The courses that I have applied for do not require a portfolio as they are not within the creative department, but I have made a portfolio that shows my work from the past years as well this year in the Access to H.E course.
This portfolio shows a range of different techniques, medium and materials that have been utilized in the process to create these artworks, such a painting, sketching, digital, photography and cyanotypes. The purpose to chose and display a variety of artworks is to demonstrate my skills and strengths and my understanding of a varied range of art forms.
In this portfolio, I have included the pieces of work that I consider to be the most successful among all the ones that I have produced during the last 4 years. As mentioned before, as I did not have to officially present this portfolio to any university, therefore, I just kept it simple and made it using Power point. I chose two images for each technique and composed them together on the same slide and did some basic understanding such as changing the background colour and adding frames around the images. At the end I added the title on the top of the slides to make the viewer comprehend the technique shown. I preferred a digital portfolio instead of a printed one, as the digital one allows you present it in front of a wide audience or to make any changes if required at any point, following any feedback. Also, making it as a Power point presentation was a good idea as it can be sent easily and safely to anyone.
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Now that I have received all the offers, what I need to do at this stage is:
I received my first offer from the university of Coventry on the 16th of February and they asked me to complete the Access course with a Pass and also get a grade 4 for GCSE English language.
I was happy for this offer but real aim was to get an offer from the university of Birmingham because I was more attracted from it and also because the course that I had applied for is my first choice that I would progress onto. However, for the other offers I had to wait a bit longer which made me slightly anxious and concerned. Luckily, after few weeks I received the offers that I was waiting for from Birmingham university for BA Theology and Religion and BA History of art. I received 2 offers for each one of them with different requirements:
During the process of writing the personal statement I had attended another open day at the university of Birmingham and had a conversation with the head of the department of Theology and Religion who suggested me about the A2B programme which helps students, in various ways, to get accepted into the university.
However, the main purpose of this programme is to reduce the required grades for the course, for example if a course is asking to have A levels at the grade of ABB by applying and successfully completing the A2B programme you will be accepted even if you have 2 grades below the standard requirement. I also received an email asking me to apply for this extra support after checking the eligibility criteria, which can be found on the university's website. Fortunately, I met the criteria and applied for this in the beginning of February and later got the email that I have been accepted onto it and that now I will be receiving 2 offers: the standard one and the alternative one (with reduced requirement) due to this programme. https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/teachers/year-12/pathways-to-birmingham/a2b/index.aspx After several drafts and collaboration with my tutor I managed to write what I and the university were aiming for. Below is my personal statement that I have included in the application. The subject matter of Theology has fascinated me since a young age when I was not even aware of its existence as a course or career path. At primary school, in history, when studied the ancient civilizations, their lifestyle, inventions, believes, religions and spiritual perspectives, the subject was highly engaging and I always wanted to explore and learn further. While researching universities and courses, the moment I discovered the opportunity to study Theology and Religion at Birmingham, I was delighted and devoured everything on the website from the overview to each years' modules, as well as attending a couple of open days, which reinforced my choice.
My primary source of interest is how each religion came into existence and their true ideologies as some of the major religions are misapprehended in today's world. I, also, want to identify the differences and the commonalities between the Abrahamic religions, as I am a follower of one of these and it fascinates me to profoundly analyse this subject. Above all, is their impact on each other in a multicultural and multi-belief place like Birmingham, and how to prevent social issues such as racism, gender inequality, poverty, etc... Being interested in cultures, religions, poetry, spirituality, morality, and historical events led me to spend my free time, watching documentaries about history and religious debates and reading articles in the news to stay updated with current world events. I also enjoy reading especially subjects of spirituality, philosophy, and poetry such as The Forty Rules of Love and the Masnavi by Jalal Ad-Din Rumi. Understanding and communicating in English has been a challenge for me. When I came to the UK, starting from an extremely basic level, in the span of approximately 4 years, I have become fully independent and predicted a grade 5 in GCSE English language. An additional benefit is that I can speak four languages combined with the experience and understanding of multiculturalism, that I have gained by spending my life in 3 diverse countries; Pakistan, Italy and the United Kingdom will benefit my studies and the future. Currently, I am studying an Access to H.E course in Art and Design throughout this course I have developed my practical art skills in sketching, painting and photography to do this they involve problem-solving and critical thinking to progress my work. I have also gained invaluable study skills in readiness for higher education such as note taking, researching, academic writing, and referencing. The contextual studies unit allows me to research artists, history and theories, along with analysing the work of others and writing essays. On a recent trip to Pakistan, I have first-hand witnessed deprivation, especially with children. I have realised the need for and importance of charity, therefore after my degree, I aim to help the less privileged people by working with a nonprofit charitable organisation to educate, give them an awareness of their rights and provide quality health care. I consider this a duty more than a desire, where I could play my part to make improvements and facilities for humanity, society and its most vulnerable people. This degree will give me the opportunity to critically explore religious traditions and a breadth of other interesting subjects, that will open my mind to new faiths and cultural studies. Along with gaining invaluable work experience that will support my future goals. After finalizing the courses the next step was to began to write the personal statement which I found challenging as I have never wrote anything similar before.
However, I started writing in bulling points and included whatever came to my mind regarding my interests, ambitions, point of views, etc... I showed this to my tutor who then guided me to compose them in a structure and paragraphs and also told me that I need to include more as that was not sufficient. She also showed me some examples of personal statements, from the internet, relevant to Theology and Religion as this is my firm and first choice. Below is my first draft :
On attending my first open day at the university of Birmingham, I found it to be a beautiful and fascinating place with good environment and friendly and motivating people whether they were teachers or students or other members of staff, they were all very friendly. I attended different sessions including the campus tour, discussion with students relating university life and the course that I was planning to apply for and also attended a taster lecture for Theology and Religion, which helped me to have an idea about the course content and the topic of the lecture was about Auschwitz, one of the concentration camps in Germany built by the Nazi for the Jews genocide, and how different religions pay tribute to the people that have been murdered in there. Exploring this kind of concepts and issues has always attracted and I found it interesting and not difficult as I understood everything and had the chance to study this topic (World War II) previously in secondary school. Second choiceWhile doing the campus tour I had the chance to visit the Barber Institute of Fine Arts (image shown below) which is an art gallery for the students, especially for those on the BA History of Art degree. I found this place very delightful and interesting with charming artworks and especially paintings that I felt that I should also apply for this course ( History of Art) due to 2 reasons:
Third choiceThe reason to consider a third option was the high entry requirements of the first and second choice, so keeping in mind this fact I began to look for a course with slightly flexible entry requirements and after researching a bit I came up with the option to study BA History at the university of Coventry (image shown below) which was just asking to achieve the diploma of the current course with the grade Pass.
Initially, I was a bit confused regarding what to study at university, as I felt that carrying within the department of Art, design and media would have not be suitable for me due my interests in other subjects and after spending, almost, 4 years in this field, I do not feel as much satisfied and comfortable as other people around me are. Therefore, to prevent feature disappointments, I began to research for courses relating to my preferences such as religious and cultural studies, social work, history, spirituality, ethics, etc... But before doing so, I also did an assessment on the national career service website (image shown below) that helps you to discover careers that would be suitable for you according to your skills and interests. This assessment has advised me some careers such as airline pilot, scientist, business and finance and some more, but none of them was, really, what I was looking for. However, one thing that this assessment helped me to understand was that not any creative career was listed in the result, therefore it was a sign that I had to choose something out of the creative department. First choiceI started my research by looking at the courses that universities in and near Birmingham provides. Luckily, I began from the University of Birmingham (image shown below), went to their website and started to look at courses, from A-Z as they are placed in alphabetical order. So many courses fascinated me such BA history, BA history of Art, BA Philosophy and a few more, around similar content, but the one that highly attracted me after reading its overall description was BA Theology and Religion, which I found really interesting and matching my preferences. Therefore, I read everything that was present on the website (link below) relating to this programme and, also, read each years modules as this is a 3 years course. https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/undergraduate/courses/thr/theology.aspx As the University of Birmingham is part of the prestigious Russell group universities, so the it is quite challenging to get accepted onto any of the courses as the grades required a high.
In my case, for the my chosen course the requirement was to have 3 A levels at the following grades: ABB. This made me slightly concerned because I am studying an Access to H.E course in Art&Design, so I was not sure if this qualification was acceptable for such a course, as the content is completely diverse and the diploma that I will be awarded at the end of the year will be equal to 3 A levels. After having a discussion with my tutor, she suggested me to attend an open day and get all the needed informations from the teachers and students in the university, therefore I went to the university of Birmingham website and looked for any upcoming open day and booked the earliest one on the 15th of October 2021. |
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