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Staffordshire vs Hertfordshire (Games Art)

Hello, I've gotten accepted into both Games Art courses at both Staffordshire University and University of Hertfordshire, and I'm struggling with choosing between the 2, so I wanted to get more insight into both of the courses. I want to be a 3D Character Artist.
I want to know more about:
- General student life in the area
- Employability after Uni (like how quickly can you get a job, and were they pretty good companies?)
- Help with internships or work experience
- Anything else you think would be relevant

Thank you!

Reply 1

Uni of Staffs

Official Rep

Hi @rookieieie

I hope you're able to connect with some Games Art students, if not you can chat to one of our Games students via Unibuddy:

https://api.unibuddy.co/og/staffordshire-university/buddies/students/6573301120997e7c0434683e?buddyPosition=share

Best wishes, Shaun

Reply 2

University of Hertfordshire

Hey @rookieieie :smile:

Congrats on being accepted into your university choices! We would like to briefly outline some of the things we offer at Herts and hopefully answer your questions.

•

Hatfield can be a quiet town but its proximity to places like London, Watford and St Albans offer students a great balance and range of things to do. Nonetheless, Herts have plenty of events, facilities and spaces where you can enjoy your spare time and meet new people!
Events, Culture and Entertainment - https://www.herts.ac.uk/life/events-culture-and-entertainment
Campus Facilities - https://www.herts.ac.uk/life/campus-facilities
Societies and Volunteering - https://www.herts.ac.uk/life/societies-and-volunteering

•

At Herts we have a really supportive Careers and Employment team who are available to all students and graduates up to 4 years after completing their course. They offer support for CV's, applications and interviews - all of which can be done either face-to-face, on a video or phone call. Our graduates have gone on to work at CD Projekt Red to work on The Witcher, to Epic Games to work on Fortnite, and Rare to work on Sea of Thieves.

•

Your chosen course offers the opportunity for students to go on a year abroad or a placement year - which the careers team can help you find!

•

If you would like to speak to students at Herts, you could sign up for Unibuddy and have a chat with them across different communities of your choice - https://www.herts.ac.uk/life/unibuddy

I hope this helped! Best of luck on your journey through higher education 😀

Juan
Marketing

Reply 3

University of Hertfordshire

Hi @rookieieie,
Congrats again on your offers👏.
Just to add to Juan's comments, to gain more insight into the course, you'll find detail on the structure and specific modules on our 3D Games Art & Design page. You'll also find the contacts of the course leaders, if you wanted to reach out to talk to them in a bit more detail.
As I'm sure you know, Herts has a very strong reputation in the industry, currently ranked 8th in the UK for animation and game design (Guardian University Guide, 2024). Our students have won The Rookies Game of the Year four times now, and Herts is 1st in the UK for production excellence in visual effects and 2nd for production excellence in console games according to The Rookies Top Global Creative Schools, 2023.
Our graduates enjoy great success with top companies, and you will benefit from our strong industry links. You would be able to do a placement as part of your degree, which is a fantastic way to gain experience and build connections. As Juan said, our Careers and Employment team helps with placements, as well as onward career advice and opportunities.
Do check out the success of Herts graduate, Hamid Ibrahim, whose film, Iwaju is streaming on Disney +. Hamid studied 3D Animation and Modelling and has gone on to realise his dreams in the industry 💫
Hope this helps - do let us know if you have any other questions we can help with.
Good luck with making your decision, and we'd love to see you at Herts 🙂
Gaynor
Marketing and Communications

Reply 4

StaffsRep Jodie

Official Rep

Original post by rookieieie

Hello @rookieieie

I'm Jodie and I'm a 2nd year Games Art student here at Staffs Uni! Hope I'm able to answer your questions that you put above :smile:

For general student life, it's pretty lively here at staffs! We have two on campus venues (Ember lounge which is our student union bar and the LRV which is our larger venue where bigger events are hosted). The LRV has lots of events on regularly and there's always something for everyone! For example, I went to a crazy bingo night last year and it was such a fun and social night out. There's also karaoke every Tuesday on at the ember lounge too so there's always something going on.

Employability is the reason I came to staffs in the first place. We have so many connections to the game industry and have had events take place such as the Ukie conference (this is where a bunch of games companies came to our uni and we could talk with them, go to talks etc) and we also had the pleasure of attending Let's Talk Games which is another big games conference hosted in Leamington Spa. Not just that but the lecturers also push you to do your best in order to make sure you and your portfolio work stands out.

There is a placement year that you can take on the course. I personally chose to not do it as I wanted to just build up my skills here at the Uni but I know of people who did take the year / are applying to take it right now. My best bet would be to contact some of the staff here at the Uni if you did decide to come and study with us and want to take that placement year route as they will be able to provide you with more details than I can :smile:

Apart from that, I overall really love it here and honestly couldn't recommend the course enough. If you do have any more questions that you'd like to ask or any other thoughts please don't hesitate to reach out! I'm more than happy to help!

Hope to see you around staffs Uni sometime! And good luck with whatever you do choose to end up doing :smile: