OUGD406 (Studio Brief 4) Initial research

Now I have decided that I want to produce a graphic response that will be useful to the first years to overcome any experiences that they are not used to, I started to brainstorm a few ideas. I came up with a list of things that I didn't know at the beginning of the year myself to try and find out the main issues when moving away from home. 

5 things I didn't know:

• cheapest places for food
• didn't know different routes to college
• was unaware the print room in rossington street was available for use
• did not know where hyde park was
• was unaware of the expected workload for each studio brief

key issues:

• budgeting
• time management

Here are some other issues raised by other students when starting as a first year in Leeds. 

New students will struggle in a new city/area, how can they be helped when finding their way around Leeds?

Most students may be unaware of the workload expected during the first year, how can they be acknowledged about this?

A problem for students in a new city/area is finding their way around, this could have an effect on day to day management.

From this initial thought process, I have started to develop my ideas further. With the brief, I want to create a response that will cover these main issues and problems raised by fellow students, and produce something that can hopefully help avoid these problems and educate new first years on how to manage their new way of living effectively.

First of all, I did a small survey within a group of my peers and raised a few of these issues in order to find out what needs to be resolved and how this can be done. I found that most of my peers found certain things difficult when moving away from home to a new city, and felt like there was not enough student friendly advice when we first joined. The main issues that were agreed to be the most troublesome when we started as first years include:

• budgeting
• time management 
• not knowing the quickest route to college
• not knowing how to cook for themselves very well
• not knowing what healthy foods are available to buy without costing a lot of money

From this information, I think that it would be a good idea to produce something very simple and student friendly but also covering these key elements as I agree with my peers, these main issues were what I struggled with the most.

General organisational skills seem to be the most raised issue, whether it covers time management or managing themselves in their new home. I could make a statement by produced a small organisational tool, maybe something both physical and digital. As it needs to be available for students to collect off eStudio. It could be in the format of items such as poster, booklet, organiser or notebook.