Some 'defining memories' from time spent on the MSc Urban Studies programme
"In the second term, on Jane Rendell's outstanding Theorising Practices, we had a joint workshop with some people studying….performance poetry. One of those students performed her workshopped piece by throwing herself on the floor and rolling around like a five year having a tantrum, kicking and screaming, and tearing up a sheet of paper into tiny scraps: in that moment I thought back to the first term's mega-infrastructure lectures that I had audited, and it hit me then what a genius course UCL had created - from the engineering challenges of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link to the possibilities of an absurd, visceral performance piece, and everything in between."
"The strange experience of working in the morning for my practice with international consultants on a presentation for a sheik of a sustainable city proposal for the middle east and going in the afternoon to a class that criticized exactly this type of consultancy and the notion of sustainability in the Middle East."
"Realising during the end of the first term that although my specific interests weren’t directly covered in lectures there was scope within essays to pursue these research interest from perspectives I perhaps wouldn’t otherwise have encountered or considered, which proved extremely valuable."
"The wide diversity of MSc dissertation research presentations in May. These summarised the polyvalent forms the course took on, making it an excellent degree to "study the city"."
"Going out to the Marlborough Arms to debrief after urban practices was a great experience that comes to mind. We had a pretty close group, with many views of the world—I believe there were about 10 countries represented in our small programme. Continuing the conversation outside the classroom to learn all of these perspectives was as informative to me as the conversations we had in 26 Bedford Way."
