Mohamad Safa

In the last four years, working both in architecture and sound art, I started to look into international programs that offer an interdisciplinary field of study dealing with broader research. After meeting and discovering that a number of my peers and friends have got their postgraduate and doctoral degrees from Goldsmiths, and based on the reputation of both British Higher Education, and Goldsmiths, I decided to apply. While researching for the right program, I stumbled upon a very particular course that made me more assertive to apply only to Goldsmiths, and this unique program. The MA in Research Architecture was the perfect example of a multidisciplinary course that merges theory with practice, passing along critical thinking and new research methodologies.

After being accepted at Goldsmiths and moving to London, and after the enrolment process occurring slowly, I managed to quickly familiarize myself with the campus environment, and the many events that occurred during welcome week. As a result, I started to cope with the university’s lifestyle by meeting numerous students from different fields and experienced a smooth transition back into an academic environment. This prompted to get more comfortable with the study program and courses, where ideas with fellow students and professors were being exchanged smoothly on one hand. On another level, I got introduced, in the first month of studying here, to a large amount of new academic themes and methodologies. Through a transparent interaction with professors, various and complex topics were discussed and understood through a very horizontal teaching and class management structure. In parallel, I was acquainting myself with the diverse New Cross atmosphere on one hand and London’s vibrant lifestyle on another hand. Due to the nature of my program, I found an abundance of events and public programs that are in line with my course’s topic all throughout London, which made my time here even more interesting.

After graduating, my plan is to transfer both this experience and information that I gathered here to my home country. As a continuation of my personal and collaborative practice with different local institutions, in parallel with teaching at Local universities, I’m hoping to succeed in exchanging the acquired cultural and theoretical ideas with local institutions.