For so many people with whom I study, King's College London was the dream university. Not for me. For me, it was the choice I thought to be absolutely out of reach. Yet here I am, halfway through my undergraduate degree in film studies.
I have just last week finished my assignments for the first half of my second year. The final countdown to deadlines ended up with an all-nighter (
I thought this is a good time to write down some thoughts about my experience this far. About King's College, and London, and about film studies on general: I do realise, that especially for some of my Finnish friends and family members, film studies might be little weird field of study to grasp.
To start from the very beginning though, in high school I was quite sure I wanted to study abroad. I think I had been thinking about that for a long while, and the idea of living abroad had been rooted in my mind since don't-even-know-how-early. I was obsessed with exchange student blogs even before high school, but I couldn't go on an exchange year myself in high school. Next step; I thought I would have an exchange in university. But with little bit of new knowledge, bit by bit I learned that it wouldn't be too complicated to do a whole undergraduate degree in the UK.
The UK was kind of the easy choice, but also the one I was really into. From the languages I speak, English is the only one I was fluent enough in to think about studying in it. It would be amazing to learn Swedish fluently too, but my language level was just too low, so it would have been nerve wrecking in the start (even if I did a degree in English in Sweden/elsewhere in Scandinavia). I loved Scotland, and as an European student I wouldn't have had to pay for my student fees. I visited there with one high school class, we had excursions at different universities and I just loved it. There was something good in the air.
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| Somerset House is right next to/partly on my campus and fricking pretty in the sunset. |
Fast forward, time for the application process to universities in the winter of 2015. I did high school in 3,5 years, meaning I graduated in the winter when most of my year graduated in the spring, so I had already graduated; if I had graduated by the "normal" timeline, I would have had to apply the previous winter in middle of my studies (if you are wondering why I studied longer than I "should have," no I did not fail anything, I just liked performance art modules and did more school than needed because of that). I did my application, I thought a bit more about my choices.
For some reason, in the last minute I decided to turn down the practical filmmaking courses I thought I'd apply for - to be honest, I am not sure what was my thought process on this, but in the end I am very happy with the choice (I should probably write another post exclusively on film studies as this is getting too long otherwise). That left me with one empty spot. Why would I leave one empty spot? I turned to Google and searched for highest ranking universities in film studies. I saw King's College London on the top (I think that year it was the first one), and I had just been in London for a holiday and had really loved it as well, so I just added it to my application for the sake of it.
About week after sending my application in, I get a notification from KCL; they've given me a reply. It was so much faster than I thought it would've been, so I was just very nervous. I saw the message, they had given me an offer. Going deeper and finally seeing the offer itself, I realise it is unconditional. They just took me in like that, it felt to me - I was assuming that I would have needed to have an interview, or that they would at least ask me to do the official language test I had not yet done.
It was a weird feeling, when something I did not even dare to dream about happened. I did not even know much about King's at that point, just that it was highly ranked and I thought it was out of my league. After doing some reasearch, I was more and more blown away; I wasn't even confident enough in myself for necessarily getting to any school, yet I found myself accepted into an internationally well ranking university.
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| Somerset House and my campus from the other side of Thames. |
So that's the story of how I found myself from KCL - but how the actual studying and life has been at King's? To put it shortly, I am very happy with the experience. There are some of things that have started to bug me - like, silly things in the buildings that make places really crowded, but overall, the quality of teaching is superb and I enjoy my time.
ADJUSTING. Adjusting was pretty easy, to be honest. I did cry a couple of times in the very beginning, when I was just very tired and had to get all my heavy bags to my dorm room by myself, and the pillows and duvets were not included in the room, so I had to get them from a huge shopping centre before being able to sleep. And food! I couldn't cook! I needed stuff! I needed to do stuff by myself! But pretty fast things calmed down: I have always been quite independent. I met some people at events in uni, and when the studies properly started, you just get used to the new everyday life. Most of the people you'll study with will be moving away from home for the first time anyway and King's is very international, so everyone is in the same situation, so no need for worries. The dorm on my first year was definitely not my favourite: I like my home to be peaceful, and a huge building of first year students is definitely not that. Finland is nearby, so I don't really get homesick. Of course sometimes I miss friends and family (and my cats!) but it has still been fine, my mum sends pictures of the cats and everyone else can be reached by messages and calls.
STUDYING. So, what do we even do in film studies? Most modules have the same structure: each week, there is a lecture, a screening of one or more films relevant to the subject studied that week, and a seminar with a smaller group, where we discuss the subject and the film. Simple. In addition to the time in class, we have a lot of reading. A lot. It does depend a bit on the teacher, but generally if you want to do all of it, it really takes some determination - quite fast I learned not to feel guilty if I hadn't done all of the reading. Just doing your best, and being active during seminars is enough. The teachers really know their shit and learning has been super interesting. For most parts, our grades are determined by marks from assignments - and that is basically just essay as we are humanists. Deadlines can be soul crushing, but at least I can say that I have done surprisingly well. Each time when I submit my essays, I say to myself "oh gosh this was the first essay I've ever written," but still I have always passed easily. The highest grades, however, are really hard to get but I haven't really been even aiming at them.
FILM STUDIES. But what do we study? No, it is not practical filmmaking like many people think. It is basically study of film - think art history and change the subject. Tadah! We talk about film theories and contexts, history, form and sociological contexts, movements around the world, genres. Philosophy, too - I did myself do philosophy in high school, so it has not been hard for me, but there are people who hadn't and I feel like some kind of crash course in philosophy should be recommended before starting film studies. For example, I just wrote an essay about patriarchy in Greek Weird Wave. Fricking interesting. What will people do who've graduated from film studies do? Variety of different things: there are so many sides in the field of film, that people tend to forget about. Distribution, programming, festivals, education... But what will I do? A very good question, and I have no idea yet. I just want to work with something I am passionate about.
THE PEOPLE. The best thing about my life at King's is the people; it is just wonderful to spend your days with likeminded people, who share the same passion with you. I was worried beforehands, that there would be some snobbish, know-it-all type of people, but 99.9% of the people with whom I study are just super nice and friendly. And it is not just the fellow students, but the academic staff as well. Not only are they super qualified, but they are super nice and helpful. I already miss some of my teachers from the semester I finished before Christmas break.
Anyway, those were some of my thoughts according to the first half of my degree! Is there anything else you would like to hear connecting to my studies?
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