TS: Goldsmith's vs UCL

have you considered doing anthro at LSE? i did my undergrad there and feel LSE has a better atmosphere generally than UCL.

hahaha!!!

I did my degree at a diff uni (switched to UCL for my postgrad becuz the project was more 'interesting', shall we say). I get on well with my research colleagues there (but then again many have done their degrees elsewhere and I've had a bit of contact with undergrad students but not enough for a well informed opinion on this).

Having said that I've mostly avoided students, even when in my degree as I sort of 'hated' everyone. I only had one really good friend (whom I maintained contact with and that's good enough for me).

I think his decision was hugely influenced by the location, as he didn't fancy the trek south of the river to SE london everyday (he wouldn't contemplate moving down there).

I did a masters at UCL, and I didn't really come into contact with the rest of the students. there are plenty of pubs/bars around. You do tend to socialise with the people on your course a lot (obviously depending on whether you get on with them or not!)

i'm currently on the MSc Social Anthropology at UCL so i guess i'm in a better position than most to comment. what level are you studying at? if undergrad don't think it matters - just go with whatever feels right and the boys/girls are prettiest. post grad is a different story. if you have a particular area of research in mind its crucial to have someone in the faculty who shares that interest and will get behind you- so basically check out the staff. if you're not sure about specialising then go to UCL - don't even think about goldsmiths (or LSE unless you have money to burn).

'wall to wall tossers' did make me chuckle. can't speak for the little ones but at the post grad level 99% of people are normal/lovely/social - its very hard to be an anthropologist if you don't have basic social skills.

let me know if i can help out with anything specific ... i'd be happy to.

I'm glad I didn't say anything derogitory about you!

That must be where I went wrong, then.

Anyone UCLers here?

I will be one in about 5 weeks.

lol i'll be goldsmiths. guess its time to fight to the death.

Good luck to you both - have fun!

Hey, Plax (ico)...pop into the student ship at goldsmiths and come say hi to me. I work there/am studying for an MA. I'll even let you pick some tunes to play on the stereo.

I didn't know there was any UCL-Goldsmiths rivalry, but shit is on!

goldsmiths didn't give me ahrc money, so i'll glady dish out some violence in ucl's name.

(what are you all doing? i don't know much about ucl but goldsmiths, where i had applied for cultural studies, seems like it has a lot of interesting stuff going on.)

I did my library MA at UCL. IIRC the real rivalry was with Kings, who would try and nick Jeremy Bentham and then parade him around.

Hilarious, btw:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIa-NtGV-ZM

As LOLworthy as this is, I do recognize certain aspects of my MFA experience in it

haha

I finished my BA in English with Creative Writing a few months back, and my MA is in American Fiction and Culture.

Did you go to UEA? I noticed you know the Ziggurat

xp did u do any work with chris baldick at all? love that guy

Lophar: I live in North Norfolk, so am familiar with the UEA through that.

r|t|c, yeah! I took a post-victorian literature course with him as a second year. Used to see him stocking up on Fosters and tissues at my local Tesco too.

North Norfolk! - God's country, it is beautiful up there. Niiiice and moody, the way I like it. (I went to UEA, don't feel I made the most of being in that part of the world)

i didn't know goldsmiths did other courses other than the bad art one.

I'm taking history of art at UCL.

My friend who just did his masters at the London Consortium last year warned against Goldsmiths as a being a "jokey" school. But most stuff he says is better taken with a grain of salt, generally.

ooooh, jed =)

I have friends that went there for music and dritical theory. I think ILX's own Tokyo Rosemary did a stint there too

so it seems. i had an intense conversation once with an italian lady who had studied painting and sculpture in italy and seemed quite skilled at both and had somehow ended up at goldsmiths where basically everyone had told her to forget all of that and start again. fair enough except that she thought that no one there knew what the hell they were talking about and that they hadn't even read the post-structuralist books that they had recommended she read to find her new direction.

but yeah i thought it was just an art school.

but my knowledge is based mainly on that single conversation plus that abhorrent bbc4 doc you linked.

maybe they just chose the terrible cunts for the doc and there are many fine artists there. who knows.

Didn't you go to art skool?

i went to the artsy bit of a fairly technical/bznz school. and look at me now!

please don't look though.

You seem perfectly alright

i had an intense conversation once with an italian lady who had studied painting and sculpture in italy and seemed quite skilled at both and had somehow ended up at goldsmiths where basically everyone had told her to forget all of that and start again. fair enough except that she thought that no one there knew what the hell they were talking about and that they hadn't even read the post-structuralist books that they had recommended she read to find her new direction.

friend of mine is a pro artist who went to slade (ucl) and will lecture at length about how goldsmiths are utter cunts who don't know what they're on about and basically are coasting on the fact that some famous people went there 25 years ago

well that settles it, I suppose

she's otm. though ime, ah, not everyone at the slade loves ucl. but that's more to do with the people in charge.

i didn't know goldsmiths did other courses other than the bad art one.

― jed_, Saturday, August 20, 2011 10:37 PM (Yesterday)

i didn't either but apparently they have a good rep for school teaching and anthropology (i am basing the anthropology one entirely off this guy who i hitched a ride off in canada who wanted to move to london to do his MA in goldsmiths)

the MA i'm starting is called contemporary art theory. getting p excited about it. the fact that its famous as an art school did influence the fact that i wanted to go there. also the fact that its pretty small. i went to a super tiny art school and id probably feel a lot more comfortable with that, the idea of a big university is sortof intimidating for me.

oh you are going there? sorry for badmouthing it!

so it seems. i had an intense conversation once with an italian lady who had studied painting and sculpture in italy and seemed quite skilled at both and had somehow ended up at goldsmiths where basically everyone had told her to forget all of that and start again. fair enough except that she thought that no one there knew what the hell they were talking about and that they hadn't even read the post-structuralist books that they had recommended she read to find her new direction.

― jed_, Saturday, August 20, 2011 11:36 PM (Yesterday)

but yeah, from what i know of the goldsmiths undergrad curriculum, this sounds pretty correct and i have major issues w/ this and basically a lot of the weird false binaries you have to construct in order to justify this kind of approach. like i'm glad i went somewhere more "traditional" especially because a lot of what i do is based around the ideas of formal limitations of medium or like conceptual underpinnings of medium, although a more traditional framework is obv. riddled w/ problems of its own. Still this is hardly a uniquely goldsmiths problem, there's that famous one about i think eric fischl in cal arts in the 70s having to do some class where everybody got naked and rolled around of the floor together or something.

lol jed

i do feel what slade people are saying to an extent but unfortunately they also tend to be boring knobs so idk

i think goldsmiths is probably the right place to do critical theory or w/e

History department is good at Goldsmiths too.

Yeah, isn't goldsmiths known for media/cultural studies?
Pretty much all the badmouthing re: its studio art classes was corroborated by that guy that called it "jokey." A lot of people coasting on its status, being a bit too cool for school, etc. He also spoke pretty highly of Slade (which I don't know anything about, except that Mona Hatoum went there, which is kind of cool because I intend to write on her while I'm at UCL).

xxxxpost: I feel like that finally explains eric fischl for me.

see i've got no horse in this race, being too underachieving to get near a proper (london or otherwise) university, i just enjoy the art school beefs

the academic goon squad in my family went to queen mary fwiw

i would take this all way more seriously if it wasn't exactly the same stuff ppl in diff art schools in ireland say about each other.

(i am basing the anthropology one entirely off this guy who i hitched a ride off in canada who wanted to move to london to do his MA in goldsmiths)

ha, i love this; am currently debating grad school & employing similar asking-some-guy-whether-he-enjoyed-it methods of research. to keep it positive, feel like this is actually pretty valid, & how good a time you have at goldsmiths will be down to the crazy, unpremeditatable chance of which tutor or study buddy you end up crossing paths with, whether you get to grips with the particular facilities that offer you a way forward, &c. though all of that said i kind of specifically want to go to cal arts now.

OK but be warned, you WILL have to get naked if you go there.

Also:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100902152408AAwnlge

Also, you know, Annette Bening was at my graduation:
http://vimeo.com/24190735

Also:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100902152408AAwnlge

gonna mock up a Cal Arts prospectus cover depicting this aspect of their academic programme

sam reminds me that a friend of ours is doing her lit & theory phd at goldsmiths and she's a proper genius type. totally forgot about that.

a friend of ours is doing her lit & theory phd at goldsmiths and she's a proper genius type

spot the deliberate mistake

can people who know people at goldsmiths post a photo of their friend in this thread so I can tell everyone on ILX what said friend's snack preference from the SU shop is?

Probs not. Also is there not Goldsmiths-St Martins rivalry?

I had Mark Fisher as a lecturer.

hi!

hi!!

Goldsmiths!

International Office was a bit pointless. "It's cold in London, bring a winter coat!"

Gee, thanks.

Haha

Yes, what are the international students like at these schools? St. Martins seems like there are many students from Japan, Italy, Scandinavia? I was the only "European" student in my class at CalArts, but I don't think I really counted as an international student. All the other non-Americans were from various parts of Asia - India, Taiwan, China, S. Korea.

Also are these schools expensive by UK standards? Is there anything like the US financial aid "system"? (lol)

I'm Canadian, so I'm an international student, and I'm like me.

i can't spot a mistake but there's not a deliberate one i can assure you.

Hey, Plax (ico)...pop into the student ship at goldsmiths and come say hi to me. I work there/am studying for an MA. I'll even let you pick some tunes to play on the stereo.

― Darren Huckerby (Dwight Yorke), Saturday, August 20, 2011 6:04 PM (3 days ago)

okay im p sure i've seen you in new cross now but who knows

one of my best friends is being interviewed for an ma program at godlsmiths next week. she is the best person in the world so i know she'll kill it buuuut if any of you still read ilx maybe an insider tip or some inkling of the school culture could be conceivably useful?

yo flopson

I've been at Goldsmiths for five years now (I did a BA in English with Creative Writing and am now getting towards the end of my MA in American Literature and Culture. I've also worked there for three years).

The 'culture' has changed in the period that I've been there - it certainly feels less politically charged than it did when I first arrived. There's still the odd pocket of that, which is great, but like I said, it's far less of a focal point than it was.

As long as your friend is happy with every single thing they look at coming back to questioning the problematic nature of identity then they'll be fine/love it.

If you/they've got any specific questions to ask just give me a shout.

thx!

I'm doing a masters at Goldsmiths but I'd have difficulty commenting on culture here as I haven't really explored outside of my department. I'm also not an arts student so in the minority here I think. I was at UCL which was a much bigger school. Good things I've found here are that there appears to be a genuine interest in teaching, it's small and friendly and at least one reasonable local pub. There's a nice mix of international and local students. My department in UCL was majority international. Goldsmiths is in S.E. London which is worth considering. It also lacks some of the kudos of other UoL unis.