Friday 18 February 2011

First University Interview!

I am currently sitting on a sleek, ultra modern Virgin train (with Wi-Fi!!!), racing though the English country side and Northern built up areas. A moody teenager is sitting on a luggage rack playing his guitar, having been turfed out of two seats already (he did insist on sitting in reserved seats rather then looking for an available one- maybe he just couldn't see through the enormous curly fringe which covers half of his face). Am I setting the scene all right for you?
I have just had an interview at the University of Bolton for Textile and Surface design. My Dad and I came up yesterday on the train (four different trains, one of them an underground- which sounds fine, until you add
an A1 portfolio, a huge bag of sketchbooks and two overnight cases to the mix!) and stayed overnight in the Tramways Hotel, which was quite nice after we got over the initial shock of it looking like a ghost town with
no one to greet us and no front desk or reception (we obviously have a certain way of doing things in the
South which doesn't apply up North). After we grabbed a security guard and got ourselves signed in we ditched the stuff and went for a wander- walking is no fun with a portfolio. We ended up eating in a gorgeous little Spanish tapas place, all you could eat tapas for just over a tenner each- some plates were a bit dodgy and some got re-ordered several times!
Hardly slept at all though, I think I have to settle into a place before I can properly sleep, the street lamps shining in my room and the constant noise outside probably didn't help. Still, luckily I had concealer in my bag which hid the bags under my eyes very nicely.
I think the interview itself went quite well. Dad and I got there very early, but needed the time to find out where the main reception was: 'Down that corridor, turn right, then left to the end, then right again, then through the two doors, take a sharp right and you're there....'
There were only two other girls being interviewed with me which was quite nice really, after a quick talk from Joyce, the course leader, we had a tour led by a first year called Jess which was interesting. The university has an entire room dedicated to embroidery- lots of machines!
We wandered around a third year room which was amazing!! They had all sorts of things, not only the customary textile stitching and lamp shades, but stitching into metal and printing onto ceramics etc. Fascinating!
After the tour we were abandoned in the main reception and called one by one by Joyce, who had by this time, gone through our portfolios and written notes about us. I think she liked my portfolio, although she said I had a lot of art and design influences- not sure if that's good or bad (:S). And she said she was glad she'd seen my sketchbooks.
So now I have to wait for a few weeks until I get a letter through the post saying whether or not I have been accepted there- a little bit nerve wracking!

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