University of Essex - Colchester Campus

Beautiful surroundings and a great place to study, especially law, finance and psychology. The Chancellor is an amazing lady.

Third year was the hardest part of my time here. Strikes over redundancies and the Southend closure disrupted my education, and I felt the Vice-Chancellor had been complacent and failed to take proper responsibility for her blatant disregard of staff and students. I began with Film and Creative Writing, then changed to Film and Drama halfway through the autumn term of first year. I wasn’t sure I’d made the right choice. The first-year drama modules felt overwhelming, particularly a one-week intensive in the summer term led by an external theatre practitioner. There was more choice in second-year modules, but some film courses, including Fiction Filmmaking, required LT122: Introduction to Film Production in first year. The required directing for actors module didn’t assess students fairly, and my year had no directing for theatre module, which held back my development in theatre-making. If you want to study drama, I’d suggest Exeter. Its drama department has better funding and more resources than the LiFTS department at Essex.

Students come here from all over the world, and there’s a wide range of facilities on campus. The course selection is broad too, including specialisations for undergraduate and postgraduate students. Awesome place to study.

The campus has a lively atmosphere and plenty of chances to develop both academically and personally. Studying at this university has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.