Continuing education
I started on this ‘education’ lark in 2017 when I started out doing a casual drawing and painting class and was soon accepted on the UAL Art Foundation diploma at Morley College. As part of that, we were encouraged to apply to university. I’d never been to uni before and didn’t really feel that I needed a degree for any reason, so I decided to apply to the top schools. If I didn’t get in, whatever… but if I did, I’d be going to the best school. I was offered places and accepted the offer at Chelsea College of Art.
As I got to the end of my BA – which was weird because it was in the middle of Covid – I decided to apply for this MA at St. Martins. I felt like I wanted to continue researching and exploring the things I’d done at BA and wanted the academic structure around me…
And now I’m coming to the end of my MA and I’m wondering if I should carry on and do a PhD. I oscillate between ‘yes’ and ‘no’, never landing on either of them. I’m finishing a proposal for a book and would prefer to pursue that before a PhD… and yet… the academic structure is a good space within which to write. There are boundaries there to keep you on the path, and I like that…
… there isn’t, however, a lot of creative freedom in academic writing. In some ways I think Chelsea spoiled me because we were encouraged to be as creative as we wanted with our writing there and I think I did some cool stuff (not all of it totally worked, but I was pushing myself). On the MA, I feel like writing is taken a bit more seriously. And though that suits me just fine, I think I need to explore more creative ways of writing for a while. There are things I can do in a book, that I’m sure I couldn’t do in a PhD.
So… I may change my mind, but I think writing a book rather than doing a PhD is the way ahead for me right now.
