How's is it like to study Illustration at NUA ?

If you're looking to actually learn anything practical in terms of technical skills, instances where these things can be learned are very few and far between.

A key example of this being say in a "composition" workshop, we will be told to "consider negative space" but we are never told you to apply or use it, or what the impact of using them in certain ways would have on our work.

And yes, there is a noticeable lack of organisation both at a micro and macro level - tutors give out different information when inquired about brief requirements, often there are workshops that would be relevant to developing project work in early stages that are given in the last week of the project so can't be applied, and an endless supply of documents not being accessible when needed/the documents from the previous year still having old deadlines on them.

It's a lot less professional than one would expect from a university course.

Of the two main tutors I've been exposed to thus far, one is helpful, the other you truly have to ask the most pointed questions to to get a meaningful answer, and even then it's been proven possible for them to go around the answer instead.
If you're put in the half that has the ineffective tutor for workshops and group tutorials, good luck you're basically fumbling blindly in the dark.

At it's worst, this course has the potential to be a waste of your time, unless the experience is similar on other illustration courses.