This session on Monday, 7 November 2022 was held to discuss and listen to other students’ experiences of community, access, and collaboration at CSM. While the identities of the students will remain anonymous, there were 6 total participants giving voice to their experiences within CSM. I had permission to record the session and so have transcripts from the 2 hours of discussion.
This was the prompt that was sent out to the group of Culture & Enterprise programme students who have been participating in Adam Ramejkis’ Communicating through intercultural lenses: a series of sessions over the past calendar year:
Building on our conversations over the previous year about our experiences with collaboration, cultures, and communication at CSM, let’s continue with a discussion of our experiences as students within the university system.
My project this year, partly in collaboration with Poojitha and Adam, has been looking at ways that the structure of the university can support students better: through better access to information and resources, and spaces like this series of sessions with Adam where space is held for us to talk and engage with each other.
I’m interested in hearing more, specifically about your experiences with meeting people from different departments or courses, and any ideas people have that could make/have made their experience better.
There were many interesting reflections shared and some new ideas and experiences that were particularly compelling to me. I’ve pulled a variety of specific quotes below and will expand on some of them.
Student Voices
The first quote was from a student who had worked for a business school and was considering the difference in how business schools treat their students and the idea of networking compared with UAL/CSM. Business schools understand careers are built around who you know, but there is a seeming lack of that understanding at this university.
There seems to be this understanding about how powerful a network can be and they really nourish that [in business school]. And that doesn’t seem to be the case here. Not that people don’t want to help each other but there’s not this kind of understanding about how to build a career you need to have as large of a network as possible and as strong as one as possible. That isn’t really a value here.
– Participant 2 in discussion group
The second really powerful idea was a reflection from a student who attended UAL for their BA as well as MA and is now a recent alumni still participating in select events at CSM. The idea that because of a lack of emphasis on community, international students can feel like they don’t have opportunities to integrate but rather have a transitory, surface-level of participation.
Most of UAL communities are based on the nationality. I feel like they treat Chinese students like tourists here. There’s no access to achives or to the history. A lot of people really want cultural exchange but feel like they are just visiting.
-Participant 1 in discussion group
Additionally, it was noted that this lack of support for or emphasis on how to work collaboratively with people of different backgrounds:
And I feel like when you’re out of school, like people like us in the creative industry, we need to work with other people on things. We are not trained and we’re not educated in this school, like how to work with other people’s interests.
– Participant 3 in discussion group
Another participant noted the tension between what the school says it is doing and the actual experience. There is frustration over what is being promised compared with the actual experience and resources available.
If the university wasn’t making promises about, oh we’re doing everything we can to focus on well being and community and belonging. The university is saying this whole strategy is in place but it doesn’t seem to be playing out. So if you’re not doing it, then don’t say you’re trying to do it.
– Participant 4 in discussion group
A simple solution was proposed as a way to facilitate exchange. It’s one that comes up frequently in conversations: the idea of some sort of online forum where students can post things they would like to interact about:
Why is there like intentionally not an online forum? It just seems like such a basic like a forum for students to post job opportunities or events or like something that is across like the college.
– Participant 2 in discussion group
Everyone who participated said that they had little to no contact with people outside of their own course. One person said the only reason they had met people outside their course was that someone outside school had introduced them outside the university and it was only happenstance that they both attend CSM.
Conclusion
Each time I speak with students, their experiences revolve around similar themes. Similarly to the Breakfast Club with Richie Manu from the week before, student conversations often naturally end up here in frustration. Particularly for MA students, as the shorter timeframe makes it even more difficult to understand and find your way in the system. These particular quotes are useful and I will be able to use them as I continue to speak with administrators.