UCL Slade School of Fine Art student Heddwen Campbell shares what a typical day in her life looks like studying the Fine Art BA.

As a Slade student I have no set number of contact hours but your schedule varies as you progress through the course e.g. in the first year of the BA Course you attend Art History & Theory lessons on Thursdays from 10am until 1pm, in second year you attend Elective Module classes whenever they are set for, in third year you attend no weekly lectures and have monthly check-ins about your dissertation. 

This is in addition to weekly events hosted at the Slade that students are strongly encouraged to attend such as the Contemporary Art Lectures on Wednesday’s, bi-weekly discussion groups such as the Poetry Shed and the Art & Ecology network. Students are also expected to spend most days fully in our studios or within Slade so we can take advantage of the workshops which are usually open from 9am-5pm and tutors who frequently stay around the areas to be there for students wanting meetings/tutorials.  

I am in the third year of my four-year course and this year I am writing my dissertation which will be completed in the Spring. So instead of attending History & Theory of Art lectures this year I spend a lot of time studying at different libraries across campus in addition to using the Academic Communication Centre writing retreats for structured writing sessions and technique workshops.  

So as talked about above, each day is vastly different for me but here is an example of a day in my life.  

7.30am: Wake up and shower, on days when I have events on at 10am I usually give myself an hour and a half to get ready as well as an hour for transport as I can only get buses from my area into university.  

8am: Make breakfast, feed my cats, unload the dishwasher. If I know I won’t have much time in the morning I’ll try to make some overnight oats (white chocolate with raspberries) the previous evening so I can grab it and go, if not I’ll have an avocado bagel and tea. My cats’ names are Cheese and Crackers. (Pictured)

9am: Head on the 73 Bus into university, I always grab a banana from the corner shop and sometimes get off the route early to cycle from King’s Cross if traffic is bad. Sometimes a 30-minute journey can turn into an hour-long journey if I’m unlucky! I occasionally have enough time to pick up a sweet treat (pictured) the deli around the corner from me has the best cookies and sweets, this was a blood-orange gingerbread star!

10am: I arrive at university and this morning I had a tutorial with a visiting artist, we discussed the themes of my work, correlations with the research they’ve done throughout their career etc. I really enjoyed this tutorial; we shared many thematic interests, and they gave me some great advice on the future of my works (I’ve included a picture of their work).

11am-1pm: After my tutorial I headed to the Academic Communication Centre to do a writing retreat, this is a session of intentional, continuous writing where students use the presence of other participants to motivate them. I have also used their academic writing workshops to help with my dissertation prep and learn about the processes of editing, drafting and referencing, which I found really useful.  

2pm-3pm: I usually schedule in a fitness session at the UCL Gym doing Yoga, Pilates or whatever is on that day around this time, but today I’m going to my Pole Fitness class which happens weekly. I’ve been going to classes on and off since 2023, having learnt a bunch of different spins I’m now working towards doing inverts (going upside down). Sometimes I quickly grab a coffee with some of the girls from the class afterwards, I love that we’re all from different departments so we can ask what different degrees are like. 

4pm: I did some planning for my Friday volunteer sessions at a Welsh primary school such as researching what materials I’ll use and thinking about ideas for the Welsh national arts competition (the Eisteddfod) they plan to compete in this summer, this year’s theme is ‘Roots’.  

5-7pm: A few students from the Slade media area arranged for a performance night called “Irradiance” to happen in one of the studios this evening so I went to support my friends and see what they made. It was so much fun, and people did everything from getting us to sing the polish national anthem to debating which countries would win in a World War 3. It was a really relaxed and fun night giving all of the first years a good chance to socialise with everyone else in the department, our tutors even set up food & drinks for everyone as well!

8pm-9pm: Went for some drinks with everyone from the performance night at the Institute Bar, I love that the university has so many places to socialise and have fun outside of studying. The staff are really friendly, and I love the different cocktails they do especially the Strawberry Daquiris! I didn’t have any pictures of this, but I included a picture of all of our area on our annual trip, this year we went to Cambridge and went punting!

Find out more about UCL Slade School of Fine Art and the programmes they offer. 

This blog is an example of one day in the life of a student at UCL. Each day looks different for each student depending on the programme, department, year of study, timetable and modules chosen. Head to our online prospectus to find out more about our programmes.