Recently, I have been increasingly asked to talk about my studies at Cambridge and how I became an illustrator. The trick is that I entered the University when I had already achieved some success in illustration and only then went to study. I completed my MA in Children’s Illustration from the Cambridge School of Art. This is one of the most prestigious schools in Anglia Ruskin University. And today, not only will I tell you about my studies, but I will also take you behind the scenes!
In order for you to see everything with your own eyes, I recorded a video from an exhibition of graduates of the course on children’s illustration, which takes place every year at the London Art Gallery. This exhibition is the culmination of the whole study. This is the moment for which students from all over the world come to Cambridge, spend tens of thousands of pounds and work 24 hours a day on their projects.
Pros and cons of studying at Cambridge:
I am very glad that I had the opportunity to get this education. I met amazing people and it was the alumni exhibition that played an important role in my career. But as for knowledge and experience – 90% was obtained outside the walls of the university. English education is structured in such a way that you do almost all the work yourself. In fact, nobody teaches you. They give you an assignment and say – go do it. Look for the material yourself, figure it out yourself, how and what. If you do – come – the teachers will criticize. They looked through the work, noticed mistakes and directed, sometimes very painfully. But overall, it was also a valuable experience.
Read more about my course here (in English) Children’s Book Illustration. I studied part-time, as I worked in parallel and took care of the child.
Tuition fees in England:
As a UK citizen, I got about 7.5 thousand pounds. I decided to study because I wanted to know everything about illustration and naively believed that this diploma would be useful to me. In addition, I was able to take out a student loan and then repay it for another 3 years. Today – you can see the link above – the cost for the UK and Europe is about 11 thousand pounds, for foreigners – 16 thousand pounds. This is for 18 months of full-time study / or 30 months in absentia.
And if you think that at such a cost everything is chewed and put in your mouth – nothing like that! We were not taught to draw, from the word at all. We were taught to think and seek information on our own. And the walls of the university served as a catalyst for all the knowledge that students dug up and shared with each other. That was priceless. It is communication and exchange of knowledge and skills.
