I have a phd in biology and I took a two-week fashion design course

2024-01-11

And it was low-key transformative.

The last time I was a student on a university campus was back in 2012, and I’m not counting my masters or doctoral years in this because I was not on a dynamic campus with other students. I was on a floor of an institute built in brutalist architecture, roaming around from lab to lab with music blasting in my ears (which is not completely devoid of charm but leaves a lot to be desired.)

Back in 2012, I was getting my bachelor’s in biotechnology in the science faculty of one of the best universities in my country. Yet, I felt like a fish out of water. The pressure and structure of high school was gone, and I was clumsily testing out being an “adult”, handling coursework (read: cramming during the two weeks of exam season), and partially dealing with boys. I felt pulled from many directions somehow and not enough in any particular one. Everybody who knew my history would believe I belonged there, including myself, but everything always felt off.

Coming to Central Saint Martin was a deliberate (and slightly expensive) choice. A choice that seems so out of place from the outside to everyone around me (including the people in the course), but I feel I just fell right into the little pond I was supposed to.

Every day, I went to class, wide-eyed and eager, to think, to learn, to work, and to feel.

I wandered to the library with my music in my ears, strolling and squating in between the shelves, pulling out the most obscure-looking books to do my visual research. I flicked through the pages and I looked for things that tantilized my eyes, and charged my imagination. I almost can’t believe how enjoyable it was.

This is all great, but why do I feel like this was tranformative?

Because I was in fact the odd one out there, and it wasn’t perfectly smooth, and I chose to work hard, sketch my ideas, and ask questions anyway.

Several times during the course I felt I was being put in a box (the analytical, science-y what-is-she-doing-here box), and I despise that feeling (honeslty who doesn’t?). Several times during the course I was so excited about an idea, and it was met by a bit of nonchalance from the tutor, whereas I’d hoped for more encouragement (later on this dynamic changed, and I understood why the tutor chose not to influence us too much with his own taste.)

I worked hard anyway. The indifference, and being perceived by others in certain ways didn’t deter me into resigning. I responded to being (slightly) hurt by defiance.

Come to think of it, back in 2012, and the years of graduate school, I might have been someone that could have made it work, and could have forged her way into a sense of belonging, or maybe leave to find another place that made it more possible, but the combination of the circumstances at that time, and the person I was at that time, didn’t allow enough tenacity.

Tenacity, I think, is sometimes the best we have.