My Experience Studying at the Royal College of Art

Buckle in. We're going for a ride.

I'm joking. I am not here to slander the RCA - this platform is for (hopefully) helpful, lighthearted commentary on our present arts sphere, which tends to include my little spot on it.

And today! We are going to talk about my recent completion of an MA in Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art!

Shall we break it down?

Pre-RCA

Cast your mind back to March 2022. I had just turned 21, and I was 5 months away from graduating from my BA in Art & Design History with Media & Communications at Liverpool Hope University (it is still such a mouthful).

Now if you have ever been close to finishing an academic qualification, especially one that took you a fairly long time, and ESPECIALLY one within the arts - you will know that it comes with a mixture of emotions and feelings. One of them being:

What on EARTH am I going to do next?

In my mind, I had three options.

1. Complete a Masters

2. Go travelling

3. Immerse myself into the deep hell that is trying to find a post-grad job in the arts

I went with the Masters, but I wanted to do it abroad. Canada specifically. Don't ask me why.

But then I realised that applications for prospective international students in Canada were required by the previous December to commence that year. So I had missed them!

Number 2 it was.

And honestly, going travelling for a year was great for my perspective. It made me realise how much I really did want to do an MA, and I got to speak to some pretty cool people including the Senior Curator of the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney who gave me some great advice!

Advice including 'Do your MA back home, it will be a lot cheaper'

And booyyyyy was he right! I don't know what I was thinking, thinking that I could afford international tuition fees! So I applied to 10 universities in the UK, from the Courtauld, UCL, Goldsmiths and UAL to Edinburgh, Leicester and LJMU.

It was actually one of my BA professors who suggested I applied to the Royal College of Art, but with the most expensive tuition fees of the bunch, and with an astonishing 9th consecutive year of being ranked the best arts university in the world, I thought my chances were pretty slim.

BUT, I took my professor's advice, and applied on a whim a handful of days before the application deadline (I can't say time management is one of my better skills).

Turns out my chances were pretty high! I got accepted AND I was offered a part-scholarship. Which was absolutely needed - without it I wouldn't have been able to go!

So there I was, working 70 hour weeks in Walgett, Australia, saving up desperately as I counted down the months until the big move. I was moving to London! To study at the best arts university in the world!

It honestly hardly felt real, but it very quickly became my reality.

During RCA

Okay. I'll be honest. I've been putting off writing this section for the last 6 days, and I've also tried writing and re-writing it for the last couple of hours thinking:

Why am I writing this when I know that my experience wasn't great and I try to keep things light and positive on here?

But do you know what? Life isn't always light and positive. And it wouldn't be fair for me to pretend that every step in my arts career has gone smoothly or the way I wanted to, because that just isn't truthful. So I'll just say it.

I didn't like my MA.

There were of course, parts of my year that I did enjoy. But on the whole, nope.

Would I recommend studying at the RCA to others? No. Does that mean that if you're reading this and thinking of studying there you shouldn't? No.

This was just my experience.

It was also a very similar experience to the rest of my peers but hey, I am sure there have been many people who have studied at the RCA and loved it - which could be you!

Why I didn't like it, you ask? There are many, many factors that go into this answer, and I know you don't have all day. But to summarise without being too savage:

I Graduated Feeling More Confused

What is the curatorial? Where is the curatorial? Who is the curatorial? Why is the curatorial?

Does that make sense to you? Probably not, and it didn't make sense to me either.

The course fixated on these philosophical questions for four months of the program.

But that would have been worth it if we learned the answers right?

We never found out the answers. Apparently they don't have answers? It is just something we have to figure out with time supposedly.

We Were Fed to the Lions

This sounds dramatic, but let me explain.

After four months of very airy, hypothetical and confusing theoretical study, we were thrown into the deep end.

And not in a 'encouraging throw you in the deep end because it is the best way you will learn and grow confidence' way

But in a 'I know we haven't actually taught you anything about the practicalities of curating but here is 5K go and curate' way.

5K is a lot of money. And whilst I felt lucky to be given the opportunity, I also didn't feel like I had yet acquired the necessary skills to manage a budget of this size in the best way.

And once we had found a way of managing this budget on our own, we couldn't actually spend it.

Information about how we actually pay for venues, artists, works, marketing material and more was provided 6 weeks before our Degree Show. Despite having worked on the projects for 4 months at this stage.

So we were told we had free reign, which came as a shock because we hadn't actually been taught anything just yet. But we adjusted to this and managed, and then we were told we actually don't have free reign.

This probably sounds really confusing, but trust me, it was even more confusing to be on the course itself. And extremely, extremely stressful.

Little to No Rapport with Tutors

To be honest, it doesn't really help when several of your tutors tell you that they don't think you will be a curator, when you are literally paying your life's savings on studying how to be a curator...

But also, all of our tutors worked part-time. I'm not saying they should commit their whole lives to expanding the minds of 20-somethings when they're trying to forge an arts career themselves. But I definitely got the vibe that teaching at the RCA felt like more of an obligation, rather than a choice. And contacting them for help outside of their very limited office hours was considered a crime. Actually, contacting them for help within their office hours felt like a crime too...

I'm trying not to be too savage here, but in general a lot of the staff that I interacted with at the RCA just did not seem to care all that much? And that was probably the aspect of the course I struggled with the most. I felt like an inconvenience when I asked for help, which discouraged me from asking further.

During my BA at Liverpool Hope University, I had such great relationships with my tutors, and all of the staff were amazing! I genuinely felt that they wanted to help me, that they wanted me to succeed and prosper.

Now this could have just been because I was at that university for three years, and my MA was just one - so arguably, there wasn't enough time to build equally strong rapports?

Though I have to say, whilst they were few and far between - I greatly, greatly appreciate the staff who were super helpful, and went out of their way to assist me with my learning!

We Were Hardly There

On average we probably had one or two lectures a week, and one seminar. The course was advertised to us as full-time, by the way.

I don't know about you, but moving to one of the most expensive cities in the world to study kinda lacks its purpose when you are rarely studying.

...Meaning We Never Saw Each Other

I got to meet so, so many beautiful, talented, intelligent and insightful souls. From all around the world too!

The best part of the course was the people on it, but especially everybody's openness to learn about each other's respective backgrounds and perspectives.

The course was expensive, but an experience like that felt invaluable. When will I ever be in a room with a group of 65 people, who span over 30 countries, again?

Whilst we did see a lot of each other in the first few months, the last 8 saw very little whole cohort teaching time. Which was super sad!

It Was Too Easy

Mentally and emotionally, no.

Academically, yes. I honestly never really felt academically challenged. It was a pass or fail course, and apparently it was 'really difficult' to not pass.

So I never worried that I wouldn't graduate the course. This in some ways was relieving, but it was also extremely demotivating. If it was really hard to fail, why would I give my absolute best? It wouldn't be acknowledged or recognised anyway.

Don't get me wrong - I'm a massive nerd, so I did give my best on many occasions. But that was for my personal sake, not for the gratification of my tutors or the course itself.

Bare with me whilst I shake out the negative vibes that come with going through those.

Okay, now let us conclude this section on a high and talk about the positives that came with my experience at the RCA.

1. I met a lot of incredible people, who taught me so much, and who I firmly want to have in my life forever! No matter which corner of the earth we end up in.

2. I got to be a part of three curatorial projects (which you can read all about here)

3. I was able to experience living in London, somewhere that had been romanticised a lot when I was growing up in Leicester!

4. I developed so much clarity on the future of my arts career. Ironically, the RCA helped me discover a lot about what I didn't want to do and be, making my next steps a lot clearer. So, thanks RCA - I guess?

5. I gained a degree!

   
   
   
   

Post-RCA Conclusions

Do not. Do not. Do NOT ever choose something for its reputation, over your gut feeling.

I knew deep down that the RCA wasn't right when making my decision on where to go, there were other institutions that seemed so much more suited to me.

But I was swayed because it was apparently the 'Best Arts University in the World for the last 9 Consecutive Years'.

Because honestly, it doesn't matter if it is classified as the best university in the entire universe, if it doesn't fit your path, your morals or your interests, it will quickly become the worst university in the world for you.

And that goes for a lot of other things too! Your place of work, the people you decide to have in your life, or the 'best sushi restaurant in town' that ended up giving you food poisoning.

Place trust in your gut feeling - you'll find its often more right than wrong.

I hate feeling regret, and despite everything I have spoken about in this post. I don't regret choosing to go to the Royal College of Art.

The year came with a lot of self-awareness, and reflection. And I did learn a lot! I guess just not in the way I was expecting.

And that's okay.

I want to reinforce that if you are thinking of studying at the RCA, whilst my experience wasn't incredible, it doesn't mean that yours won't be. As a cohort we gave a lot of feedback in the hope that things could be slightly better for future years!

And plus, if I hadn't studied at the RCA, I wouldn't be where I am now...

But you'll have to wait for the next blog post to hear all about that!

If you would like to talk to me further about my experience studying an MA at the RCA, please feel free to reach out. In the meantime, here are some photos from my Graduation in September!