Introduction

Hey!

I'm going to start off by introducing myself since this is my first blog post and after that I'll tell you about the first four weeks at the University of Edinburgh/Edinburgh College of Art.

My name is Oscar Selemba, I'm 19 years old and come from Helsingborg in Sweden. I spent my last three years in Sweden at ProCivitas doing economics and later decided to apply to the UK to do architecture. I ended up in Edinburgh and it is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

Week 1:

I got here on the 11th of September and got a taste of Edinburgh going from the airport, it was simply amazing and I've never seen a city like it. The taxi took me to Pollock halls which is the catered accommodations and I live in a building called Grant House aka Grantanamo Bay... hahah, it's pretty good though but not as good as the other ones.

The first night I met some American guys and girls and we decided to go out in the city to discover some pubs etc, on the way there I actually met a Swedish guy from Malmö who I've been doing a lot of stuff with since. This was the first day of freshers week so a lot of people were out. We ended up at a place called Vodka Revolution which was pretty bad haha but later moved on to a student nightclub called Potterrow which has been the place to go the ever since because of its prices and the size of it (huge!). The freshers week continued with parties every day that week including live performance from The Futureheads which was amazing!

This week was also a week to sign up for different societies, sports and be guided around the schools and the city. On the societies fair I signed up with the architecture society, photography society & football society who has been very good so far! A lot of different activities every week. The sports I signed up for were golf and cycling. So far I haven't been with the cycling club because I've had a terrible cold, the golf club has been a lot of fun though, many pub nights, days at the golf course and social gatherings. I also signed up for the gym, this gym is amazing, huge and a lot of people. I go there three times a week and enjoy it a lot.

The school that I'll be at this year is called Edinburgh College of Art and it takes me about 30 minutes to walk there every morning which is pretty decent. If the weather is good I just love it because the city is just amazing!

We had a project this week as well which was about creating a play about an imaginary city which was linked to something in Edinburgh (we got underground Edinburgh). They filmed it and put it on youtube, our presentation starts at 2.15 and I am under the table haha http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKstr40qDZQ&feature=related . It was here I met the guy I am with the most, he is from Norway and is called Håkon.

Week 2:

School started this week and the three courses I'll be taking this semester is Architectural Design, Arts & Design and Architectural History. The schedule is pretty good but a lot of work.

Mondays: 9-5

Tuesdays: 9-5

Wednesdays: Day off, which means studio work all day.

Thursday: 9-5

Fridays: 9-6

We are in the studio about 35 hours every week creating models, sketches etc. This week we had ground as our project in Architectural Design and we had to create a model for that with very vague descriptions which went so bad for everyone haha!

Week 3:

This week I got to know many more and especially from Norway, they pay international fees and here's about fours times as many Norwegians as Swedish who goes here for free, pretty weird haha.

We got our new project, new ones every week in Architectural Design, which was walls and this went a bit better for everyone, especially me. I created a staircase with many staircases on it, hahaha kind of strange but it worked out well and was appreciated.

Art & Design was our main focus this week though and we got our first project which was to create models, sketches, mind maps etc from a painting. Very hard but we have a few weeks to complete it so it will hopefully turn out fine.

Architecture History started for real, so far we've only had some lectures, with drawing courses. Really easy this week, drawing plans and sections of pyramids or pajrahmids as out Italian teacher pronounce it hahaha.

Week 4:

I knew the city a bit better by this time and it just got more and more awesome! I can't name anything bad about it and everyone I know here thinks the same as me. 

The project for these week was to investigate frame, the skeleton of a house. I created a bridge out of thick thread and wood, it looked really good until I managed to break it two hours before the presentation.... I glued it back together and it looked so bad! But I was lucky because I didn't get the time to present it so no humiliation for me haha.

Art & Design went really good and we started making our model from a painting called Opera by Richard Estes. I work with two guys called Callum and Culum who are really nice.

Architectural History continued with different lectures and drawing courses.

Four Norwegians, the Swedish guy and I found the best pub ever! A proper Scottish bar which is amazing, we go their every weekend before heading out to a night club. There's a lot of people, good live music and it's pretty big and cheap.

Week 5

This day is the first day of week five and it's been dedicated to Art & Design and a lecture in Architectural History. We are now done with one model but we have a long way to go before the presentation in two weeks. I've also been at the gym, 8pm-930pm and when I went home with a guy called Andrew, three Italian girls wanted to know the directions to a place which takes 1,5h to walk because they were to cheap to take a taxi which is about 3 pounds each hahaha. If I'm late to school or if it rains I'll take a taxi, it costs about 4-5 pounds and if we are 4-5 people it's cheaper than the bus, pretty good.

The project this week is about canopy and it will be so much fun, I'm going to create a roof which you can open up by spinning some spools, looking forward to it.

On Friday there's a great artist coming here called Tinie Tempah so I'll probably go there and except that I have no other plans. Maybe gather the architecture football team, which I am the founder/team leader of, go to a park called the meadows and just hang out, playing some ball and get to know each other a bit more.

Now you've got yourself an introduction of my life as a student doing architecture in Edinburgh, it's simply great and I'm looking forward to the next four years.

// Oscar Selemba