Looking for advice about Hertfordshire animation course

Hello, I am looking for advice from anyone who has studied/is studying animation at University of Hertfordshire.
I have been made an offer for 2D Animation and am still undecided where to go. From people I have spoken to the main point about Herts always emphasised is the intense workload which can be overwhelming particularly in the first year. On one hand this does not worry me too much as I'm very motivated with animation, however I wanted to ask if this has impacted students' wider university experience. I'm not bothered by partying or having a huge nightlife, but I still want to be able to join societies and meet people outside of my course- is this possible given how time consuming the course is?
I am choosing between Herts and AUB and if I'm honest prefer the campus and location of AUB and while I've heard the course is full on, it doesn't seem to be as emphasised as with Hertfordshire. But because Herts is so competitive and has such as reputation I'm worried I'd be wasting an opportunity not going there.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Hello, I am looking for advice from anyone who has studied/is studying animation at University of Hertfordshire.
I have been made an offer for 2D Animation and am still undecided where to go. From people I have spoken to the main point about Herts always emphasised is the intense workload which can be overwhelming particularly in the first year. On one hand this does not worry me too much as I'm very motivated with animation, however I wanted to ask if this has impacted students' wider university experience. I'm not bothered by partying or having a huge nightlife, but I still want to be able to join societies and meet people outside of my course- is this possible given how time consuming the course is?

I am choosing between Herts and AUB and if I'm honest prefer the campus and location of AUB and while I've heard the course is full on, it doesn't seem to be as emphasised as with Hertfordshire. But because Herts is so competitive and has such as reputation I'm worried I'd be wasting an opportunity not going there.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Hiya!
I've firmed AUB and put Herts as an insurance choice. Honestly, it depends on what type of animation you're looking for. When choosing between the two, I looked at the students' work/showreels on Instagram and their website and looked at what work opportunities they were able to get afterwards. More recently, I became really interested in 3D/hybrid animation, so I leaned towards AUB. Herts is very competitive, but personally, for me, I had to really consider if I wanted to live in that area for 3 years and what job prospects I could get afterwards. I recommend messaging some alumni's directly from their socials just to ask how their experience was.

Hey! I didn't go to Hertfordshire but I'm somewhat familiar with the course and have a good understanding of how time consuming some of these courses can be. I would suggest that you would be capable of doing societies and having a social life the vast majority of the time (perhaps with the exclusion of particularly busy deadline periods) and with any luck your lecturers should encourage this of you as well.
What I would say is that this somewhat depends person-to-person as well, since if you simply work slower, are more of a perfectionist, struggle to leave things when you're not 100% satisfied etc - you might have a harder time maintaining work-life balance. Learning how to manage your time is part of what you learn at university Probably that first term you will have moments where it feels really overwhelming but it will get easier as you learn how to set manageable expectations for yourself and structure your time in an effective way.
Whether you want to go to Herts or AUB is really up to you. I think Herts is a great opportunity and they do have a really great standard of getting people into relevant industries, but AUB is definitely still a competitive option and they are increasingly a popular choice. I think it's somewhat up to you as to what's most important to you and that can be a really difficult decision.

Hello, I am looking for advice from anyone who has studied/is studying animation at University of Hertfordshire.
I have been made an offer for 2D Animation and am still undecided where to go. From people I have spoken to the main point about Herts always emphasised is the intense workload which can be overwhelming particularly in the first year. On one hand this does not worry me too much as I'm very motivated with animation, however I wanted to ask if this has impacted students' wider university experience. I'm not bothered by partying or having a huge nightlife, but I still want to be able to join societies and meet people outside of my course- is this possible given how time consuming the course is?
I am choosing between Herts and AUB and if I'm honest prefer the campus and location of AUB and while I've heard the course is full on, it doesn't seem to be as emphasised as with Hertfordshire. But because Herts is so competitive and has such as reputation I'm worried I'd be wasting an opportunity not going there.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I work for the animation programme at Herts so obviously my reply is going to be biased! And I'm not a student, but a lecturer, so take the below as advice which I will try to stay as neutral as possible on, but bear that all in mind when reading my reply - never believe the salesman! And do what some of the other people have said and get advice from students/graduates! Okay, legal warning over, here goes:
The course at Herts is hard not because that's the best thing to do to students, but because we are well aware of who we are competing with. We see our main competition as being the courses in Europe - in France, Germany, Denmark etc and the US and Canada and South East Asia. Almost all of these courses are now 4 or 5 years long, but for our graduates to be competitive in the very tough industry we need to teach as much as those courses do and to the same or higher standards (our 2D Animation course is ranked 2nd in the world by the Rookies for a reason) while staying within a 3 year degree length. That does mean the course is hard, but you have to make a decision whether you choose a course for 3 years of fun or whether you want to get a job at the end of it. For some people, they are just wanting to go to university for the experience of study in a subject (and there is nothing wrong with that!). Other people know that there is no wonderful bank of mum and dad waiting to fund them for the rest of their lives and if they are going to get into a mountain of debt for a degree they need to pick one that will maximise their employment chances. Animation is a global industry; you are completing against the world for jobs, not just the UK workforce. And the rest of the world is happy to work harder than a lot of UK students think they need to.
My advice would be to go on sites like the Rookies where you can see the work of the graduates of different animation courses across the world (and don't just look at the UK ones, look at ones in the countries I mentioned) to see what the competition is like and then compare that work the the UK courses. I would also try going on Linkedin and searching for the names of the degrees you are interested in in the UK, and see how many graduates you find and where they are working. You could then try contacting some of them and ask them if they felt their course was worth studying on.

I have no idea if all of them join societies (there are 400 students, and I mostly teach on 3DVFX not 2D) but certainly some of them do because at least once a year I have to help a student with an extension request because they've damaged part of their body playing in a sporting activity... you would think that if you were studying for a career in which your hands are absolutely vital to you that students would decide that rugby or combat based sports would be something to avoid, but every year somebody finds that out the hard way! Please join one of the more sedate societies (Japanese language is popular, as is manga / anime culture stuff), Cosplay is big amongst our students, so are board games. There are different music societies if you like creating music. I know there are environmental ones as well. There are probably loads more; these are just ones that I've either blundered into when working late or that students have mentioned in conversation.