My Digital Adventure - Week 1B

As I mentioned in my previous post, during the last part of our lecture, we talked and mind mapped a digital story of ours. First, we had to share our stories, listen to each other and discuss them. When my partner started talking about his story, I was kind of lost because I didn't know what exactly "Digital Adventure" meant.

Listening to my partner's story made me realise that it actually means, a story that started online and developed in real life (possibly). But still, what story did I have that I could share, that started online and went on in real life? This made my mind wonder: going back and trying to analyse my online activity in the past: who I met, what I learned and what kind of knowledge I gained. However, my mind was still stuck and I couldn't actually find a good story until my partner I asked the magical question: How did you end up here, in Bath Spa University?

This question gave me the answer that I was looking for!

Source: here.

Before I get to the details, I have to say that the project asked us to first find a story, narrate it and then create a mind map and therefore I'm going separate the sections of this post likewise.

The Story

The simple answer of how I ended up in Bath Spa, would be passion. But there is much more to it than just love for media and films. For as long as I can remember my family, they were never the types to watch films, but just different Greek series on TV that was not my taste at all. This resulted in me not being familiar with the world of quality TV and Cinema.

However, that all changed when I first met one of my best friends, Athena. She was one of the first good friends I made in my life and I'm so grateful that I met her, she honestly changed my life by introducing me to the film world. Since we were, for real,  7  she always invited me to her house to watch different movies; we would spend hours in front of the screen and watch all kinds of films. This passion grew even stronger when we started going to the cinema almost every week to watch something new. The cinema trips, the endless hours in front of the TV and the long conversations after each adventure never stopped. We grew up doing this together and it was and still is something really special. 

All this made me want to learn more about the industry and I ended up wanting to be part of this world. However, I had no clue how to do that until I made a new digital friend. My friend was planning to study in the United Kingdom at the time and he was telling me that he was about to start his foundation courses. I was so intrigued by his plans and, I'm not going to lie, a bit jealous, that I tried to convince my parents to just go and talk with an expert that knew more about this. After a really long conversation, I ended up signing up for my foundation courses and automatically, my trip to come to the UK had just started! (By far the best choice I've made in my life). 

When I was 17, I honestly had no idea how and where things would end up. After one and a half years of hard work, I got accepted to all 5 of my applied universities. And again the same question arises: how did I end up here? First of all, Bath Spa University and Newcastle University had the most criteria and they were the hardest to be accepted in. Who doesn't love a challenge? I was so confused I had no idea what to do. Time was running out, so I started doing a really in-depth research. 

The first place I looked at was social media. Even though, Newcastle University, on Instagram, had a higher engagement, it had really general posts about the city and different events that were going on at the time. On the other hand, Bath Spa talked about the student experience, shared different stories about the students and the people working there and it felt like a smaller, safer community. Aside from that, I was also able to talk with the Sabbatical Office and learn more about their experience as BSU students, which ended up being really helpful.  On Facebook and Twitter, it was basically the same thing, but neither of these two universities posted much content in these platforms so I stuck mostly with Instagram and Youtube. On youtube, Newcastle had so much content about different fields of studies and different tours of the university. But still nothing about my field of studies which, honestly, didn't surprise me. Comparing to Bath Spa, it seemed from their content that they were really considerate and also they seemed to pay more attention to arts and media, which I really appreciated.

Source: here.

Apart from researching all the social media platforms, I also examined my chosen courses really well. In Newcastle, I had applied for Film Studies. Even if its name sounds exciting, the description of the course, was, honestly, really boring. No explanation of what we are going to do during the years, not even the first one, and generally it sounded really blunt. However, Bath Spa did not disappoint! It had a full description of what Creative Media is all about, what we are going to do the next three years and what I will gain from this degree. Thus, it was really promising and gave me the impression that there more opportunities to do different things here.

It should also be noted that it was not only about the research that I did: My instinct was telling me that Bath Spa was the place for me and It wasn't wrong at all. Digital Media, certainly, played a crucial role for me to end up at Bath Spa University and honestly, I'm so grateful to be here. 

Mind Map

  

Reflection 

Overall, I found this digital adventure exercise really interesting. It was engaging, which we didn't have that the previous time, and it actually made your mind work. Also, I had never before made a Mind Map and I was so confused at first. I had no clue how to do it and what kind of elements I should add to it. I found it really tricky to make it and I am still questioning its purpose. Hopefully, I mapped my mind correctly and I didn't get too much into details. I hope we can have the chance to talk a bit more about mind maps and their purpose of them because I really want to understand and I also want to have the change to try doing it again. :)