Charlotte

I had never actually really heard of Goldsmiths, I discovered it through my mum who found out about it, and the integral part was I came to visit the campus before I looked around and immediately it was amazing. It had this friendly vibe, it was in the middle of London but it somehow felt quite like its own little place, its got its own little bubble in a really lovely way that I haven’t experienced with any other kind of London university. I immediately felt this sense of being at home that I never really felt in a university before and that’s how I knew, through visiting, so that is really important to me.

I’ve always been torn between anthropology and literature so I originally studied literature. When I first came to Goldsmiths I was studying American literature, which is a great department here, but at the same time I started hearing these rumours about anthropology being an amazing course so I did a trial week. I think it was my first week at Goldsmiths, and I tried out the lectures and seminars and immediately fell in love with the teaching style and just the subject as a whole and I knew I had to study anthropology.

Goldsmiths do social and cultural anthropology specifically, which involves studying different cultures around the globe – not just from our perspective but also learning about all of these obscure places and different societies and how that bears upon our society and the political structures here. I’ve studied witchcraft in Africa, I’ve studied South America, I’ve studied landscapes in Australia, and for my dissertation, I’m studying first nations in Canada. It's just a completely global perspective which is something I’ve always wanted to learn about.

I was quite nervous about coming to Goldsmiths because I’d had some unfortunate experiences in the past, but most people at Goldsmiths are really friendly and fun, quite arty, political individuals and generally quite similar as a demographic I guess. I was really lucky, I had amazing people in my halls, and we’re all best friends today and I fell in love with my course immediately. The thought of the experience I’ve had thus far on this campus where everything is in one place and your whole life is this one place that you love so much, it’s really hard to think about leaving.