Sheffield Hallam University Interview Part 2

So where did I last left off? My arrival in Sheffield? Yeah there...
So I arrived in Sheffield, left the train, walked towards the stairs and ahead of me I see two Asian hotties. Yum. Great start!

Took in all of Sheffield's train station's amazingess when I got to ground level, was gorgeous and spacious compared to Ipswich. Quickly I looked for Burger King and set up my temporary HQ there, bought myself a coffee to keep myself alert and awake, looking at the map, trying to remember the directions (not that I had to really), calling Louise (who didn't attend due to illness/laziness) when I should arrive for the interview and thinking up of potential questions that they may ask me. During my time in my temporary HQ I spotted and heard a few Asians, all of them Chinese, some spoke in Mandarin some spoke in Cantonese. Wow it felt like I was in a toned down China Town.

I started to set off around 11.30am. Dragging my portfolio along, stepped out of the train station and was in awe with the amazing structure of this water fountain. Was simply gorgeous! Why can't Ipswich have this sort of thing? I don't want a one pillar bridge...at least make the light that shines the pillar change colour...
Anyway I noticed grit on the floor when I walked up this hill along the fountain, must have snowed or been cold enough to be icy. The floor was wet also, making the spine of my portfolio wet proabably when I placed it on the floor leaning against my leg just so my poor hands could rest. Was so heavy and painful!

Got to the road side, first thing I see across the road, Sheffield Hallam University sign on a huge building. Wow I arrived already! VIVA LA SHU! Looks like I didn't really need a map after all. Crossed the road, noticed the huge hill, groaned, dragged me and my heavy portoflio up the hill to the top. At this time I was at Arundel Street, there was those pillars with maps on them that tells you where the buildings of SHU are. Couldn't find Sheaf Building anywhere, great. So I whipped out my map that I printed off Google images and followed it. Problem was that I couldn't find Surrey lane. I pretty much kept walking down Arundel Street till I passed Arundel Gate Interchange (?). Oh and Primark was about 5 mins away, I must've went far away from the destination by then. Walked back and wondered if I should head into the Adsetts Centre, nah, I kept on walking.
Passed 4 Asians, made me feel slightly more at home..? Hah.
Got back to where the pillar was, it was right next to SHU's main entrance - intitally was about to go in there since the map I printed out pretty much lead to INSIDE the main entrance building.

So I headed into the building, asked the reception woman and this is where things get...puzzling. She told me that I have to go down the hallway into the atrium, up these stairs, to the elevators, to level 2, walk through the atrium, walk outside and I should see the building. My brain was jammed when she mentioned atrium WTF was that?! I had a feeling that I didn't get all that at the first time, it felt kind of rude of me to ask her to repeat it - suggested that I wasn't listening, so I pretty much went "Uhh...there are signs that would lead me to the building right?" And thank God she said yes.
And so began my journey to Sheaf Building. Down the hallway, saw some elevators, pressed level 2, left the elevator, wondered where I should head next, found myself in some cafe/community area (which I then assumed was the atrium) walked around a bit - forgotten where to head next, realised I had to head outside and so I did. So glad when I saw the Sheaf Building sign when I left the main building phew.

Went inside Sheaf Building, to my right was the reception, told the woman I was there for an interview, she told me to wait at the area outside the reception 15 mins before the interview (12:45pm, interview at 1pm). It was 12pm, I had 45 mins to kill great. Don't want to explore around the place with a heavy portfolio to be honest so she told me to wait at level 5's cafe area...LEVEL 5?! Too much walking involved. So I headed back into the main building and waited at the almost empty cafe area - I think there was a couple of lecturers sitting at a table...
So yeah, sat there, for 45 mins, writing more potential questions in my notebook. Couldn't come up with any, so I doodled.

12:40pm came, I decided to slowly make my way back into Sheaf Building. Passing some students of the uni smoking, nice. Went inside and asked how long the interview should last for since I have to catch a train at 5:44pm. She said I should be done way before then, which was absolutely fine.
A woman guided me to the waiting area, where a majority of people were already. Pretty much most people there were with their parents, and then there was me, no parent. Man I feel unloved by my parents. A few more came as time ticked by, a few lanky boys who came on their own.
And during that 20 minute wait I noticed that around 60-70% of the other candidates that were being interviewed for Graphics Design on that day were female, the rest were just lanky tall guys. Oh and I was the only Asian girl there...everyone else were white/Caucasian. Why Lou, why weren't you there to be Asian with me?! ・゜゜・(/□＼*)・゜゜・

Soon once of the Graphic Design came and lead us into the Graphic Design room, reminded me of the food tech/new design tech rooms back in my old High School. White and clean. I was the second one in line. The guy was handing out this white sheet and told us to go over to a table, put our portoflio down and placed the white sheet of paper on top. The white sheet had writing on it, I didn't bother to read and realise that it was my UCAS application in A5 with my personal statement on it. *slaps self*

Headed over to the presentation area, where these wooden chairs with pretty designs on the back of them were lined up. Sat and watched this brief presentation about the course. They talked about the offers and explained the courses of Graphic Design that they offer. Found out that if they like your work in your portfolio but don't think it's enough they would put you in the Extended course thingy. Basically a foundation year, good thing is that once you completed it you can go straight onto the BA Graphic Design course, bad thing is that you have to pay another year of Uni fees. You could always opt to do a foundation year in your home town in order to save money but you would have to go through the interview process again.
We were also asked who actually is from Sheffield that is applying to SHU, no one.
Oh and during this time the guy told us the other staff members of the Graphic Design team were looking at our portfolios. ASDFJKL; NO ONE TOLD ME THAT D8 !!! I thought I would actually be there to lead them through my portfolio...Eurgh.
Was then shown around the facilities by a current 3rd year student of Graphic Design. Many of which was locked because it was the first day back or something. ButI remember seeing a room for cameras, etching, laser cutting, monoprinting and Apple Macs. Yum.
Finished the walk through, headed back to Graphic Design room for another lengthy presentation about the work we will do and past work, which were all amazing. There's a trip to New York for 2nd years, around £600, not bad! Gonna have issues in 2nd year, have to pick one field within Graphic Design to specialise upon, I'm torn between illustration and advertising.

Time for the interview/portfolios. Headed back to the tables where we laid down our portfolio, 4/5 a table. It was a group interview oh God. A pregnant staff lady came over and told us to pick one piece of work to talk about that is our favourite, at this time I had to pick quick from my huge pile of work, whereas others brought a lot fewer. I chose this acrylic painting I did of the center of an orchid, I was incredibly pround of it at the time. But when I noticed the work that the other candidates on my table picked out, I realised I picked the wrong thing to talk about (should have picked and talked about my sakura tree) - they looked far more interesting...
We had to say our names first then where we came from and then about our work. I was last to talk about mines.
First guy was this scrawny guy called Ben, his portfolio was...tiny. Like he ripped most of the pages out of his A3 sketchbook and left in 4/5 pages of good ones for the interview. He whipped out this grungy A3 work, typical stuff you may see on grafittied walls. Mixed media, looked alright, can't comment much about it since it's not my style. Can't remember the place where he was from, never even heard about it.
Second guy, also called Ben, from Nottingham, whipped out development pieces on an A3 sheet of paper, something to do with remodelling existing buildings and he chose some shopping centre in Nottingham. They looked colourful, innovative and nice.
Third candidation, a girl, can't remember her name, also from Nottingham, a friend of the previous one. She talked about this black and white bitro drawing of this magnified segment of an orange. Very detailed and textualised.
Fourth candidate, the third guy, Alex, from somewhere that I never heard of again but he did mention that it was a small town. He shown an A2 (?) painting of this family arond this table with a rainbow table, apparently the theme was do with socialising or communicating..? But yeah, at least his painting of humans doesn't look deformed like mines. Looked neatly painted as well...
Then came me and my horrible square (A4ish) painting. Not even A3/A2 sized like the others;;; The woman asked me how could I use this in the course...I hate this sort of question, I don't know how...So I said I could use it through advertising. She then asked for what brand. I instantly remebered the Body Shop poster that was on the presentation like 10 mins before. So yeah, I replied "Body Shop", she then said "Okay..." Well done Julie. Really, well done for mucking it up. *slaps self*
Oh wait, but it didn't end there, she said that she remembered reading that I opened an online business in the past and told me to show the drawings that I done for the business...which I brought with me. So I took it out and whipped it through - she thought she didn't look at it but then realised she did. She then asked me about the business, like what it was all about, I had to explained about the community, how it all began - my greed for virtual gold and clothes/coloured pixels for my avatar. I guess it was kind of bad when I mentioned that "I eventually stopped it because I got bored of it" *facepalm* In which the woman laughed and said "How could you get bored of it?" Fail Julie, that was just...fail!

And with that, my day ended at SHU. She told us that we're finished and can head home now. I had issues zipping up my folder because it's such a pain in every aspect that the woman asked if I needed help and attempted to zip it for me but failed. Why did I get such a shitty portfolio folder?

I left the building, headed the exact same way that I came in and left the place. I should have wandered around and too more photos...but I was too driven on the idea of returning to the station, sitting down, resting my aching arms and hands and then relax.
The interview ended at 3:10pm roughly. When I arrived at the station I realised that I could actually take the super early train back home - orignally planned to leave at 5:44pm encase the interview ended at like 4pm. The super early train time, which I noted down days before, was 3:54pm. Plenty of time to spare. Only issue is that the 3:45pms train had 2 changes...Doncaster and Peterborough, whereas if I were to wait for the 5:44pm train I have 1 change at Ely = less hassle. But thing is if I catch the earlier train I get home at 7:38pm, and the later one gets me back home at 9:30pm-ish. Called home and asked mother what to do, she suggested to catch the earlier one. She chose correctly, simply because I was tired and sleepy, better to head back home early as possible. During that phone call I noticed that there were so many Asians in the train station o-o
So I made my way to Burger King again to buy a Sweet Chilli Chicken wrap for £1.99 and then headed to platform 2 - took me a while to find out what train would take me to Doncaster, it was the train heading to Newcastle, with Doncaster being the first stop.
I remember taking down notes on how long I will have to change trains, 21 mins for the change over at Doncaster and 18 mins for Peterborough, which should be enough...

...I need to shower now. And head to bed. I've made it my goal to get into bed before midnight this year on school days in order to minimise dark circles, the Garnier caffiene roller just isn't enough.
I shall continue on about my journey home to Ipswich tomorrow. Something went wrong, can you guess what it was?

G'nite.

P.S. pics have been added to previous post.