Bucks rated Number One in the UK for Facilities Spend per Student

Number One for spend per student

Bucks New University is now rated Number One for facilities spending to support our students, according to The Complete University Guide. Why are we number one? Chances are, it's because of the very significant investment made in the state-of-the-art media hub that was built here just a couple of years ago.

The Gateway Building at Bucks has some of the best media facilities I have ever seen at a university, and I have taught at many schools and universities around the world, including CalArts, Gnomon, The University of the Arts at Bournemouth, The University of Kent at Canterbury, and the Animation Workshop in Denmark. All of them are excellent places to teach and study, but none have facilities that come close to being as impressive as the ones we have at Bucks. So what do we have to offer our media students?

Gateway - our new Media Hub, packed with facilities

To get the full picture, you need to come by and take a tour of our facilities. But, in brief, here's a summary of what's available.

free laptops for all our freshmen students

1. State-of-the-art computers and animation labs. We're proud of our facilities, which are open to our students most days, evenings and weekends. To see a tour of our animation rooms, click here.
2. A free laptop for all our freshmen. Seriously? A free laptop? Yes - we really mean it! For all our new students starting this September. This way you can work from home, and have the flexibility to customise your own workstation.
3. Free access to training videos at Lynda.com. Teach yourself pretty much any piece of software you need.
4. Green Screen facilities, and the latest camera equipment. So you can shoot live action as well as do animation.  To take a tour, click here.
5. Recording studios, to record music and voice-overs, mix sound, and do sound design work
6. A Media Resources centre where you can check out and borrow all kinds of sophisticated equipment at no charge. 
7. Motion capture facilities - we're still working on getting this up and running but we're almost there.
8. Actors, dancers, singers, musicians....you get the picture.

The reality is that Bucks teaches pretty much every aspect of creative media that you can think of. Which brings a huge range of opportunities to collaborate across course disciplines. Today, Bucks is one of the most creative universities in the UK. There is a reason why we were ranked by The Daily telegraph as one of the top 14 creative places to study here in Britain.

The best thing about Bucks is the sheer amount of creative work being done across all disciplines. As a lecturer and tutor, part of my job is encourage the animation students to seek out talent in other disciplines. Almost all great work done in our medium is a collaboration of one kind or another. Here at Uni you will find the people you like to work with. Who knows? You might even found a company together!

---Alex

For more about the experience of studying at Bucks New University, come and visit us at one of our Open Days,  take a virtual tour of one of our animation studios, check out what our students think of our course, and see why we're ranked in the top 12 creative universities in the UK. Find out why we're giving free laptops to all our students, and why we give all our students free access to videos at Lynda.com. Also, see what financial assistance might be available to you. Learn which is better for animation, a PC or a Mac? Get hold of a copy of a map so you can find your way around campus, and learn about motion capture at Bucks. And find out about how our online video tutorials work