Campus Tours

My name is Michaela, and I'm a graduate of Birmingham City University. I graduated from Fine Art in 2018, and I'm going to give you a tour of the Parkside building, which I'm in right now. Parkside is part of our city centre campus and is home to our students from media, fashion and textiles, architecture and design and visual communication. So over here you can see our study space. We have a coffee shop in Parkside for our students to use. And as I said, a study space for them to get work done and socialise, et cetera. Over here we have some exhibition space, so this is examples of our students work from the arts, design and media faculty. We also have the show over there as well, which is also used as an exhibition space. So for every faculty, we do have a personalised career service. So this is the Careers Plus Office for the Faculty of Arts, Design and Media. So they're there to give advice on CV's, help finding placements and helping students be more employable. In the past, they've had events, such as a CV competition for those students in attempt to create creative CVs, which is really fun. I'm also going to show you our radio studio, so if you come this way. So we have six digital radio stations that are used by all media courses, and this is to produce radio shows, podcasts, news programmes and features. So we operate a radio station from these studios by our final year media and communication students. Again, here you can see we have industry standard software and equipment for students to use so that when they graduate, they are ready to be industry ready. So now I'm going to pass over to Joey. He's going to show you TV studios. Hello, my name is Joey. I'm a graduate from Birmingham City University. I studied digital media technology. You find me in Studio B, which just happens to be one of the largest fixed green screen studios in the country. And it's huge. You can do lots of visual effects in here, like keying out the background. Being in a completely different environment is great. We've got a Milo rig and this is a really good, neat piece of equipment. So it's on the track, you can programme it and it will remember the camera movements every single time and do it over and over and over again. Very, very, very cool. And what's also cool about our studios here at Birmingham City University is that they're all linked together. So if you were doing a little bit of a production in this studio, you could link it with the next studio and create a bigger, wider production line. So I'm going to show you Studio A right now, so come with me. Here we go. So if you come down here with me, I'll be able to show you Studio A.. And so, yeah, Studio A is massive. So it's one of the biggest studios we've got here at Birmingham City University, right next door to each other, which is really handy and really neat. Another great, amazing space to create all sorts of works and stuff in, and as I've said, that interlinked, which is really great. And the fact that you can kind of be working on two productions in two different studios, at the same time, it's a multi versatile space to accommodate students on multiple courses. So this isn't just a space for film students, it can be a space for computing. Students can be a space for digital technology students, even even some of the art students. You can put exhibitions on in this space, which is really cool. It can be configured up to six cameras, so we've got cameras around here, I think we've got four at the moment, which are really neat, which is really cool. And we've also got the Vision Gallery up there, which is where you do all of the technical, behind-the-scenes stuff of a production. And what's great is that the sound gallery itself contains a Sound Desk, and that's separate from the Vision Gallery so that you can have less interference when you're doing mixing of sound. So I'm now actually going to pass you up to Michaela, who's up in the Vision Gallery. Helloc can you? Can you see me? Yeah. So we've shown you where all the action takes place, and I'm going to show you where the behind the scenes takes place. So I'm in Studio A's production gallery, which is where all things to do with the visuals is conducted. So here you can see we have industry standard equipment for students to use. So in this room would be your director, your vision mixer, your auto cue operator and your VT operator. All which students get to experiment with those roles when I study here. So that's the visuals. I'm now going to show you the audio gallery. So you can see here this is where all of the sound is mixed and controlled for Studio A. So now I'm going to talk to you about our hires and loan service. So when you are a student in Parkside, you do get access to our hires and loans, which is basically where you can rent out some of our industry standard equipment to use in your own work. So here we are. And so in this room, we have things such as and still cameras, movement cameras, tripods, dollies and lots of different lenses for you to use as well. So I'll now hand over to Joey, who's also on level one to show you our fashion facilities. Thank you, Michaela. So we're still on the first floor of Parkside. We are at the fashion, business and promotion classrooms. If you come in here with me, this is where you'll be doing more of the theory computer based on written work of fashion degrees. So board at the front, sitting at desks, learning all about the nitty gritty of how to do fashion. Good. This is one of the classrooms, just one of many that you find yourselves in. And yes, it's a great learning environment. Very spacious. Very bright. It's nice. I love it. We're going to take you upstairs now. Michaela, are you ready? Michaela is going to go and show you some of the workshops that we have which is quite interesting. So I'm now on level two of Parkside, which is where lots of our workshops are for me to show you. So first of all, I'm going to show you our digital print room, which is just over here. So a digital print room has professional print facilities. You can print on Matte and Gloss. And there's also professional scanning equipment as well for you to use, also dry mountain equipment, type mountain alumni in equipment and in all of our workshops, we have really specialised technicians that are there to help you with your work. A really nice thing about the Parkside building, which you'll see in the moment is that student work is all over the place being exhibited. So here there is a painting by a student and also here we have examples of some print work as well. So moving on now to print room. So this is for more traditional methods of printing. So in this room, we have screen beds for screen printing artwork. We also have a hand open press for lino printing. We have a hot foil machine, proofing presses, four letter presses. And again, there will be specialised print technicians that you can book appointments with and tutorials for them to help you create your work and get the most out of the facilities. So next section is moving on to the photography facilities, which is just around this corner. Again around the building, you can see lots of social working spaces for students to use. So first up, we have the dark room, which is through here, so all students on ADM courses can benefit from use of the dark room. When you start, you'll be given full training and induction by the technicians on how to use the equipment and facilities. So the darkroom is set up for traditional black and white processing, but it also supports a number of other experimental techniques as well, and all chemicals that you will use are free of charge, you are just asked to purchase the paper that you use. So moving on now, I'm going to show you the photography studios we have. So we have four photographic studios, including Infinity Coves, which I'll show you in a moment. So this is the first studio. As you can see, it's fully lit. There is full equipment for you to use from hires and loans, for example. And then there's another studio through here. There's all the equipment that you will need, including boom arms, grip equipment. So here you'll be able to see the Infinity Cove just over here. There's also Kalorama equipment. We also have tethering station, including MacBook and secondary monitor, meaning that you can connect your camera directly into industry standard software. Again, examples of student work throughout the building, so some examples of student photography from all different courses as well. So it won't just be used by photography students, it'll also be used by other courses to document their work as well, such as fashion students. So now moving on to some more of the workshop, so I'm going to show you CAD lab and some of the facilities in there. So first, I'll show you our water jet cutter, which is again industry standard and really cutting edge technology, mind the pun. Global jet equipment. As you can see, really professional level of equipment. We also have a glass room here as well for working with Glass, if that's something that you're interested in to. Next up, we have the ceramics workshop, so if that's something you're interested in, it's something we offer here is working with ceramics, plaster, etcetera. So here we go, here is the ceramic workshop. Again, examples of student work is always prevalent. And now onto the woodwork shop, which is just down here. So as you can tell, there's lots of different options for students across all of our courses to really create what they want to create with all the different facilities and mediums that we offer. So like you say, if wood work is something that you interested in, there's a whole host of equipment here for you to use. OK, so now I'll pass over to Joey, who is on the bridge between Parkside and Millennium Point. We now find ourselves on the bridge. So the bridge connects Parkside to Millennium Point and is home to loads of computers, not just computers, but IMac's as well. So it depends on what type of work that you're doing. So you can be doing some design work on the Mac, you could be doing some coding on those computers down there. There's a lot of facility here to do some studying as such, which is really nice. We've also got IT help here. So if you have a problem with your computer, if you've got a problem with your laptop, you come to it help. They'll sort you out and fix your problem really nicely. We've also got these lap-safes so you can borrow a laptop here and bring it back at the end of the day when you finished using it. So there's different types of laptops. You get your average laptop. You've also got specialised laptops that have programmes on such as Photoshop and Adobe Premiere. Really cool. Really fancy. And where we're going next is going to be a lecture theatre, so it's one of the biggest lecture theatres in Parkside. But as of as we've already said on the walls of this building, there's loads of student artworks. And as you can see here, the photography students have got some work on display here, which is really nice. But this is the entrance to the lecture theatre, so let's just pop on in here. So this is, again, one of the places that you'll be coming to, and when you do have lectures, your teacher will be down here and everyone else will be sat up and watching intently with their eyes. And yeah, this lecture theatre is so big they actually leads to the next floor up. So that kind of gives you an idea of how many seats are in this lecture theatre. It's massive. And the way it's also been built, as you can see from the panels on the wall, the acoustics in here are amazing. Even if you're sat at the back, you can hear someone who's talking right down at the front, which is brilliant. And yeah, so this is the next floor. I'm going to hand you back over to Michaela, and she's going to show you a little bit more what's like on the third floor of Parkside. So I'm on level three now, just outside the weaving workshop, which I'll show you now. So as with our other workshops, lots of professional equipment for students to use, assisted by our textiles technicians. So we have weaving machines, looms, threads and all that kind of stuff that you can use, as I said, particularly on our textiles courses. So when it comes to equipment for students in the Parkside building, we actually have a campus shop that is run by the students union, as you can see here. It has lots of different art and design kind of related equipment such as sketchbooks, pencils, paper, etc., all at affordable prices for students to access right on campus. We also have another coffee shop here for students to use for refreshment when the histidine and right up front you can see we have a really nice outdoor terrace for students particularly lovely in the summer to go out there for a break. Birmingham is obviously a really urban city, but it was also voted one of the UK's greenest cities recently, so it's really nice to have that outdoor green space in the middle of a city centre campus. And as with the rest of Parkside, you can see lots of examples of student work here as well. So just going to show you some more workshops now. So here you can see we have mannequins for students to work on. To create patterns for their pieces, costumes and clothes. And we have this sew in workshop here as well with lots of sewing machines and so in equipment, ironing boards also very important. So as you can see a huge range of equipment for all of our students to access. So that's it for the third floor now. Head up to Joey on the fourth. Hi there, Joey on the fourth floor of Parkside. This is visual communications, open space. And what I really like about this space is just how open and big it is. Take a look down there and take a look at how big this space is for students to be able to work collaboratively and together. It's great in terms of if you're studying a graphic design degree and you need some help from someone who does illustration. This space allows that collaboration to happen, which is really great. You can have a look at some of the work that's been going on. It looks like there's been possibly a doodle workshop, which students have been taking part of loads of doodles everywhere and really gets the creative juices flowing. So again, some more doodles there. Some of them are really cool and really nice. Again, just look how much space you've got to be able to do whatever you want to do in terms of creative media and stuff that you've got so many, so much work space and you can even see how we've even got enough space and been able to make it socially distanced as well. We're in the graphic design part graphic communication part now. We've got some work on the walls and posters and again, some Macs that students are able to use while they're in this space. And also some hard top surface working, so you'll be able to cut bits and bobs out while still doing it. And we've also got breakout rooms. So when you're not working in this giant collaboration space, we've also got classrooms where you'll be able to be taught on the side. And we're now going to switch over to the architecture side of things, and Michaela is all the way down there and she'll be taking you through architecture. So Michaela, are you ready? So Level four of Parkside is also home to our school of architecture and design, so I'm going to show you the architecture studio spaces. So these are spaces for students in the School of Architecture and Design to work on projects together. So as you can see, there's more space to display plans and artwork. These spaces can be combined and changed from two rooms into one, for example. There's also, as you see around this corner, a lot of standing space for students to work connected to allocated lockers for students. Now, I'm just going to show you one of the classrooms available. So this is for interior architecture and design. And as with a lot of the classrooms, they'll be used across different subjects such as landscape architecture, product design, etc.. So you can see some examples of student work around the room as well. There's always a lot going on in these classrooms, so as you can see here, some models of buildings that have been created by students. So that will conclude our tour of Parkside, hope you've enjoyed it.

Hello and welcome to our Millennium Point facilities tour. My name is Joey, I'm a graduate from Birmingham City University and I studied digital media technology, and today we're going to be having a look at some of the facilities here in Millennium Point because I used to study here. This is my building that I had all of my lectures in, so I know a lot about it. So if you want to come with me, first of all, we're going to go and check out the amazing motion capture facilities that we have here at Birmingham City University. We're quite fortunate that we're one of the few universities that have a motion capture rig that students can actually use, and we've got technicians who have had industry experience as well, who are giving students assistance with their projects as well, which is really nice. And so come on in here, come on inside. So this is our motion capture studio and we have we have an eight camera Viken set up here, which are great. And these cameras can capture up to 120 frames per second and but can go also go up to 300 60 frames per second, which are insane. So the idea is that someone would have a motion capture suit here in the middle, and these eight cameras around me will be picking up sensors that run the motion capture suit and then relaying it to this rig over here and displaying a visual effect on the screen, which is really cool and really great for students to be able to use. And what's great is that it's not just visual effects students who can use a space, but any student has a passion for motion capture and wants to use it within their projects can get support from lectures and stuff. And next on, we're going to have a look at the computer forensics room, which is just down here. If you want to follow me down this corridor, the computer forensics room is a really unique place for students to be able to properly get their hands on some hard drives, some care, some some bits of computing for them to be able to do forensics on and really kind of find out what's on them and where they've come from and what they mean. So if you want to come on in here, this is a dedicated space for computer forensics students, so it's a nice place for them to kind of have their space to be able to work on projects we have in here, like a store room, which I don't know if you can just see inside there. We've got a hard drives, so many hard drives, so many old computers that students actually work on and get their hands dirty and really see if they can pull bits of information out of things that they thought may have disappeared, which is really great. And we lead on into this classroom here. And as you can see, we have tons of computers and these computers are all specialist machines. So in a lot of interactive web development gets done. And we also have rendering as well, and that gets used on these machines just because of how beastly they are. They've all got really fast processors. They're all up to date. They're all great. They're all super quick. And yeah, it's great. Really, really, really fancy stuff. Come on out here. We've now got our awesome technology studio here, which is where lots of us sound students come to get lectures, and recently we actually spent £100000 on upgrading this suite. And for students to be able to properly get their hands on up to date equipment and stuff, we've got a drum tank. Students can take one script, students can do experiments within the Strom tank as well and properly get great acoustics in here as well, which is which is really, really, really, really great. This is this has been the second floor. We're going to head down to the basement now where McKayla is, and she's currently looking at the engineering facilities. So I'll pass you over to Mikhail enough. Thanks, Joey. As he said, My name is Mikayla. I'm also a graduate of BCU. I graduated from fine in 2018, and I'm going to show you around the basement facilities. So here behind me, we have the cat lab standing for computer aided design. This is technology that helps our students with the design process on their courses. As you can see, all the computers have dual monitors, which is really useful when working on projects. Also to the left, we have our hydraulics lab. This is for civil engineering students. It has essential test equipment, such as an impact jet and a Venturi metre. So students really get a hands on experience of industry. We also have a recently refurbished social space here. Students can come work here individually or collaborate and work together on group projects. So just over here we have the engineering workshop, we've recently invested in lots of new equipment in the engineering workshop. So as you can see here, there's plenty of machinery for students to use. There are also technicians on hand that you can book appointments with that can support you and create in your work. We have things such as mills and lights, and we've recently invested in, it's really nice because you can see examples of student work dotted around as well. So you'll see these are some examples of some rollercoaster structures that students have been working on. So as well as your workshops and seminars and lectures, there's also a lot of extracurricular things that you can get involved with on the faculty. So we're just coming into the mechanical engineering lab. So as you can see, there's lots of equipment for students to use here to test their projects. So things such as compression techs, testing, flexible testing and so on. So now going on to the computer lab. So here, if we hadn't shown you enough computers, there's even more for you to say. You'll never be short of equipment that you can use when you study here. So now we have the electronic slot, so this is where electronic engineer students. Contest the project, so we have things such as generators and a scale scope and lots more electrical equipment. And we also have a folder in life which students can hold the wires together and much more. So now I'll pass back over to Jerry. Thank you very much. I'm on the first floor of Millennium Point at the moment. We're currently stood outside the Computer Games Technology Lab, so let's pop in and have a look at some of these facilities in here. So we have rows and rows of computers and has specifically designed for game design. And we've got rows and rows. We've also got computer game chairs as well. And we don't want students sitting on our standard chairs when we're developing games. Davis Weaver. We've kept the room out with some really nice gaming chairs, and we have X-Box development kits for students to use PlayStation development kits to use. We also have a Nintendo Switch development kit, which is coming soon so much for students to be able to get their hands on. We also have a societies that meet here every week and take part in game jams and see where students just make a game from scratch. And I think they do it within 24 hours and see what the final result is, which is really cool. And so we're going to head on to the next room now, which is one of our networking labs. So if we just head on out here, follow me through here, guys, if you just follow the rooms, so. This is one of our networking labs. So this networking lab can actually be accessed from anywhere in the world, which is really unique. We have these racks on the back here that students can come in and use, but this is not a simulation. So instead of being physically here, you're able to remotely access the facilities and software on these computers anywhere in the world. As long as you have an internet connexion, which is really neat and we're going to go in here now, which is another one of our networking labs. But I want just give you the scope of how many computers we have here on offer for our students. All of these computers here, when they're not being used in lectures, can be used by students and that's that covers the entire of the CB faculty as well as the rest of the faculties as well. We've got networking stations again here, which really do give you the scope of how much facilities we've got here and there all Cisco Cisco switches and routers as well, which is really neat. And if you want to come in here, this is where our visual effects students mainly do that do their work because these these, these machines and here are specially built and we've got dual screen setups. These machines have got like i7 processors, which are which really run rendering and stuff really, really fast. I remember being a student here and my father using every single one of these machines to render a scene and for my final project, say really, really fun and interesting stuff. We're going to go over to Michaela now, who is on the third floor, and she's going to show you some of the facilities up there. Joe. I'm here in the HuffPo Centre for Journalism. The university has a really exciting partnership with HuffPost. And as you can see here, students get to experience what a live newsroom environment is really like. They receive masterclasses from members of the HuffPost team and also get to work on live projects that are set by HuffPost. So this is part of the Institute of Media and English and the offices for the Institute. Just through this corridor here. So you can come to these offices if you have any queries or if you have any issues that you need help with. What are you studying here? So as you can say, although courses are usually based in one building, there is the opportunity to meet lots of different students from lots of different courses. So through here you'll see we have our social space. So you can come here to relax, socialise with other students. You can also get some work done in this area. You'll see in a moment that there's a really nice view of the city and everything that's going on out of that window. So an important part of studying at the university has a really big focus on careers and employability. So each faculty has its own careers plus office. This is the one for the faculty of Computing, Engineering and the built environment, so you can come here for advice on your CV with help finding work placements and lots more. So an important part of being a student is, of course, food. So through here you'll see our Millennium Point canteen. So this is where you can come, particularly if you are a C student or an English media student. You can come here to get a bite to eat while you are studying. And that's that's all passed back over to Joey. Thank you very much, Michaela. Yep, on the fourth floor of Millennium Point, say, first of all, let's start off with this amazing panoramic view we have of the city. You can see how to being worked on down there. I'm interesting for our built environment students. You can get working with projects like the HST and the lab is it's Birmingham as the city itself, which is really cool. This is the project space which is part of Birmingham City's refurbishment. So we've recently spent over seven point five million pounds on our Millennium Point facilities, which includes this area here. So this area, when it's not being used for teaching, is used for exciting events such as employability, events, hackathons, anything be related, which is really cool. It's home to one of the largest labs safe collections in Europe, which is really cool. So it means that if you haven't got a laptop, if you've forgotten your laptop, you need somewhere to work on a computer. You can get a laptop out from one of these stations and be able to rent it for up to, I think, 48 hours, which is really cool. I'm going to take you next to our architectural technology lab, which is just down here, and our Architecture Technology Lab is a new facility that we have at Birmingham City University. So it's for our built environment students, so they have their own space. So if you come on. So this is the architecture technology lab. It's a brand-new facility we have here at Birmingham City University. We've got amazing workstations for students to use. They can pin things up on the wall is we've got brand new smart whiteboards as well, which feature in the classrooms, which are which are used by lecturers as well from the top of the range. Oh no, everything's new in here, which is really great. And it's just a great space for students to be able to properly get their hands on projects that will be like they are in the real world in terms of built environment and architecture technology. And we're going to show you now the maker space and which is an innovative space for students to be able to work on projects and use tools with technicians there to help you as well. And so we're going to go to the maker space now, which is just down here and right, and let's just get in here. So a lot of students use this space in their final years, and students will also get a chance to use it during their first year, as well as a C B student. And you've got lots of tools and tools here. You've got lots of different bits of equipment that you can grab and projects here mainly for, like CPE courses, and they're also used with their final year projects as well. So it's just a space of really nice space for you to be able to work on projects, get technicians help and yeah, just have a nice, free, fun time. But yeah, that concludes our tour of Millennium Point, and I hope you've had a really good time watching this video and thank you very much for watching.

[00:00:09] Michaela Hi, guys, my name is Michaela, and I graduated here from the School of Art at Birmingham City University back in 2018. And today I'm going to be giving you a tour of the School of Art. So if you want to follow me, I'll show you around. So the School of Art building opened in 1885 on Margaret Street. And as you can see, it's a really beautiful building to study in. It's a grade one listed building with Venetian Gothic architecture. And as you'll see, it's maintained some of the original features of the building, such as the lovely mosaic floors, iron railings, stained glass windows, which you'll see. This space is lovely, it's also used to display student and staff artwork throughout the year. So if you come through here, you'll see some of the lovely stained glass windows here and also the lovely spiralling staircases as well. So just going through now to the School of Art library. So this is a specialist library that is used for our fine art students. So the materials here will suit the needs of the students who study within the School of Art. So there's many things to take out from the library. There is, of course, books, but there is also other things such as specialist art journals, magazines, DVDs and more. Another really nice thing about the building is that students' artwork is really an important part of it. So as you'll see throughout the corridors, students' artwork is regularly displayed throughout the building. So I'm just taking you now to the print workshop that you'll see through here. It's a really exciting place to be, as you will see, there's lots of different techniques that you can explore as a student in the School of Art. So I did mention that the School of Art opened in 1885, but some of these printing machines and presses are actually older than the building itself. So we have screen printing beds. We also have drypoint machines. And there's the possibility to etching, lino print and much more. So now I'll hand over to Joey who's going to show you more of the workshops downstairs.

[00:02:53] Joey Thanks, Michaela. Yes we're in the workshop spaces now, so come on in. Let me show you around. So in these workshops, you have everything you could ever need to be creating great pieces of art. So we've got vices, we've got saws, we've got drills, we've got hammers, we've got anvils, we've got suction machines, we've got health and safety, bottles of spray and stuff. These great pieces of equipment, which look daunting at first but if you come and study here at BCU, you'll get training on how to use these machines and not just that, but you'll get a lot of support from our technicians as well who work here full time. So you can book one on one sessions with them and they'll be able to go through one on one on how to use machines, assist you of creating bits of art and stuff like that, and really help you progress as a student here at BCU. This is the iron workshop, so we've got stuff that can drill into metal, cut metal, sand metal down. Again, we've got lots of things which relate to health and safety as well in here so we're working in a safe environment, but loads of things to be getting your hands on, which are really, really cool. In here, we've got a bronze forge, which is really unique to the School of Art as well, which is really cool, and you'll be able to use this in the future to create some really unique and cool pieces of art. And again, in here, lots going on, and it's really exciting to see all of the things going on in here. In here, is the plastering workshop so if you're into working on plaster, this is where you'd be working on and creating plastering bits. So here someone's created a face out of plaster. I'm not sure how they did that. They probably moulded their own face, which is really cool. But yeah, so many, so many tools and stuff to be able to get your hands on. Michaela at the moment is currently on the third floor. She's going to be showcasing all of the art workshops where students can properly have a space to themselves and work on their bits of art. So we're going to go up to Michaela now, and she's going to show you some of the cool and unique places that we have on offer here. So, Michaela, are you ready? Michaela? Hello!

[00:05:17] Michaela So up here are our studio spaces, which our students will use to create their artwork. So if you want to follow me, you'll see that the studios are really large, they can fit a large amount of students who can bounce ideas off each other and work together to create projects. You might not be actually timetabled that much activity on your course, but a lot of your free time will be spent in these studios creating artwork. So we have an example here of a sculpture that a student has created. Some students will create sculptures, others will be interested in painting or digital art. The opportunities are endless. So just through here, we have some more artwork. And like I said, what is really nice about having these collaborative studio spaces is that you can bounce ideas off each other and you can get people's opinion on your artwork. And these rooms are actually where your degree show pieces will be exhibited as well. So got lots of different mediums, we've got really nice experimental pieces of work. None of these are necessarily finished works of art, it's just all about experimenting and testing different techniques. There is some more paintings through here, some really nice prints. And over here, we also have some really nice, more traditional figurative paintings right here. So it's really great to see all of the students' work in process. So that concludes the tour of the School of Art. I hope you've enjoyed it.

[00:00:10] Joey Hello, my name is Joey, and we're here at the School of Jewellery on Vittoria Street. We're going to have a look at some of the facilities inside here today. So come on inside and let's have a look. So the School of Jewellery has been in the heart of Birmingham now for 125 years, it was built in 1890 in this really old building. But it's now adapted this really contemporary look, which makes it a great place to come and study jewellery. It's opened, it's airy, it's light, it's great. It's an award winning school as well. So the most recent prestigious award this school has gained was the Queen's Anniversary prize back in 2019, where the school was awarded the prise by the royal family themselves, which is really neat. I'm going to show you now Vittoria Street Gallery, which is a really innovative place where students have a dynamic programme of events and exhibitions throughout the year, and so they'll be able to showcase their work to industry professionals that come in from the School of Jewellery, which is really neat. The area itself, look at it, it's great. It's really dynamic, it's really bright, it's really spacious and it's a really nice place for students be able to showcase all of their hard work that they've worked on throughout the year. So it's really nice in that aspect. But yeah, you'll get the opportunity to gain behind the scenes access and meet with the exhibitors who come across all of Birmingham's jewellery quarter who showcase their work. You can ask them questions. You'll be able to get first hand experience and get advice from them, and you can also showcase your work to them as well. So it's a really neat place, such a good place to come and showcase work. We're going to have a look at the workshops now with Michaela, so I'm going to pass over to Mikayla. Michaela are you ready? Michaela?

[00:01:58] Michaela Thanks, Joey. My name is Michaela and I am a graduate of BCU. I graduated from Fine Art in 2018 and I'm here in the HND studios of the School of Jewellery. So we do offer HND courses in the School of Jewellery, which is great. So this is one of the workshops that HND students get to use. So HND students do get to work with traditional tools and materials. They'll learn a range of different skills, such as cutting and forming, soldering, casting and so on. So as you can see, they get a really hands on experience of creating jewellery. So I'll pass back over to Joey now.

[00:02:41] Joey So we're in the basement at the moment of the School of Jewellery. It houses a range of amazing facilities and equipment for students to be able to use, with specialist technicians available on hand to help at any point. We have a casting facility, electroplating lab, along with a range of lathes and specialist silversmithing tools and workshops. We've got a school store where students can buy materials such as base metals, plastics and lone hand tools as well, which is really cool. We've also got precious metals, which can be purchased from several companies around the jewellery quarter. One of them just being over the road so you're not too far from getting some materials for any work that you may be doing here at the School of Jewellery. And as I've said before, the technicians are experienced in their fields, they know how to use all of these amazing facilities and machines, so they'll be able to give you on hand advice and show you how to do everything. So we're going to head back over to Michaela now who's upstairs and she's going to show you some more facilities.

[00:03:42] Michaela So I'm in the lecture theatre where our students will have their lectures throughout the year. This room also hosts guest speakers as well, both from industry and also related to the exhibitions that we host here as well. We also have a team of artists in residence each year who will deliver a talk at the start of their residency to tell staff and students all about their skills and specialisms. So we go through to the rest of the School and you'll see in a moment that there are some artist in residence work on display as well over here. So now just going through to the horology studios. So these are specialist spaces for the study and craft of watch and clock making and repair. So there's three studio spaces, there's a dedicated clock workshop as well as the Cartier-funded watch room. And then the third studio provides space for the theoretical study of time and the practical work of repairing and creating watches and time keepers. So also on the first floor, we have a range of different workshops and studio spaces. So there's the opportunity for students to explore a range of different materials and processes. The staff really encourage you to use the facilities on offer and make the most of those, and you'll be taught by experienced tutors who were all designer makers in the industry. So now I'll hand over to Joey on the second floor. I think he's up there.

[00:05:35] Joey Thank you, Michaela. Yes we're on the top floor of the School of Jewellery now, so up here we've got the design for industry studio, which houses the students on the first year design for industry course. We have the enamelling studio, a dedicated studio that can be used by all of the students. And you can also benefit from evening workshop sessions, where staff, students and artists in residence can drop in and use the facility and share ideas. And lastly we're going to finish up here into this workshop here, where we can have a little look at some work that students have been working on throughout this year. So if we just come in here. So this is one of the workshops again, that students will get the chance of using whilst they study here at Birmingham City University. So if you have a look around, you can see some of the projects and pieces of jewellery that students have been working on. Again, they are all work in progress, sure that students want to get back into the workshops as soon as possible and be able to finish these designs. But you can see that the design isn't just about making jewellery. You've got the design, the sketches and the measurements, the narrative of the jewellery as well that you need to consider when you're making jewellery. It's not just banging together a little bit of metal, it is about the progress. You've got people here who've done textbooks and textbooks worth of design, research. But yeah the School of Jewellery, this has been an amazing tour by myself, Joey, and Michaela, and I hope you've had a really good time. Thank you very much.

[00:00:16] Speaker 1 Hello, my name's Joey. I'm a graduate from Birmingham City University, and today we're going to go on a nice campus tour in the city centre campus at the moment in the Curzon building. And I'm going to show you around. We're going to look at some facilities giving some lecture rooms just have a nice look around just because we can't get you on campus at the moment. So we want to kind of give you the interactive feel of what it would be like to walk through our amazing campus. Say, if you want to come with me. First of all, we're going to the hive, which is in the Curzon b section of Curzon. So Curzon itself was built and was opened to students in twenty fifteen. It was all part of the three and £40million investment in facilities that we're currently going through here at BCU. Curzon be opened in 2018, so this is the second part of Curzon here now that we're here. Hashtag I am BCU. I am BCU, so this is the entrance of the Hive. If you come in with me. Come on in. So this is a great interactive and learning environment, say the hive is a great place to kind of come. It's acoustically great no matter where you're standing in this room. People are going to be able to hear you. We've got large interactive screens which can display presentations. There are buttons on the desks which students can vote with and really interactive with the lecture itself. So it's just a really great learning environment. It looks the part. I like him and like a UN meeting or something, it's great. But yeah, if you want to follow me now, we'll go to the next part of our tour. We're going to go and have a look at the amazing library that we have, which hosts over several thousand books and millions of learning resources that are available online. So if you want to come with me. Here's a little teaser of Curzon base, we've got loads of study space which students can come and do their studies in. We've got labs safe so students can come in. If they haven't got a laptop with them, they can come and rent one for the day. Loads and loads on offer here. So it's great. If you to come with me, we'll go to the library now. So again, lots of lots of space in the Curzon building for you to kind of study in. And at the moment during coronavirus times, we have got a one way system in place, so it's very safe. So the library, just hey. Goes across multiple floors, there are hundreds of thousands of books here. You can rent tens of books of the time. You can't steal any because they've got these security things, but you can rent them out. So if you just come on in here, we've got a learning space here with computers. Loads of books as well as I said, it spans across multiple floors and this is the help desk. So usually will be here, someone to give you assistance with any of your library needs. But no, it's really great. Really great learning environment. Really great learning space. So the next point on our tour is the graduate plus office. So the Graduate Plus office, the Graduate Plus is a unique scheme, which is an award scheme programme which enhances students skills. So a graduate plus makes students get the skills and experience they need, and it makes them much more employable and attractive to employers because it gives them kind of like an awards to be able to focus their skills and fine-tune them properly. And each faculty has a careers plus office. So this is the Faculty of Business, Law and Social Sciences Careers office, so students have access to career advisors where they can get interview advice. They can get their CVS checked over. If I don't, if you want to quickly have a look, but these are students who've managed to bag themselves placements. So the careers plus team are very, very, very proud with trying to get their students placements during that time of BCU. If you come up here now. We're getting to my favourite point on the tour, which is the campus restaurant, so we have multiple restaurants on campus, so we've got one here, which is in Curzon, where students can come and get food. At the moment, it's not set up because we don't have any students on campus. So why would we have the restaurant open? But we do have a coffee shop currently open for students who are currently studying and lecturers who are currently still teaching on campus and which serve all sorts of goodies hot and cold, hot drinks, cold beverages, nice sandwiches, homemade things, you name it. They got it. So keep in left as we always do. We're going back into Curzon Bay because I really want to show you and a little bit more down at the end here. We're going to go and have a look at the law clinic, which is really, really unique space for law students to go in and have a little bit of space for their own. So if you just come with me. So again, going back into Curzon Bay, we'll get a better view of what the study space is like down here. So again, loads of space for students to come in and to do their work. We've got students at the moment who are down there, who are hard at work doing that, coursework revising for bits and bobs. We won't go and talk to them because they look very busy. But the law clinic is just down here. So the law clinic is a dedicated space for law students. The space is used to give advice to members of the community, which is quite cope, and so during regular times, individuals would come here and get advice from our students themselves and would be giving the advice to the community. It's also a great confidential place for students to come on and work on cases and community work confidentially. So these are soundproof rooms and meeting rooms, all that jazz, and it's just like a nice space for fellow students to kind of work in, right cope. Going on next, we're going to go and have a look at the student pub, which is my favourite place. Also, what used to be when I was a student back in the day, we're going to go and check out eagle and bow and eagle and poets, the students union here at Birmingham City University. They serve food, they serve drinks, they host events. It's a really immersive place and we're going to go and have a look coat. So we just go and have a look outside here. So we are now outside, and we're going to head to the example, which is the S.U. here at Birmingham City University. So the Eagle and is a grade two listed pub, which was built in the Victorian Times, which now is owned by the SCAF. So the C you put on events such as karaoke pub quizzes, open mic nights. They also do amazing pizza. Take it from me. The pizza in there is amazing. So if you ever get a chance to come here, definitely have some pizza because, oh, just the amount of skin loan that I spent here was insane. But it's not just the England ball, which is here. We've also got some building work going on, so we've got a brand new building, which is opening scene, which is part of the Steam House Initiative or part of the 340 million pounds regeneration that we're putting into the facilities here at Birmingham City University. We've got university locks, which is a university owned accommodation, so we've got our own accommodation that we offer to students, which is run by an internal team here at Birmingham City University, which is really great. And yeah, we're going to go onto the second floor now. So we're going to pass over to my friend Mikayla, and she's going to reduce the sales and show you a little bit around inside whilst I go and warm up. So, yeah, McKayla,

[00:09:07] Speaker 2 thanks, Joey. We're actually on the first floor, so that's great. My name is Mikayla. As Joey said, I'm also a graduate from BCU. I graduated from Fine Art in 2018, and I'm going to be showing you around the first floor. So first of all, we have a range of different offices that you'll be able to see. So if you just see over here, we have a in-house GP office for students to be able to see our own resident doctor. This is also the point as well. The point is a place for students to go. If they've got any questions or any concerns while they're here, it's a place for them to go for some support. We also have the accommodation offices, so it can be quite a daunting thing moving away and living in accommodation at university. So the support staff for things such as contracts, accommodation, contracts and support with finding new private accommodation. Landlord disputes, etcetera. And we also have lots of different offices belonging to the BCU Students Union. They organise events such as Welcome Week, they support with the running of societies and sports teams, etcetera down that corridor over there. We also have the Centre for Academic Success, which is where you can book tutorials for support with academic writing and reference in etcetera. And we also have the manpower office. So at the university you'll have the opportunity if you want to to become a student ambassador, which means you can get paid to support the university with events such as open day clearing and other jobs on campus as well. So I'm just going to show you one of our lecture theatres now. So at university, there's a range of different ways in which you learn one of which being lectures. So if you follow me, you'll be happy to see one of our larger lecture theatres here at the university. So this is where a lecturer and academic will deliver a talk to students based on a topic in which they are studied. So as you can see a nice and bright big presentation space to learn some really exciting things here at the university. So now I'm going to hand back over to Joey, who's actually on the second floor this time.

[00:11:30] Speaker 1 OK, so we're on the second floor now of Curzon and this is home to Birmingham City University Business School. So on this floor, I'm going to show you the link marketing agency, which is a really intuitive learning environment for students to be able to start their own marketing agency and really work on live projects and work collaboratively throughout their time at university throughout all of their years. As if you come in here, we've got laptops which students can kind of loan out when they're working within the marketing agency. We've got a meeting project dream where the students work on projects with clients such as Aston Villa Football Club. They've worked with charities such as Cure Leukaemia and they've also worked with Bullring and Grand Central on life projects that go out to the general public. So it's a great experience. I know the students love Link marketing agency, especially marketing students. I'm also going to show you the city trading room. So the city trading room is great for business students who are who you have, who have modules such as trading and stuff. And it uses software from Thomas Router's, the latest industry software. We've got news going around the round the side of the rooms, which is really interesting. It's really nice being in here when all of the computers are on, they've got the software on. You see all the numbers ticking up, ticking down live as it is, and it really emulates a real life trading environment, which is really, really cool. And that's great for the facilities here at the Birmingham City University Business School. I'm going to take you out now and pop you up another floor where McKayla is currently on the third floor, where she'll be showing you around some of the law facilities. So Mikayla, where are you? Wave wave to the camera. I'm sending them up to you now.

[00:13:15] Speaker 2 Thanks, Joe. So I'm on the third floor now, which is home to our School of Social Sciences, which includes courses such as psychology, criminology, sociology, for example. So just down this corridor, here we have the Office for the School of Social Sciences. This is where you can go if you've got any queries, such as needing council tax letters, for example, or just have any queries about the university if you're part of the School of Social Sciences. So I'm just gonna show you one of our classrooms now. It'll give you a good idea of what classrooms look like at BCU, but this is especially one in particular because it's our psychology research lab. And so just take you in here. So this is purpose built for our psychology students, but also gives you an idea of a general classroom. But here, as you can see, we have a two way mirror and to help with conducting experiments on our psychology courses. So I'm just going to hand over now to Joey, who's on the same floor now, and he's going to show you our school of law.

[00:14:18] Speaker 1 Well, hello there, you just caught me brushing up on my law literature. But before we go and have a look at the Mock Crown and Magistrates Court. Have a look at this city skyline right next to our city centre campus is HS2 is construction and it's one of the biggest construction works in the country going on. And they're going to be connecting cities far and wide with a really fast train, which is really useful. You can see full ring. We've got a great shopping centre in Birmingham as well, but you could just see the hustle and bustle of what Birmingham is like at the moment, and I love it as a city. And so we're now going to have a look at the magistrates and mock trial court, so if you want to come with me. But before we dig upstairs, it's the English and law offices. So if you're studying here and you have any questions about your studies or if you need to get something like a council tax law, that's the place to go. But this is the mock trial court. So come with me and I'll show you about so what's great about these learning facilities is that they are engaging and they're all so immersive, so they are as if they are in real life. So you've got the jury stand over here where the jury would sit. You've got the defence and prosecution attorney places for them to sit as the lead where the judge would would sit. And you've also got a witness stand as well. So as it would be in real life, really engaging. Really nice, really great. So I'm going to show you now is next door the magistrate's court. So come with me again and we'll go and have a look. They're really great places to do interactive learning, which is great. Mimicking the top levels of the British justice system. So if you come in here again, is as it would be in real life, I'm going to I'm actually going to sit this time where the judge would would be. Here they. Here they are. But yeah, these are the facilities. They're great and that's the city centre campus. Done and dusted. So yeah, have a really great rest of your virtual open day, and I hope you enjoy your subject sessions.