where, and you’ll see why soon). i am currently finishing my second year and i study graphic design. my family is puerto rican and i was raised in a protestant christian home. however, i recently found out that i have jewish heritage, and so i’ve been embracing that more. i am also bisexual, so home life has not been easy for me personally since around the age of 12. my parents sort of know, sort of don’t. it’s an extremely sore and complicated subject that we just avoid discussing. so, needless to say, they’re homophobic. my time in high school was... well, frankly, idk how to put it. my grades were rubbish (especially in the first two years) and i didn’t have much of a social life. part of this was because i lacked social skills, but this was also because my parents were overbearing and overprotective (to the point where i had no phone from december 2013 to may 2015, and then again from november 2015 to april 2016). i even ended up feeling forced to attend a university that i never even wanted to apply to (it’s a conservative christian university, so why would anyone that’s lgbtq want to attend?). i will say, however, that despite the fact that i commuted to uni for my first year (it was 45 miles away and i travelled there twice a week, you do the maths) and only worked simply to fill my petrol tank, along with not getting involved in any clubs, and the fact that i was scared in general to be someone that was lgbtq in that university, i enjoyed my time there. i almost don’t have any regrets going there, although i won’t go there again. i attended that uni for the 2016-2017 academic term. in the spring of 2017, i decided that rather than just transferring to a local state-run uni, i wanted to go study abroad. specifically, i wanted to study in the UK. so, began researching how universities work and how to apply via UCAS, etc. so after waiting several months and getting a few rejections, i finally receive an unconditional off of a place at the uni of chester. so i try and save up as much money as i can, but there are several things that happen. first, i hated my job at chick fila and i wasn’t getting too many hours (which was okay with me, bc i hated being there anyway). but then i crashed and totalled my vehicle, and the insurance wouldn’t pay for the damage. so i lost my car, and then hurricane irma happened, which wiped away all the funds to get airfare and a visa. and to be honest, my family’s financial situation was always extremely tight. and those were just factors that directly contributed to me not being able to go to the UK. i was also absolutely devastated when my best friend died from complications from heart surgery. and so i ended up having to take a gap term. and i was so completely upset that i couldn’t go to the UK, because i had researched so much about the culture, accent, night scene, music, every aspect about it. so much so, that when i transferred to another university here in florida in january of 2018, i figured that since i couldn’t go to the UK, i’d bring the UK to me. so for over a year now, i have told everyone i’ve met at uni that i’m from the UK. i have an elaborate and well thought out story about why i grew up in the UK, kept my british accent, etc. an absolute madness, i know. but it brings me comfort in a way. i truly in my heart believe that i should have been born in the UK and i don’t think i should be judged for that. my internet friends in the UK have said i’m doing a well job of pulling it off and that my accent sounds perfect. i even have a professor who is actually from the UK and he believes me and hasn’t a clue that i’m “faking” it. i put the quotes around faking bc after speaking in it for over a year, it’s almost my natural accent at this point. there is so much more about my life that i want to explain and rant and vent about, but i think this a good stopping point. i hope this is all of interest to you.

end.

[kasperdegraaf-blog1]

City identity: The Great Debate

The Bonded Warehouse is a looming presence in the middle of the old Granada Studios complex in Manchester city centre: a cavernous reminder of the industrial revolution, soon to be transformed into a hub for the kind of creative enterprise that is now forging the digital revolution.

That symbolism was compelling enough for David Cameron and George Osborne, in June 2014, to choose this place to enunciate their vision for a northern powerhouse: connecting the great cities of the north and unleashing regeneration by rebalancing the economy.

It was in the very same room that Manchester’s design community gathered in October 2016 for Design Manchester’s third annual Great Debate – the Tory posh boys having vacated the stage in a manner not of their choosing, with significant unanswered questions for those left behind to resolve.

On one thing most protagonists are agreed. Whatever Brexit and Theresa May’s ‘industrial strategy’ will turn out to mean, city devolution will have an important part to play, not least because that is the only train of the many mooted that has not only been built but actually left the station. In May 2017, there will be metro-Mayoral elections in nine city regions including Greater Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and the West Midlands, each with its own devolution agreement.

Common ground also, among economists, educators and enterprise, is that if we are to create a successful narrative, the creative and digital industries will be at the heart of it.

The debate was chaired by Lou Cordwell, Founder and CEO of magneticNorth, member of GM LEP and chair of Design Manchester advisory board.

Skills

The first of the unanswered questions that comes into focus is the supply of skilled talent and quality jobs in Brexit Britain. The devolution agreements struck by the government vary from region to region, but all include some devolved power over skills training, now universally recognised as one of the great challenges. “How,” asked Penny Macbeth, Dean of Manchester School of Art, “can city stakeholders best work together to create opportunities for our young people and deliver the education and skills needed by industry, the city and the country?”

Penny Macbeth is the Dean of Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Penny’s challenge elicited a commitment from Mayoral candidate Andy Burnham, who feels the university route is overemphasised at the expense of other options.

“One thing I will do,” he pledged, “is build a UCAS-style clearing system that covers all the apprenticeships available across Greater Manchester, so that a young person in Oldham or Rochdale or Leigh, who at the moment is struggling to see what’s out there for them, can see apprenticeships somewhere else in the region that they could do.” Andy believes this will bring business, universities and colleges together in focusing on areas that need strengthening.

Emer Coleman pointed out that new jobs will largely come from technology and digital – and in this sector there are serious gender inequalities. Her suggestion was that the city should address this by funding the course fees for new software developers. “When people talk about an ‘industrial strategy’,” she said, “that’s talking to the past. We need to talk to the future: how do we build a robust engineering base in this city?” A laser-like focus on technology is what is needed, where the universities and local authorities take inequality seriously and put funding into apprenticeships for the future, not for the past.

Technology and design, Peter Mandelson agreed, are the things that make the most difference to urban life, adding that “digitalisation is going to do for us what electricity did in a previous era.” But will this lead to digital inclusion so that everyone can enjoy the benefits? Achieving that will require first-rate, different forms of digital education such as the proposed new International Screen School in Manchester, to meet the demand for technicians, programmers and designers generated by the digital revolution.

Lord Mandelson (left) is a former EU Trade Commissioner and UK cabinet minister. He is the Chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University.

The old, top-down politics won’t cut it in this new environment, Ian Anderson warned. “A lot of young people are way more developed and advanced in the use of technology than some of the people who are looking to make policy,” he said. Politicians should do a lot more listening to kids who are growing up using social networks, and with design in different fields of technology.

Work and education are changing, Claire Mookerjee pointed out, not least due to rising costs. Lifelong learning and access to courses while working are critical. She was optimistic, however, about job prospects in design. “People who are educated in design are in roles that require empathy and understanding how to tackle questions analytically. These are not going to be automated,” she said. Manchester has great opportunities in advanced materials, an incredble digital creative economy, space and affordability. All this offers the prospect of more exciting business being embedded in the city.

Getting there presents a big challenge for education and training institutions to engage with business, Mike Rawlinson felt. Networking, partnerships and collaboration are key to creating opportunities for active continuous learning for people across all levels of society. The biggest difference Manchester can make, he added, is “to offer up a stage, not just to people locally, but nationally, to say there’s something good going on here.”

Mike Rawlinson (right) pioneered the ‘legible cities’ wayfinding methodology applied in cities all over the world. He is the founder and CEO of design consultancy City ID.

Brexit

Design Manchester has played an active part in formulating sector advice to the goverment to mitigate the risks and maximise the opportunities of Brexit for the creative industries. This debate was an opportunity to discuss it with the design community as a whole.

Paul Jonson of city law firm Pannone Corporate, who sponsored the Great Debate, reminded the gathering that Sadiq Khan has asked for a London seat at the Brexit table and pushed for London visas to maintain the capital’s growth and power. “To what extent,” he wondered, “can city identity and devolution mitigate the impact of Brexit – and how will it affect the creative industries?”

As a former EU Trade Commissioner, Peter is all too aware that a carve out for London will not wash. Whatever arrangements the government negotiates will have to work for every sector throughout the country. “There’s almost no part of our economy that isn’t directly or indirectly exposed to our membership of the European Union, through networks, ecosystems and value chains across borders,” he pointed out. “Brexit is essentially about disrupting those links.” It may not be so bad for businesses, which can relocate elsewhere in Europe if single market distribution is important for them. But it won’t be so easy for their employees and the people they leave behind, who won’t have that right to free movement.

“Progressively, over many years, there will be a colossal churn in business, research and development, and employment.” This brings us back to skills. “We have to invest in a huge amount more training of our own people to make sure we are not starved of talent, and invest in innovation on a scale we have never done before, or we won’t just lose our share of the European market but our competitive advantage in many different sectors.”

Emer Coleman (centre) is head of the Co-op’s tech engagement. She previously led digital engagement for the UK Government and also founded the London DataStore.

There’s “an arms race for talent in technology,” said Emer, so cutting off access to global talent will have a significant impact on startup growth. How can devolution help? “Devolution in England was not conceived as the answer to the referendum result,” Andy said, “but we must now embrace it as such.” National policy has for decades been shaped by the London perspective. Successive governments have ignored the impact of lost industries, absentee landlords and rising European immigration on former industrial communities. There may be a small percentage of people who voted Leave for xenophobic or racist reasons, but “the deeper feeling is: no-one’s looking at us or cares about us – it’s a profound cry for change in how the country is run.” So city devolution must be used to give people more solutions that are focused on them and their needs.

The role of the creative industries in forming a new narrative was picked up by Ian. “As creatives we’re supposed to deal with change,” he said. “If it’s true we’re out for good, the creative industries have to see this as a challenge and an opportunity to reposition ourselves. We can’t sit around moaning about it forever and we don’t have another option, so we may as well look at it positively and see what we can do.”

Ian Anderson (centre) is founder and creative director of the design group Designers Republic and one of the most influential graphic designers of the last three decades.

The city

Switching the focus to a topic that, arguably, is more directly under our control, Transport for Greater Manchester’s Lindsay Whitley argued that public space, buildings, neighbourhoods and transport are all key factors in how residents and visitors experience the city. “How,” she wanted to know, “can designers, techologists and architects improve the livability and usability of our cities?”

Fundamentally, Mike said, good cities are “accessible, legible, welcoming places and they should be as open as possible.” That means creating a rich tapestry with building footprints and spaces that work for people, and transport modes that work in partnership. Claire highlighted design interventions that can improve the city, such as more fine-grain open spaces at street level and removing cars from the centre.

Councillor David Ellison, the planning chair of Manchester City Council, questioned to what extent planning is helpful in areas other than transport, pointing out that the Northern Quarter, Chinatown and Rusholme, some of the great character districts of the city, weren’t planned from above but grew because of the people who were there. Planning should work with organic development of the city, agreed Peter. The old model of pre-ordained, scorched-earth zonal planning does not work. “Just as we bring new waves of creativity and design to everything else we do, we should also bring it to the way we organicaly allow the city to change, grow and connect together.” But active design intervention is needed too, said Andy. “We need design brains to go into Oldham, Rochdale, Bury and Wigan and look at how they relate to the centre, to connect this city region up a bit more,” he said, describing this as the next phase of Greater Manchester’s work.

If art and creativity are such an important part of what makes Manchester attractive, then how, wondered Zoë Hitchen, a lecturer in the Fashion Institute at Manchester Metropolitan University, can we make sure that “as Manchester develops, we retain affordable spaces for a sustainable network of artists and creatives in the city?”

This, Emer believes, is a key role for the City Council, to make sure they have planning policies and impose planning conditions “to ensure that the right mix is sustained.”

Big data

Manchester has received funding from Innovate UK to develop a large-scale demonstrator to evaluate use of the Internet-of-Things in cities – a two-year project called City Verve, which began in 2016. It underlines the strength of the city’s growing creative and digital hub, but how, asked Marketing Manchester’s Destination Director Sara Tomkins, does real-time and Open Data change our cities, and what is the role of design in making best use of new technology?

Emer was scathing about the “smart city” narrative we’ve had for nearly a decade, but which, she said “has achieved very little even in its rhetoric,” adding that it was “devised by large systems integrators like the Siemens, Ciscos and IBMs of this world who want to own the infrastructure of a city.” This was, she said, a very technocratic vision of what could be achieved.

“If we don’t move away from that narrative to a citizen-centred one, we will move further into a surveillance state, because not only our phones but everything around us is going to have sensors.” When a city wants to gather more data for reasons of efficiency, it tends not to be from a human perspective. “We need more livability discussions with citizens at the centre, about privacy and rights around data.”

As director of digital projects for the Mayor of London, Emer established the London Data Store, an initiative to put all of the city’s public service data into the public domain. “We always knew transport was going to be a game-changer,” she said. “So we began a collaborative project with a broad range of technologists and we see now that people can’t conceive of moving around without their cycle hire app or their bus app.

“We do not have the technological capabilities inside local governments. That’s why we need open, collaborative discussions with designers, creatives and technologists. If I had my choice I would stuff local authority planning teams full of designers and technologists. We need to bring that creativity right into the heart of the municipal authority.”

The important thing, Ian felt, is that people need a sense of ownership of their own space, of where they are in a city. “There are as many Manchesters as there are people in the city or visiting the city or even with the knowledge of the city,” he said, and the technology should support that.

The data revolution has to mean politics done differently, was Andy’s take. “If there was data on air quality every day in real time, people would be shocked because it’s very poor on Oxford Road and in other parts of Greater Manchester,” he said, and this would have an impact by empowering people to ask why, as happened when the data came out on cycling accidents in London.

What opportunities are created by generating masses of data, asked Peter. Apart from driving consumer choice, it can be used to redesign urban systems in areas such as health, traffic and energy, and to think through new policy solutions. “In future, those ideas have to come as much from startups using the data as from think tanks.”

Metro mayors

Manchester has a devolution agreement that covers a wide range of public services including transport, skills, police, planning and health. In May 2017 it elects an executive mayor, who will run a region comprising ten distinct local authorities. “What,” asked Ed Matthews-Gentle of Creative Lancashire, “will be the practical impact of devolution and metro mayors?”

Claire Mookerjee (left) is a designer, urbanist and feminist. She is head of Urban Futures at Future Cities Catapult and Built Environment Expert at Design Council.

Claire emphasised the power of narrative, saying that “talking about Manchester on the world stage as a creative and open place” will be a key role for the new mayor. For Emer the top issue is technology leadership. “Mayor Boris Johnson really did not get technology, but he provided terrific leadership in making London a city that gave a clear signal. We were opening our data, we were open for business, we understood tech.” So if Andy were to become mayor, she added, “you have a lot of people in this room who would be glad to give you some strong technology advice. I would urge you to put that at the core of what you are doing,” she added, “because it is the future of work.”

A new politics was the focus for Ian. ”There’s no point in just transferring power from one place to another place that happens to be closer to home. Devolution is the opportunity for everybody, particularly in the creative industries. We need to do something, not just wait for someone else to do it.”

What about the money though? Mike felt that without fiscal devolution – the ability to redistribute and raise taxes where appropriate, devolution will be a step along the road but won’t go as far as it could. In this area, he said, the mayor must go on challenging the status quo.

Andy Burnham (left) is MP for Leigh and Labour candidate for Mayor of Greater Manchester. He is a former health secretary and culture secretary.

Andy, as it turned out, had given the matter some considerable thought – and concluded after 15 years in the place, that Parliament isn’t going to fix the problems or bring about the things people want for Greater Manchester, because, as he put it, “it’s fundamentally dysfunctional”. He paid tribute to George Osborne for putting in place a fundamental change that has the potential to rebalance the country and lead to things being done differently.

“Everyone’s probably feeling cynical and despondent about politics at the moment,” he said, “but this is a bit of a life raft.” More change is possible, but “it’s going to be what we make it, not through politicians coming up with strategy documents, but by involving people and giving a sense that policy can be changed.” A key factor is cooperation between cities. “The north needs to find its political power in these post-Brexit times,” he concluded. “It’s not what power politicians give it, but what power people give it in terms of the demand to do things differently that the government won’t be able to ignore.”

This feature was first published in Document 16: Design City, the Design Manchester magazine, distributed to Creative Review subscribers in February/March 2017.

[oselatra]

Windgate Foundation draws attention to the arts, its benefits

It's become the Johnny Appleseed of Arkansas arts education. Where Northwest Arkansas once claimed more than its share of philanthropic dollars going to the arts, thanks to the Walton Family Foundation and others, the Windgate Charitable Trust has become the Johnny Appleseed of Arkansas arts education, planting multimillion-dollar art and design facilities on campuses across the state. The foundation is grafting the limbs of arts education in Jonesboro, Conway, Hot Springs, Little Rock — even Stuttgart — to sturdy producers, universities it trusts will take good care of their programs.  

The latest to be announced: the Windgate Center for Fine and Performing Arts at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway. Windgate is putting up $20 million in matching funds for the university's $45 million project. The gift is so significant — the highest in UCA history — that the university kept it secret until it could make a grand announcement to students and faculty in January. The ballroom in McCastlain Hall and the hallway outside were packed to the gills; one person estimated 700 attendees, eager to hear what the fuss was about. The announcement of the gift was met with faculty high-fives and tears from the art teachers, art department chair Bryan Massey Sr. said. "It was a long time coming," the 31-year veteran of UCA's art department said.

UCA's students were "whooping and hollering," John Brown III, the former director of and now senior adviser to the foundation, said. "It was very moving."

It may have been the arts faculty that wept, but Windgate's promotion of arts education across the state is not just about turning out painters.

***

Like the Walton Family Foundation, Arkansas has Walmart to thank for the Windgate Foundation. Dorothea Hutcheson of Fort Smith created the Windgate Foundation in 1993 with Walmart stock proceeds from the 1978 sale to Sam Walton of Hutcheson Shoe Co., which her husband and son, William Hutcheson Sr. and Jr., operated in Northwest Arkansas. The sale came at a time when Walmart, which began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972, was scaling up from a regional operation to become a national company; "Hutch" Hutcheson Jr. was made a vice president of Walmart's shoe division and later became vice president of the company. The Hutcheson family hired Brown, who had retired as president from John Brown University, which his grandfather founded. "They called to see if I had an interest," Brown, who just last year retired as head of Windgate, said, "and it took me about two seconds to say yes." Brown had been a fundraiser for the university; now, he said, "I got to switch hats and help get the foundation started and work with the family, who were humble and gracious and wanted to take the accumulation of wealth that came with the partnership of Sam [Walton] for 20 years" and put it toward charity. (Brown, a Republican, also served in the Arkansas legislature for two terms, from 1995 to 2002.)

In 2013, Mary E. Hutcheson added $79 million to the foundation, and Windgate moved into fourth place as the largest grantmaking foundation in Arkansas.

Now headed by Pat Forgy and operating in Little Rock rather than Siloam Springs, Windgate is the third-largest family-run foundation in Arkansas, behind the behemoth Walton Family Foundation and the Walton Family Charitable Trust. (Brown once called Windgate "the Walton Family Foundation's little brother.") Windgate's net assets at the end of 2017 were $358 million; the foundation handed out $84 million in grants that year. About half of Windgate's dollars go to Arkansas organizations; it makes grants to entities in 47 states.

The arts have always been on the low end of philanthropic giving; a national study by Giving USA ranked gifts to arts, culture and the humanities at ninth annually, behind such categories as religion, education, health and human services. Arkansas is a bit more generous, according to a study by Philanthropy Southwest of 2014 data: The arts and humanities ranked fifth. The Walton Family Foundation has concentrated its arts investments in Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which it's endowed with around $1 billion. Though Windgate — intentionally named after nobody and which initially made gifts only of stock shares to protect the privacy of the donors — initially worked behind the scenes, its gifts to the arts made it the "best known anonymous donor in the state of Arkansas," Brown said he's told his board. Big gift announced at the Arkansas Arts Center? Surely Windgate. Something new coming to UCA? Bank on Windgate.

Over the life of the foundation, Windgate has made grants to numerous causes in and outside Arkansas worth $302.8 million. John Brown University has received $40 million in grants since 1993. But, thanks to the artistic bent on its board of directors — including its chairwoman, Robyn Horn, the granddaughter of Dorothea and William Hutcheson Sr. and a wood sculptor — Windgate has given millions of dollars to visual and performing arts institutions both in Arkansas and elsewhere (including the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina and the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tenn.). Brown said the board's mix of "left-brain and right-brain trustees" was good and "very much interested in giving back."

In the past several years, Brown said, the trustees began thinking more about grantmaking that would have a long-range impact and directing more of its assets to Arkansas. "That matured first with the Fort Smith building project and UALR," Brown said.

UA Fort Smith's $15.5 million Windgate Center for Art and Design opened in 2016. UA Little Rock's $20 million Windgate Center for Art and Design opened in 2018. Both projects followed 20-year relationships with the institutions, Brown said; they weren't just plopped down. Windgate had supported UA Little Rock's earlier initiative to expand its applied arts programs, such as furniture design and metal working, and was impressed by its faculty and ardor for the arts.

The foundation did, however, light a fire under the UA Little Rock project. A feasibility study suggested that the university would need to build a constituency over six to eight years to raise enough money to bring the various disciplines, scattered across campus, into a new arts facility. But rather than wait for years, Brown said, "The feeling was, we'll just step out there and do it.

"I wouldn't say we'll build it and people will come, but people will understand as the program expands and see it as something the community can be proud of." The foundation is helping the university spread the word: It recently awarded it a grant to establish art workshops that will expose high school students from all over Arkansas to the university's wide array of offerings in a state-of-the-art facility.

At the Windgate Center groundbreaking in 2016 at UA Little Rock, a reporter asked what Brown described as a "combative" question: Why should Windgate care about art? What impact would it have on business? "My response was, 'Let me give you two words: Crystal Bridges.' "

Alice Walton's decision to build Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville "has made people realize that the arts can have an economic impact," said Horn, the chairman of the board at Windgate. "That's what [people are] looking for, something concrete that can be measured, and Crystal Bridges has done that. So we're augmenting the interest they have developed."

Bentonville's claim to fame was once that it was the headquarters of Walmart. Now it's also known as an arts mecca, with a world-class museum, a spruced-up downtown, new restaurants (newly serving alcohol), new public parks and bike trails for the new, young incomers. It's the fastest growing city in Arkansas.

***

"When you say you're majoring in art history, people say, 'Oh, you'll be a waitress,' " Cassy Christ, 20, a sophomore art history major at UA Little Rock, said.

But Christ knows better. She's seen the success of her own teachers at UA Little Rock, and a trip she made to Germany with art history professor Lynn Larsen proved "life changing." The trip opened her eyes, she said, to the many directions a degree in art could take. "You are learning about research methods, visual analysis, empathy through the arts and art history," Christ said.

In her first semester at UA Little Rock, Christ was in a building shared by the music and art department. When her art history classes moved to the Windgate Center, which encompasses studios for metalworking, furniture making, ceramics, graphic arts, printmaking, photography and painting, all under one roof, she "was blown away. ... I saw this is an opportunity I have to take advantage of, that's how good it was." She signed up for 3D design and has decided to minor in studio art.

"The building really makes you feel like you're going to art school. It validates everyone for pursuing" a major in the arts, she said.

Or outside the arts. Former Windgate director Brown quoted one of his "art faculty friends": "I don't think the world needs to be filled with artists, but I do think it needs to be filled with creative people."

Brown's successor, Pat Forgy, says Windgate's gifts to the arts are "about helping students. You learn such valuable skills: critical thinking, how to figure out problems, how to deal with failure, how to collaborate. They're skills you can use once you graduate, whether you're an artist or an engineer."

Schools get it. When the Windgate grant was announced at UCA, Forgy said, "it was electric" in the room.

For artists and art teachers, the impact has been sensational.

Michael Warrick has taught sculpture at UA Little Rock for 28 years. "I've always felt strongly about being here because we have great people, dynamic talent. But having a place of our own ... it makes a huge difference."

Warrick's sculpture studio is almost triple the size of his studio in the old Fine Arts Building, and his advanced students have their own work areas. There's a foundry for bronze and aluminum, in a space large enough, and safe enough, for 50 people to observe and learn. But that's not the whole picture: "I'm in a 3D area with metalworking and blacksmithing, woodworking, furniture, ceramics, and the connectivity is phenomenal. It's amazing what it can accomplish for our students." The cross-pollination that happens when all the arts disciplines are under one roof "transforms what we can teach and how we can teach and how well we can teach. ... It's made it a lot more energizing and exciting to be here."

Thanks to Windgate and its expansion of access to the arts, there are children who are more successful in school, students and adults inspired by something they've seen in a museum or watched in a theater, aspiring artists who have been able to afford college studies because of scholarships.

Horn, asked for an anecdote about feedback she's received from students touched by Windgate's largesse, said she's been told, not once but many times, "You've saved my life."

***

Windgate's largest single grant for the arts was its $40 million gift in 2017 to the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville for the Windgate Art and Design District, which includes the Hill Avenue Sculpture Complex that opened in 2016. It followed the $120 million gift from the Walton Family Charitable Foundation to create the UA School of Art.

"We'll be doubling our student body over the next five to 10 years," interim UA School of Art Director Mathew McConnell said. "Windgate plays very much into that objective, and we can't do it without those facilities; those foundations work hand-in-hand to give us a brighter future."

The physical space provided students is important to their work, McConnell said. "I've traveled a lot as a visiting artist and I've seen how buildings can really impact the work that is produced. I think that what's vital for students is a little bit of excess space. There's a correspondence to the way we can think freely. Drawings move through space, extend much further than the bounds of a table. ... [a large work space] leads to broader thinking, more experimental work and collaboration."

When Robyn Horn made a trip to Arkansas State University in Jonesboro for a show of her sculpture and works on paper in the Bradbury Gallery, she toured the campus and took in the sculpture studio, located in a retrofitted gymnasium. "It was horrible," she said. The small space was shared by sculpture and woodworking classes and their equipment. Horn said she went to John Brown and told him the foundation should consider getting involved.

Arkansas State University sculpture professor John Salvest, who is nationally known for his installation work, and his wife, ASU Bradbury Museum Director Les Christensen, wrote the grant proposal. Windgate, which had contributed $1 million to the transformation of the Bradbury Gallery to the Bradbury Museum, announced last September it would give ASU $6.7 million to create the Windgate Center for Three Dimensional Arts.

The new building, expected to open in fall 2020, will be at least four or five times larger than the sculpture studio is now, Salvest said. "The great thing about working with Robyn on a project like this is because she's a sculptor herself, she's so aware of the needs of a facility like this," he said.

But it takes more than need to get a Windgate grant. The foundation wants a commitment from the arts institutions it supports that they will continue to invest in the facility, programming, faculty and students.

UA Little Rock Chancellor Andrew Rogerson, a microbiologist who also paints (he described himself as "an insecure artist" but "an arrogant scientist"), said, "It's on us now to make [the Windgate Center] the place to come."

The gift to UA Little Rock and other arts organizations "I think will be transformative for the whole state," Rogerson said. "We're becoming a real destination for people who want to appreciate art, with Crystal Bridges and the Arts Center here in Little Rock. Supplemented by institutions that can put on top-class art programs, it all comes together."

***

The Arkansas Arts Center has received a total of $24 million in grants from Windgate in the past 26 years. Brian Lang, chief curator and the Windgate Foundation Curator of Contemporary Craft, and Ann Wagner, the Jackye and Curtis Finch Curator of Drawings, were hired more than six years ago thanks to a grant from Windgate. The grant came at a time when the Arts Center was recovering from financial hardship. Windgate's impact has been "immeasurable," Lang said.

"I think first and foremost the support they've given to the curators and the stability of securing those positions, it really gave the Arts Center the opportunity to move forward," Lang said.

Lang rattled off several programmatic gifts from Windgate: Support to conserve drawings given the Arts Center by John Marin and for 2018 exhibition of those drawings, "Becoming John Marin: Modernist at Work." Support for the 2016 show "Little Dreams in Glass and Metal." Support for the 2013 retrospective "Ron Meyers: A Potter's Menagerie" and the exhibition catalog. The foundation has "really allowed the Arkansas Arts Center to undertake serious scholarship which will have a lasting influence on museums," Lang said. Windgate also funds a ceramic residency in the Museum School of the Arts Center, a program that gives teaching experience to recent graduates.

"Apart from Walton, there is no other grantmaker as supportive of art in the state as Windgate," Lang said. Thanks to Windgate's museum-quality gallery space on university campuses, he added, the Arkansas Arts Center is "better poised to share the works from our collection with other institutions around the state."

Last year, Windgate invested in the Arts Center's future in another way, with a $4 million gift to the capital campaign to build a new Arkansas Arts Center, slated to open in 2022. Horn declined to say whether there would be more going to the campaign, because it has yet to go public.

***

Next year, Hendrix College will open the Miller Creative Quad, which will include the Windgate Museum of Art. Windgate made a grant of $10 million to Hendrix to help build and endow the museum. Museum director and curator Mary Kennedy will develop interdisciplinary studies to bring students to the arts. "If you're a student in mathematics or literature, we're going to find a way to get you involved in the museum," Kennedy said. For example, she said, she's working with Hendrix-Murphy Program Director Hope Coulter on a project that would create an intersection between Coulter's class on James Agee's "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" and an exhibition on Depression-era photographs.

The recognition that art is not a discipline that involves only artists is expressed in another Windgate-backed program: the Arkansas A+ arts-infused curriculum for grades K-12. "Democratizing the arts is a large part of what we've been doing with A+ schools," John Brown said.

Windgate funded a pilot A+ project in Arkansas in 2003; the Thea Foundation of Little Rock took off and ran with it. Thea Foundation Director Paul Leopoulos had seen how art classes had helped his daughter, a previously indifferent student in her academic classes, excel at Central High School.  

The A+ curriculum is based on the understanding that some students learn better by hands-on work and creative inspiration: At KIPP school in Helena-West Helena, students have made paper quilts to learn geometry and written short plays about something they've read. Sometimes, A+ serves as an example for teaching outside the arts: A teacher at an A+ school in Judsonia was inspired to use a dead tarantula. Her students researched tarantula life, learned about the Day of the Dead, even designed a coffin for the arachnid. The program not only serves to expose children to the arts and creative thinking, it's proven to raise test scores and erase discipline problems. A+ is now under the aegis of the University of Arkansas, which is training teachers in the method. Twenty-three schools have used the A+ curriculum; seven are active now.

John Brown calls Leopoulos "our staff evangelist for A+." Leopoulos says "generosity doesn't describe" Brown and Windgate. "Kindness, caring, empathy about your community and young people and the arts — there's no one like those people."

Thanks to the A+ program, Windgate's funding for Thea scholarships in performing and visual arts for high school students, Windgate's new arts and design centers and its funding for artists in residence, it's possible that there are children who've been raised on Windgate grants.

***

Some of Windgate's smaller grants are having huge impacts and promise more. UA Pulaski Technical College received $1.5 million to furnish its Center for the Humanities and the Arts, which includes a 452-seat theater, art gallery and classroom space, and another $1 million for scholarships. In December, Windgate granted the Arts and Science Center for Southeast Arkansas in Pine Bluff a $2.2 million grant to renovate a building on Main Street for the ARTSpace for Creative Thinking and Entrepreneurship.

"I originally spoke to John Brown to create a community space to provide more outreach and engagement beyond the museum setting," Rachel Miller, the arts center director, said. "Brown liked that idea and encouraged me to develop and seek community support" for the space, she said.

The arts center will collaborate with UA Pine Bluff's economic incubator to use the space to show "how to use the arts as workforce readiness," Miller said. The two-story ARTSpace will also work with schools to provide teaching resources they may not have and commercial gallery space for the community and regional artists.

Despite the challenge of running the small arts center, Miller said it's "a really wonderful place to work. You have to have your heart in public service. ... You have to love working for your community."

Miller is "a force to be reckoned with," Horn said. "That's what we're looking for, somebody with such dedication that can make things happen."

Other Windgate grants to the arts: A $12 million grant for programming and the endowment of the Fort Smith Regional Art Museum. A $1 million challenge grant to the Arkansas Repertory Theatre to help it out of its financial hole that darkened the theater last year. (Little Rock rose to the challenge, and the lights will go up once more at The Rep for its production of "Chicago" that opened Feb. 22.) Also: The Eureka Springs School of the Arts. Emergent Arts and The Muses in Hot Springs. The Arts Center of the Grand Prairie in Stuttgart. DeltaARTS in West Memphis. The Center for Art and Education in Van Buren. The Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville. And so on.

It's a lot easier, Brown said, to talk about arts philanthropy these days. There is more understanding of how the arts contribute to quality of life.

But Horn said the Windgate and Walton foundations can't do it all. "We need other people to contribute to the arts. Whether a university or a small nonprofit, get involved in it to where you know the people. That will convince you."

Windgate Foundation draws attention to the arts, its benefits

[qmcareers]

Guest blog: Becoming A Teacher – The Facts

Thinking about going into teaching? It’s a fantastic, noble career with great prospects for those who stick with it. Let’s look at some of the facts.

You’d be in demand

Teachers are like Tangfastics – there are never enough to go round. If you’re a teacher wannabe, the laws of supply and demand are working in your favour. In today’s dismal graduate job market, that’s nothing to be sniffed at.

The problem – or, in your case, advantage – is particularly strong in scientific fields. Statistics from UCAS show that the numbers of people applying to teach STEM subjects – that’s Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Maths, ICT etc. – fell between 2016 and 2017. And, of those that are in current employment as STEM teachers, only six in ten possess relevant post-A Level qualifications. So if you’ve got a science degree, you’re already at a huge advantage in the teaching field.

It’s rewarding…

You don’t need an article to tell you that teaching is one of the most rewarding careers out there. Nurturing, tutoring and half-raising humans – humans who will go out into the real world and make up the next generation – is the one of the greatest callings there is.

Teaching gives you the change to make a difference – hopefully a positive one. In many cases, you are responsible for large portions of a student’s education; their future prospects, views and ideals rest in your hands.

Education offers numerous other, obvious benefits. For those who enjoyed the rigour and structure of school life, going back to it can be a relief from the chaos of the outer world. And in no other profession will you get a two month summer holiday, reliably, year on year.

… but its also really hard

Despite all these benefits, record numbers of teachers are leaving the profession. In 2016, schools reported that a record 9.5% of staff had departed in the last year. But why?

One of the primary reasons is workload. For all their lengthy holidays, teachers are frequently expected to work long hours, often for no extra pay. After-school clubs and lunchtime activities have to be run by someone, and all that marking/report-writing has to be done out of school hours. In 2015, the Guardian reported that 75% of trainee teachers had seriously questioned their career choice for precisely these reasons.

Besides long hours, teachers suffer many other disadvantages compared to standard desk jobs: oppressive Ofsted examinations; hoop-jumping; unmanageable classroom behaviour, particularly in secondary schools; and consistent bad press in the media. Schools are a politically charged environment and every new government seems to have different ideas as to how they should be run. Anyone remember Michael Gove?

There are lots of different routes

As with most jobs, January is the time when teacher applications peak. But what’s the process?

To become a teacher, you must obtain Qualified Teacher Status, which generally means enrolling on teacher training course. These include School Direct, PGCE, SCITT, GTP and Teach First schemes. You can apply for many training courses via UCAS in the autumn preceding the first year of study. However, you will need the following to apply:

Minimum two weeks’ work experience teaching in the age range you wish to school.

A degree of minimum 2:2.

A minimum of grade C in GCSE English and Maths (B in Wales).

A minimum standard of literacy and numeracy.

A DBS check.

You don’t need to be rich or have stellar results to teach – even in your chosen subject. In fact, most teachers have A Level results of CBB or less, and more applicants go for teaching from disadvantaged background than vice versa. In this sense, teaching is a remarkably open profession, and a viable route for any student of the minimum qualification.

Need some help with applications? The Guardian has a nice set of CV and cover letter resources for budding educators to draw from.

And good prospects

Teaching can be a lucrative profession, although some would argue the hours aren’t worth the money. Starting salaries for teachers range from the low 20s in most of the country to the upper 20s in inner London. At the far end of the scale, head teachers can earn salaries of over 100k. Wages vary greatly between private to state establishments.

Head teaching, if you get there, can be a highly rewarding job, despite being so removed from the classroom. Heads are involved with the business, outreach and governance of a school on a wider level. For those that enjoy the day-to-day activities of teaching and running the place, deputy is probably a better choice.

If you’re looking for a dependable, consistent job in which you can get comfortable, education may not be for you. But if you want to work hard, constantly learn, make a difference, get back to your roots and give back to the system that sustained you, you’d be hard-pressed to do better than teaching.

Susanna writes for Inspiring Interns, a graduate recruitment agency which specialises in sourcing candidates for internships and giving out graduate careers advice. To hire graduates or browse graduate jobs, visit their website.

from QMUL Jobs Blog http://bit.ly/2juplEL via IFTTT

[originaljellyfishcreation-blog]

which college do i have a better change of getting into How can I increase my chances of getting into Oxford

You should take the opportunity to pose questions to the admissions tutor(s) whom you meet and also talk to the undergraduates who will be available to answer queries and tell you more about the realities of student life, such as the tutorial system. Ask the experts: Applying to Oxbridge next year? Is there anything you can do in advance to improve your chances of getting in? By Josie Gurney-Read , Online Education Editor. AM GMT 10 Mar 2016. The Ucas application deadline for 2016 entry to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge passed in October, but for those of you who are thinking of applying for 2017 entry, the earlier you start to think about your application the better. Not only do Oxbridge applicants have an earlier deadline (October 15) but there are often more steps to the process, for example, aptitude tests. To avoid a last minute rush to cram as many books as possible before your interview - should you get one - start your preparations now. This week, one sixth form student asks our panel if there is anything they can be doing to help improve their chances of getting into these notoriously competitive institutions. Here the experts offer their views. Get in touch with your own education question and see it featured on Telegraph Education (details below). Question: How do I improve my chances of getting to Oxford to study history? I am going to apply to Oxford next year to study history, what can I do now to improve my chances of getting in? Should I sign up to one of those summer schools to help with interviews, and should I try and get work experience? Dr Sarah Mortimer: Broaden your horizons with history books and popular history magazines. Oxford tutors are looking for students who are really passionate about history, and who can demonstrate their engagement with the subject above and beyond whatever they have studied at school or college. The best way to prepare for a history degree is to read the history books which interest you, and be prepared to discuss your views of those books and their arguments. You can follow up on references made in your text books, or ask your history teacher to recommend further reading.... View more ...

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Purchase University of Kent fake diploma from UK

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Purchase University of Kent fake diploma from UK

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