Megas Stargazer
Google
-My time there as a student was good.
It was during the biggest students strikes regarding tuition fees so before the university taxes went up and before BREXIT.
I was quite pleased with the level of teaching.
I had good teachers, and awesome colleagues. Also the projects we did were very interesting, the practical aspects of the course were dubbed by a comprehensive theoretical approach.
Nevertheless you should not expect that after graduating this university you will automatically find a job in the field you are studying. It seems companies now value more the experience than the university you have graduated. And from what I have seen, they prefer to work with architects and mechanical engineers rather than with industrial designers when it comes to industrial design jobs. Besides, it is not the job of the university to find you a job.
For me I can say that it took me more than 3 and a half years after graduating from an MA degree at this university before I got a job that gave me a certain stability.
-Most of my colleagues left London after graduating.
-3 of my colleagues did not get their degree as their final projects were not considered to deserve a pass. So if you get in does not mean that you will as well finish.
-Some courses are quite obscure such as “Textile futures” or the “Creative spaces for narrative environments”.
-When I was a student, there were 100 design students graduating from the BA programme and around 30 from the MA. So 130 design graduates per year only from this university. Imagine how many design graduate from the design universities in London or in the entire UK. There are probably thousands of design graduates every year from UK alone. And of course there are the ones graduating from other universities in Europe. It feels like the market is flooded with design professionals therefore it looks like there are not enough opportunities for this kind of profession.
Every time I see a design job on Linkedin there are hundreds of applicants. The same happens with websites that deal with freelance design work like Upwork. For a task there are even 500 designers competing for one project.
-LGBT propaganda - more now than then, this is pushed as it happens in many western universities. My opinion is that teaching institutions should concentrate on offering teaching, not promoting ideologies. In short, students come to an art and design university for being teached art and design and not to be intoxicated with propaganda.
-The student accomodations are quite expensive for what they offer.
-London: overall a pleasant city but expensive and dangerous. If I remember well it has surpassed New York regarding the criminality index. There are quite many knife crimes, theft and robberies, and as of late it is a watch theft pandemic. One of my professors was robbed in Holborn while he was withdrawing some money from the ATM, and two teenagers tried to rob one of my friends in Elephant and Castle, they ripped his shirt into pieces.
The experience at CSM was great, i took a star out due to the lack of opportunities after graduation and due to the city that has become increasingly more dangerous and expensive.
-Overall I think you should analyse very well the university’s courses, the expenses, the criminality in the city, have a reality check and see what kind of opportunities are on the market in your field of study and decide for yourselves if it is worth it to study here.