I am currently writing this a mere few hours after my last assignment hand-in for semester one and I am so so exhausted. This year so far has been tough. Great fun, lots of learning, lots of creating. But still, very tough. I am very proud of myself as I am halfway through my fourth year as a design student, and halfway through my year of being an honours student too!

I gave myself the goal this year to obtain an A grade average and get First Class Honours when I graduate next year. So far, I am heading along the right track. I am super super proud of myself for the improvement I have made since I started university. When I began in my first year as a freshman I was a B- student, but over the last three and a half years I have managed to bump my GPA up so much that I have a great chance of being a First Class graduate!

Unfortunately, I have had quite a tough time the past few months. My depression has held me back a lot, combined with finding out I have celiac's disease (a post on that to come!), I have been so run down and tired that all I could manage to do was go to work, attend class and sleep. Because of this my diet has gotten worse and worse, as I was just too exhausted to cook, microwave meals have become my best friend. For the first time in all of my educational years, I had to get extensions on two of assignments, which I am very glad I did as extensions are available for people who have had a tough time and who just need an extra few days or so to complete their projects to a standard that they would have normally been able to do.


The defining paper that I am taking that 'makes' me a Honours student is a Research & Development paper where I write a thesis (dissertation) abut a chosen topic, and how design can change the struggles surrounding the topic. I chose to do mental health as my topic and write about the issue of stigmatisation and discrimination around mental illnesses and general mental health.

Writing has never been my strong point (says the girl running her own blog) and I have always found trouble with putting my thoughts into words, or more importantly coherent sentences. Taking on honours and doing this dissertation paper was a big step, and all I need is a simple pass to gain honours (and to pass the rest of the year), however with my goal to attain First Class Honours I will need at least an A-.

With the help of some fantastic teachers as well as my classmates on the #COCA4 (College of Creative Arts) Twitter tag, I managed to push through and get my assignment handed in with very few tears. Did I mention that this dissertation was a 100% graded assignment for the Research & Development?!


I have a six week (well, it's five weeks now!) mid-year break, yay for not having exams! My tasks for this holiday is to sleep, eat (two things I seemingly forgot to do in the stress of the assignments), do some freelancing work (did I mention I have an internship?!!) and simply relax and prepare myself for my last ever semester at university (for now, I'm still considering doing my masters or doing another degree later on)!

Check out my portfolio, where I've been uploading my design work from this semester at university!

Are you doing honours at the moment, how are you finding it? Or even if you're at university/studying in general, how's it going?


- Louise x