Top Uni! (University of Huddersfield in general)

Member Name: leanne8686

Product:	University of Huddersfield in general
Date:	25/08/08 (354 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great course choice, friendly staff, great facilities, great architecture(mostly)

Disadvantages: The 60's architecture of 1 building!

I have just graduated from the University of Huddersfield, well back in July but it feels like yesterday...lol.

I studied Textile Design for Fashion and Interiors and gained a 2:1 with Honours.




~The University buildings~

Its quite a large university set in a lot of different buildings.

Some of the building are very old: The Ramsden building on the ring road was built before 1883 and housed an art exhibition back then.
The older buildings in my opinion are the nicest to look at.
Also a lot of the University is in a huge converted textiles mill, these buildings have been restored beautifully by the university as has the canal which runs alongside.
There are 2 churches on campus which have been converted by the university and now house the music school. These buildings are very impressive and as you would expect the acoustics are amazing!

There are also newer parts of the University, the central services building which houses the library and conference rooms was originally built for use as Huddersfield Polytechnic in the 1960's, this building is not very attractive as the architecture of that era never was.
The Technology building (which housed my course and the other art and design courses) is another newer building; a one storey quite ugly building I must say!

Most recently, the new Creative Arts building was completed just in time for me leaving! (June 2008)
This masterpiece of modern architecture consists of glass and wood walls. The whole building is a very odd shape with lots of corners and sticky out bits!
This building will now replace the technology building and will house the art and design courses.

All of the buildings alone look good but put together they are a bit of a mish-mash!!

The university is easily accesible from the train and bus stations, about a 5-10 minute walk at the most, its also really handily positioned for walking into town for lunch or a touch of shopping!!



~The courses available~

The university is made up of seven academic schools:
*Applied Sciences
*Art, Design and Architecture
*Business
*Computing and Engineering
*Education and Professional development
*Human and Health Sciences
*Music, Humanities and Media

There are a wide range of Undergraduate and Post graduate courses available within these schools.

Undergraduate courses, some examples of courses on offer:
*Accountancy
*Biochemistry
*Computer aided design
*Digital film production
*Exhibiton and Retail Design and the list goes on!


There is a wide range of Masters, PHD and Education post graduate courses available,
Examples of Post Graduate courses:
*Architecture MA
*Counselling MsC
*PGCE childcare
*PGCE secondary school teaching and again the list goes on!

There are literally hundreds of courses at the University of Huddersfield and I am sure you would find something to your liking here!


The university also accepts students on gap years from international universities from across the world, some students who graduated my course were from Singapore! The university of Huddersfield works closely with these international universities.



~The facilities~

The university offers 24 hour computer rooms to aid students with their study and work.

There is a vast library which houses many types of books and journals beneficial to your university work, the opening hours vary but during exam time and other busy times the library is often open 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.

There is a student union bar which is open 7 days a week with cheap drinks!

There's at least 4 cafes where you can get a range of food from breakfasts and snacks to full cooked dinners.

The student union shop sells stationary, food, drinks and magazines and is also open 7 days a week.

The produce in the cafes, shop and bar are all really good value, perfect for a student budget.

There is also a gym and sports hall on site which you can become a member of for a reasonable fee. T
he sports hall offers clubs such as tennis and 5 a side football.
The uni also runs keep fit classes such as yoga, aerobics and pilates which run weekly.



~My course~

Like I said in the intro, I took Textile Design for Fashion and Interiors and this uni was perfect for my choice as along with Bradford, Huddersfield was the textiles capital of the country in its heyday! (I actually live in a converted textiles mill and half the uni was one!)

So a great place to study textiles!

The course I took is seperated out into 3 main subject areas: Knit, Weave and Print.

For the first 2 years you take all 3 subjects along with others such as CAD and Visual studies and Fibre lectures etc.

In the third year you have a choice of finding a placement for a year or carrying straight through to your final year of study.
I chose to go straight through.

So...in your final year you choose to specialiase in one of the three subject areas, I chose Knit, along with this you can carry on your CAD lessons and have various lectures too.

In your final year you also have the choice between making your degree a a BA or BsC degree, I chose BA as it the more 'arty' one where you concentrate on Market research and trends.
The BsC is the more the technical side of textiles such as knit structures and machine workings.

The work in all 3 years is broken down into mini projects lasting from 6 weeks at first through to nearly 4 months in your Final Major Project!!

I think the course is well structured with lots of interesting and different sides to it.



~My conclusions~

All in all, a great university! I really enjoyed my time here and feel the tutors work hard so you realise your full potential!

Most of the staff I came across in my 3 years there were great and really helpful, they treat you like adults and not children which is really important I think!

The Uni looks good (Except the central services building lol!), It has all the facilities you could ever need and the range of courses is outstanding!

Would I recommend it? YES! I really would to any students from far or near, i am from Huddersfield myself but was looking at going to various uni's throughout the country and found this to be the best, the location didn't even come into it!



The University of Huddersfield
Queensgate
Huddersfield
HD1 3DH

01484 422288

www.hud.ac.uk

Summary: a great place to learn, GO!