Central Saint Martins

Beautiful and prestigious college / university in the heart of central London, close to many amenities and iconic places. You'll meet wonderful people (mostly students) from around the world and if you are lucky, get taught by some of the industry's finest and get some sort of exposure to catalyze a career in the Arts. However, I recommend reading through the other reviews carefully before making your decision to study here.

Red flag uni. I got an offer for my MA.. felt the vibe was off. Professor was testing my technical skills during interview rather than my essence and potential in patronising manner and dismissive and I felt unseen and humiliated. Dodged a bullet on this one. Don’t waste your time.

An opportunity to visit the University of Arts London, Central Saint Martin's today. Very impressed with the architectural buildings. This institution seems very lively, buzzing and thoroughly feel very comfortable here.

-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.

It's the graduation showcase time. Rarely we are able to go in and walk around. It's a perfect merge of old and new.

I’m a graduated student from CSM MA. Best marketing school and worst art school. Regard student as ATM especially for international student, we have only one teacher in our class, it’s dictatorship. He don’t spend time on us cause he have his part time job outside, teaching student to do portfolio in a China Company. Our class focused on philosophy but over half percentages of student can’t speak and understand English well, it’s nonsense. Many student only showed up in degree show because they just want to buy a degree and a CSM brand name, they took photo every time when they went to school and posted to the social media but never dear to show their work. Disgusting experience. The degree show is so messy and bad.

This is a review I should have written in 2012, after completing the Fashion Folio course. At the time, I was young, inexperienced, and dealing with social anxiety—but I was also incredibly hardworking. Unfortunately, review platforms weren't as accessible back then as they are today. My teacher was PAULINE ROSENTHAL, an elderly woman who seemed straight out of Downton Abbey. And she almost ruined me. She was unkind when my grandfather passed away and I struggled emotionally. She made RACIST remarks about the fact that I spoke Spanish. She even once fell asleep during a one-on-one presentation of my work. But these were minor compared to what she did with my UCAS application. Despite having strong recommendation letters from previous courses at Central Saint Martins and Parsons, she replaced them with a single, devastating letter—written by her. I wasn’t aware of the change until it was too late. Every university I interviewed with gave me the same feedback: We like your work, but we can't accept you with this letter. I had to pay £40 to access the letter that shattered my academic aspirations. It was HATEFUL, UNPROFESSIONAL, and MALICIOUS. It put me in a very difficult place mentally, and I fell into a deep depression. I didn't get into any of the universities I had dreamed of. That letter nearly destroyed my career before it began. But I found another way. Over the years, I’ve built a successful career as an international textile artist and a beloved teacher at several prestigious universities in Spain. I’ve had all kinds of students—gifted, troubled, indifferent—and I always treat them with respect and patience. That TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE shaped my values as a teacher. It taught me to never project frustration or ideology onto my students’ young and hopeful minds. Many of them tell me they feel seen and supported because of it. Still, sometimes the memory of that injustice resurfaces—like the echo of an act committed in pure malice. Back then, those of us from Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain—the so-called “PIGS”—wrote a letter of complaint. It wasn’t just personal; she treated all of us with contempt. IT WAS RACISM, PLAIN AND SIMPLE. I hope Central Saint Martins took that complaint seriously and that she no longer holds any position of influence over young creatives. But if she’s still working with students, I want to go on record: PAULINE ROSENTHAL SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO TEACH. She is a racist, a snob, and a RELIC OF A COLONIAL MINDSET that has no place in education. I don’t want this story to be forgotten. I don’t want my pain and lost dreams to be brushed aside. I want the world to know what happened—because no student should ever be subjected to that kind of abuse.

DO NOT APPLY for the course PDP (Performance Design and Practice). Horrendously chaotic and extremely dysfunctional. Course leader was never on time, and students were not engaging at all. The university was too greedy, and too eager to make money off international students when half of them cant communicate properly in english, which led to the class being divided throughout the three years of my time here. They have way too many “student-led projects”, which could’ve been a good thing but when the course is this dysfunctional, it’s just lazy course planning from the staffs.

I love this building it looks great from the outside and the passage way inside houses different events such as free ping pong and free student artwork. Obviously I've never actually been inside the university itself, the entrance passage is huge, and you'll often see groups of students as well as non-students hanging out playing ping pong. At the moment there's a cool interactive art + science degree exhibition taking place, which was fun to wander around.