Craig Edwards

Capital Campaign Project Manager, Royal Academy of Arts

Freelance Curator & Visual Artist

I'm the Project Manager of the Royal Academy of Arts' £multi million fundraising campaign to redevelop the historic Burlington House and 6 Burlington Gardens buildings. My role encompasses strategic planning and financial forecasting, underpinned by project management techniques. I'm also involved in encouraging philanthropists to support the Campaign, which involves approaching potential funders and assisting with large-scale cultivation events.

My MA at Goldsmiths College provided me with the basic project management skills I now utilise on a daily basis, along with the confidence to grapple with complex issues and tasks. These transferable skills have been invaluable to me. Alongside my role at the Royal Academy I also continue to develop my own practice and I'm working on a number of freelance curatorial projects, including a recent exhibition at Downstairs Gallery in Hereford. The environment at Goldsmiths increased my confidence in my own ideas, which has helped me in approaching other people to become involved in bringing my ideas to fruition.

Maria Kelly

Research and Evaluation Coordinator, Thamesmead Trust

I am Research and Evaluation Coordinator at Trust Thamesmead, a community development trust in South East London.  My role is really varied.  I am responsible for embedding good practice, planning and evaluation across the organisation, which can sometimes mean a whole day of planning meetings. The next day I could be in one of our local parks putting on a community event, or supporting a local group to develop an action plan. I am currently looking at ways we can strengthen the communication between local groups and volunteers so that they can become better organised and start to take action to tackle the issues which concern them.  I also work closely with the senior management team on developing our organisational strategy, and improving the quality of our internal practices.  Some of this might sound a bit dry, but the main purpose of my work is to help local people overcome disadvantage and achieve their potential, and my work can be really rewarding.

When I first started my Sociology MA at Goldsmiths, I wasn't very confident about what I wanted to do, or what my strengths were.  I thought the course content looked really interesting, and hoped that I would be able to keep up, as I had previously studied Fine Art, where there were not a lot of essays involved! In the end, I had a lot of support from my tutors, but there was more to the course than lectures and essays. I volunteered for a research project working with young parents, and that experience really opened my eyes to the possibilities of applying the theory I had been studying to practice.  On this project I got to work with students from other courses and goldsmiths staff from other departments, and I began to get a feel for the kind of role I could see myself in the future.  I don't think I would be in my current role if it were not for this valuable experience.

Francis Ray White

Lecturer in Sociology, University of Westminster

Studying for the MA in Gender, Culture and Modernity at Goldsmiths has had a very profound and positive impact on my life, personally, politically and professionally.  Having taken some gender studies classes as an undergraduate I was eager to develop my knowledge, and the range of options plus the opportunity for interdisciplinary study at Goldsmiths allowed me to do that. The teaching and support offered by the department was truly excellent, especially in terms of dissertation supervision. The work I did for that dissertation not only inspired me to get involved in feminist/queer cultural activism outside academia but also to pursue a PhD, which I completed at Goldsmiths in 2006.

Today I am a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Westminster where I lead several Gender Studies modules and strive to pass on the enthusiasm for a critical understanding of gender I encountered at Goldsmiths to a new generation of students.

Emma Jackson

Post-doctoral Research Associate, Department of Geography, King's College London.

The MA in Social Research at Goldsmiths provided advanced in qualitative and quantitative methods as well as giving me the scope to explore my own research interests. Doing the MA enabled me to go on and do a PhD in Sociology. Now, in my work as a researcher, the combination of knowledge of different methodological approaches and research methods is proving invaluable.

Gesche Wurfel

Visual Artist; Researcher, New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA); Research Associate, Centre for Urban and Community Research

The MA in Photography and Urban Cultures furthered my critical thinking and research skills, which are indispensable for the social projects and art work I’m involved in today. After graduating from the course I joined the Centre for Urban and Community Research (CUCR) as a Research Associate. Among other projects I managed "Mobilising Knowledge" over two years, which explored urban change using creative media with a group of older people. Since moving to the United States, I have focused more on my career as a visual artist. I have recently started a research job for the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA).

Michael Tan Koon Boon

Artist; Assistant Professor, School of Art, Design and Media - Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; Advocate for Arts and Health

I was an artist looking to articulate the sociological underpinning of my work when I applied for the MA in Photography and Urban culture at Goldsmiths.  It felt like I had jumped in at the deep end but I emerged feeling fulfilled and enriched. The rigor of the course gave me more than knowledge. I really appreciated the nurturing and intellectually stimulating environment the faculty creates for students, which helps promote open exchanges and fosters the spirit of critical thinking, reflexivity, imagination and friendship. This experience allowed me to realize the intimate relation and synergy between art and social science, which I have continued to explore in my work today as an artist, educator and researcher.

Since graduating from the program, I have returned to Singapore to continue my art practice and worked as a part-time lecturer at various arts colleges before joining the School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University in 2007, where I currently teach. I continue my relation with Goldsmiths by working with Professor Caroline Knowles on a collaborative art-sociology research project, “Invisible Life”, which investigates the complex social fabric embedded in mundane ‘flip-flops’.

 In recent years, my work has taken another sociological turn, to examine the place of the visual and artistic practices in the context of health. The training I received from the MA gave me the confidence to imagine connections between the arts and the social world. Moving forward, my aim now is to pursue a PhD to further explore relations between the arts, health and society.