Get your head in the game. It’s the last year and YOU CAN DO THIS!

One of my main ‘cheerleaders’ for my final year was Ash and as much as I love him, his main form of encouragement was screaming ‘YOU CAN DO IT!’. Now I can tell you, as many of you will guess, him shouting that at me at 11pm the night before a deadline really doesn’t actually help at all. Shocker right?!

Whether your final year is part of your grade or the whole lot (like mine was argh!) you really need to crack down this year.

Just ask yourself:

• Do I want to be proud of the work I complete?

• Do I want to be able to apply to jobs with my final year work?

• Do I want to minimise the about of mental breakdowns I have? (sorry not sorry at some points you will be overwhelmed, it is inevitable)

• Do I want to get the most for my £9k?

• Do I want to avoid doing all-nighters?

Omg - there are so many more reasons why you should want to get your head into gear for your final year but SO MANY people don’t. I’ve said through these welcome to IAD posts that work life balance is needed but if you do not follow these few ideas believe me this will be you..

I am telling you now this is (and should actually) be the hardest year of your education to date. It should mean so much to you and sadly that is exactly why we feel so much pressure and in the end can’t focus.

Like many people for a lot of things I initially feel like there is too much ‘stuff’ being thrown at me at once that I just push it to the side to sort another day… Here I am hopefully going to give you an insight into my final year, my frustrations, and how you could approach things yourself…

1. Do not wait until you go back to uni in October

   Get ahead whilst you can. Know your modules. Seek the module syllabus. The main thing I get asked about is the dreaded dissertation, because for most of us design lot its the first big bit of writing we’ve done for a long long time! I have a whole separate post aimed at tackling a design dissertation… but for this point I want you to take a day and have a look online on your student platform. See any information you can get now and have a look over it.

   For example my final year was split into a few modules including

   • Dissertation (Formed the base subject for the Major design project)

   • Design Studio (Major design project)

   • Technical Studies (Technical detailing for the Major design project)

   • Communications (Seminars for learning new software/presentation ideas etc.)

   Another thing I would highly recommend doing (if you’re reading this early enough in the year) is going to see either a specific university degree show or attending the FreeRange Degree Show which showcases multiple universities in London.

2. Get your questions written down and answered ASAP

   You DO NOT want to be half way through the year with unanswered questions about a project that could change your life. Get a grip and ask your course-mate, a tutor, a professor or me! Please don’t sit there being unsure - because when your grade comes in and you’re not happy that answer may have made all the difference.

3. Try to set a realistic schedule

   For some of you, you have come from a year out in placement - an absolutely fantastic time for you to experience the industry, learn new skills and actually most importantly work to a set schedule of a standard work day!

   You don’t see a lot of companies sitting there doing all nighters every night to get their project work done… so why should you at uni? You have just spent the year working with a team for 8hours a day. Now I am no saying you should sit at uni everyday for 8hours - just remember, when your boss was telling you to work those hours you could, so it’s not impossible.

   By setting out a really simple schedule or routine for the main bulk of your day hopefully you will be able to firstly attend everything you should be(!) and secondly leave you time for socials.

   For example a very broad statement I told myself was simply ‘You should be at uni or sitting at your desk from 9am-5pm (with a break for lunch).’

   This covered early lectures as well as the opening/closing times for places such as the workshop etc. The idea is that once you’re there you’re there. I found the hardest part was getting up and starting.

4. Get a core person/group to be your accountability partner(s)

   This can be a single person or a group. They don’t even have to be on your course to be honest with you! They need to be people you trust but also people you enjoy spending time with. Mine were a few IAD students and an Architecture Part I student.

   The idea is that we all would pull each other up on work, deadlines, research.. bounce ideas off of each other and most of all get each other there to do work in the first place! If you can find like minded people and work to similar ideas (like from this list!) then great, you can ‘work hard play hard’ because you’ll all work to the same sort of routines…

   Now at this point it is good to mention that sometimes some people in your core group will fall a little - remember to be there to help pick them up, it’s all about supporting each other.

5. At the start if each project get clear on what you actually need to produce

   Again this is all about managing yourself and your time. I will have a separate post where we look into this further but for now I will say this..

   You will not be able to get everything done. There is always something more you could do. Creativity doesn’t have a cut off point but uni and project work definitely does.

   For example my final major project was big and daunting. It was worth the majority of my whole degree grade and a lot of my other modules we also based on it. Essentially it was the entire degree grade.

   I decided from the start to write down a mega list of everything I had seen in previous degree shows/project/influences/Pinterest images that I want to show as a ‘complete project’. Very soon you realise that 5 different types of models and sketchbooks and presentations boards aren’t realistic at all.

   We will go into this in much more detail in my post tips for you final major design project - take a look and hopefully it will help you get your head straight on how to tackle this massive task thats been thrown at you.

   The main thing with this point it to get a clear understanding of three things:

   • What your uni/tutors are expecting of you (If you don’t you need to make sure you go back to working on point number 2!)

   • What you want to create (have some aspirations of different visuals or models you want to put in your presentation - but play to your natural strengths)

   • What will actually explain your concept the best (I’m sorry but it doesn’t matter if it looks amazing if no one understands it. Concepts need to translate into reality.)

Overall these are some things that could really point you in the right direction or get you in a better frame of mind. I know I starting to panic about the unknown before I went back into final year.

Even if this gives you a little insight that’s great! But pop me a comment or email with any questions that come out of reading this!

Also let me know that you’re interested in more posts on some areas of final year in more detail like tackling your dissertation and where to start with the final major design project!