There are lots of activities outside of the classroom at CCAD Hartlepool for degree students to make the most of their time during term. Lizzie Lovejoy, who is a BA (Hons) Illustration for commercial application student and member of our students union, tells us more:

One concern of student life is that it seemingly leaves little room for other activities, we spend so much time on projects and essays that it can seem daunting trying to find time for any extracurricular activities. Planning and scheduling is a real challenge, even with a set course time table, but it’s worth making time to get involved in different events and clubs around university, not just because it is a place to be social and have fun, but because it can benefit your academic studies.

Self-defence was an available club on Wednesday evenings from 5:15 till 6:45, and this club helped me in a lot of ways, helping me to begin working on my fitness, improving my confidence and safety when not on campus, but also improving my observational skills. One very important area of all art and design is being able to observe, to look at the world around us, take inspiration from everywhere and fully understand our world on a physical and socio-political level. Self-defence taught us to visually read our environments, to gage a situation through observation, and this skill is fully transferable to the world of design. My artworks proportions and life have improved since being part of self-defence and took my projects to a new level.

The Art as Business Seminar which ran for four weeks on Wednesday afternoon was very beneficial to the professional side of my academic work, helping to expand upon my understanding of funding and where my work in the future can fit in to the market. This was all information that I can apply to real life after graduating, but also use in my written work, showing how my projects could exist and potentially succeed out of the classroom. It also helped me engage with people from other courses and year groups, expanding my skills in communication and presentations which are used in areas of student assessments.

The Managing your Anxiety Seminar was ironically a seminar that I was nervous to attend, I was not sure what would be discussed, how much I would need to speak and if there would be other people there. Yet while I was there I found myself getting less nervous by the minuet, looking at various techniques that can help a person keep calm quietly without anyone around being aware, and promoting positive attitudes. It aided my communication and confidence, helping me to create and present work with an assurance that I would be able to achieve everything that I had to set out to complete in this course without pushing myself too far.

All of these clubs were, for me, personally interesting and worth the time just for that, but even more than that, they improved my course work on the design side and written work. Even if it seems difficult to make time for activities outside of the classroom, it is worth it. So start a club or join a club and enjoy yourself, it’s better for you then you might think.

You can follow Lizzie at:

www.facebook.com/DrawWithLizzie

www.instagram.com/draw_with_lizzie/

www.twitter.com/drawwithlizzie
www.youtube.com/channel/UCBOxB5lJb7dpHjdip-WmYmQ