Auditions

Hey all! I hope you're all well and are enjoying your time here. I know some of the third years have completely finished their lectures and only have placements and things left now. That's so exciting, I literally cannot believe how far we have all come in these three years. It's going to be completely weird when we all finish and move on with our lives. For a lot of us, we are never going to be in education again. Scary thought really.

Anyway, in this blog I thought I would write a few tips and tricks for auditions. As an acting student I do auditions a lot as part of my degree. The really good thing about the BA Acting course is that it does prepare you for the acting world and one huge part of the acting world is auditions. You will, of course, have to audition for any part you would like to get. During the your time on the Acting course you will do auditions and some audition technique classes. But I thought I would give you all a few tips and hints when it comes to auditions. I'll be mainly talking about workshop auditions and panel auditions.

So in a workshop audition the tendency for an actor is to either be too quiet and respectful of the other actors or to over compensate and be boisterous, but it's actually so important to find a happy medium. You need to be able to sit and listen while also contributing to the workshop. I have been in many workshop auditions where actors try to outshine each other and it's just not necessary. It's important to be yourself and let your skills speak for themselves. You need to ensure that any and all of your contribution is worthwhile and you're not just speaking for the sake of speaking. Listen attentively whenever is someone is speaking and try to learn people's names if you don't know the people you are auditioning with. Always be supportive of other actors, even if there is someone there that you don't get on with  you don't want that to show. Always be professional. Be smiley and open to do anything, make sure to throw yourself into whatever the workshop leader asks you to do. Don't be afraid to get silly and trust your instincts with things.

When it comes to panel auditions things are very different. You will either have to present something that they have given you or something that you prepare for the audition. Either way make sure that you know your material inside out and back to front. They may ask for you to do the speech prepared with a little direction to see how you respond to feedback, so it's important to listen to their feedback carefully and consider what they said to you and change what you've done appropriately. Make sure during the whole audition that you are warm and smiley, you need to make sure that you're friendly and be genuinely interested at what the panel have to say. I always ask how their day was and how they are just to get a conversation going. I would always thank them for seeing me as well. I just think that it's polite and it's always important to be polite in auditions.

I hope this has been helpful for any of the people on the BA Acting course or indeed for anyone who is looking to go into a career in acting. Although a lot of the time you will be turned away and you won't fit the parts that you're auditioning for it's so important not to give up and to keep on trying. Acting is such a hard career to break into, but it's all about being positive and resilient. You will get there one day.

Thank you all for reading!

Professional Practice Module

Hey all! I hope you're well and enjoying the last few weeks of uni before we all break up for Easter. It's weird that it's going to be my last Easter of driving home and working to get some money for the last term of university. I am seriously going to miss it when I leave. Carmarthen has become my new home and I don't know how I feel that these three years are almost over. 

So in between Main House and Site Specific we have a module called Professional Practice, this module aims to help prepare us for the professional acting world. I can honestly say that all the activities we've had set for us have been so helpful. I felt a little lost before doing the few weeks of workshops but now I feel like I'm so much more prepared than I did before we did the module. 

Ioan asked us to create a professional development plan (PDP) as well as a strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats (SWOT) which we would present in front of him and Dave at the end of the year after Site Specific is finished. This was something that I found incredibly useful and it made me realise how much I wanted to do stunt horse riding develop my pre-existing riding skills. Since having a tutorial with Ioan about my future and looking over my SWOT and PDP, it's made me so keen to start doing more work on my riding and attempt to get some stunt riding qualifications which I never would have considered doing before. 

We had a chat with Simon Curtis, the man in charge of Wales and the South West when it comes to the acting Union, Equity. That was super helpful when it came to knowing our rights and how Equity works. They ensure that all actors get paid a minimum amount of money, it makes it easier for us to make sure we're being paid what we need to be paid and not taken advantage of. If we are a member of Equity and something goes wrong they can sort it out. Being a member also means that you have insurance incase anything goes wrong on set or when delivering a workshop. These are some things I had no real clue about so it was super helpful to learn all about Equity.

We also had a talk with the head of careers who gave us some advice on creating a CV, an actors CV and how to behave in interviews. He gave us a few really good tips and tricks when it came to personalising CVs for different jobs and things like that. We also had a brief meeting with Sally Hewes who gave us an idea about what it would be like to be self employed and how to start up our own business which was very helpful.

Ioan also spoke to us about the new trend of self tapes and brought the creator of Cut Casting a new website like Spotlight which allows you to audition for parts via the use of self tapes. This gave the whole of the third year the opportunity to sign up to this website for free with a lifetime membership which was awesome. If you're interested in this website I'll link it at the end of this blog as the first 1000 get a free lifetime membership. Ioan also gave us a chance to create our own voice reel and as we had practised doing radio plays in second year so we already had some experience with it, which I was so glad about. The voice reels that we created can then go on our Spotlight accounts and casting directors can listen to them. Ioan also spoke to us about being self employed and how we would have to do our own tax returns, something that is vital for us to know about and understand. 

We had the opportunity to listen to some awesome people talk about how they got into the acting and singing industry. We had a talk by Mark Evans, a professional opera singing , his mother was Elizabeth Evans who saved The Lyric Theatre in Carmarthen town centre. We also had a workshop with Nicola Hemsley who owns and operates the circus company Organised Kaos and who had a very successful career working for S4C. 

The best part of doing Professional Practice was having the chance to meet the fantastic theatre company that is Flossy and Boo. I'll link their website at the end of the blog post so you can check out the sort of things that they do but oh my gosh, they are the loveliest girls ever. Flossy and Boo are two characters that they created so the girls real names are Laura and Anja, one amazing thing about these two is that Anja is actually a graduate from UWTSD. It was so awesome to see a really successful person who came from UWTSD. We had a two day workshop with them where we created our own theatre company and pitched it to the rest of the group. They both gave us a real insight into how you could start our own company and what commissions are. They were both so lovely and awesome to work with. I couldn't believe how amazing they were, they were so friendly and super helpful. They had created some awesome pieces of theatre and I felt so lucky to have met them and know that they will be there should I need some help and advice when I'm actually in the industry. Hopefully I'll see the two of them very soon!

I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who came and spoke to us over the last few weeks and a huge thank you to Ioan Hefin for organising it all. Special mention to Flossy and Boo aka Laura and Anja as I had the best time ever with them and cannot wait to see them again. Hopefully this gave you a little insight into what Professional Practice is like and you found it an interesting read. Until next time!

Cut Casting Website

Flossy and Boo Website

Main House Theatre

Hey all! I hope you've been having a good second term here at UWTSD. I literally cannot believe that the second term of university is over and I only have a few weeks left here. I'm totally going to miss being here so much. I feel like UWTSD is my home, it's going to be so strange to be out in the big wide world soon. Anyways, I thought I would give you all a little insight into what the Main House Theatre module is like in third year.

Instead of a workshop audition this time we did an audition in front of a panel, on the panel was two of the directors, Ioan Hefin and Peter Doran, as well as Lynne one of the lecturers on the course. We had to do two contrasting monologues that were modern, we also had to write down our top two choices of shows and why we wanted to do them. The audition wasn't as stressful as I initially thought and I actually quite enjoyed it. 

There were four main house shows this year:

The Elephant Man - Directed by Peter Doran, shown at The Torch Theatre at Milford Haven

Animal Farm - Directed by Ioan Hefin

Our Country's Good - Directed by Suzanne Phillips 

Gwaun Cwm Garw - Directed by Carri Munn

I was cast in my first choice, Animal Farm, which I was so excited about. It will be Ioan's last show directed here at UWTSD and I love the book so much. I was so glad to be cast in a show that I was so passionate about and that had so much relevance to society today, what with the Brexit vote and with Donald Trump being elected as President of the United States. We were given our research tasks and we started rehearsals a week after The Elephant Man. 

We weren't initially cast in any parts until about the fourth day of rehearsals. Before then we read through the three different adaptations we were looking at, then deciding to do the Peter Hall version, we also analysed the script and looked at our tasks that we prepared the week before hand. One of the tasks we had to create music to one of the songs that was in the script, that was probably my favourite task, bar doing a monologue as a different animal. I was cast as Mollie, a pretty white mare, a hen, a cow and Napoleon's Dog.

We were lucky enough to have a third year BA Dance student, Sean, help us as well. This show was the first time that all three courses (Dance, Design and Production, and Acting) have been in collaboration together which is something we were all really happy about. Sean warmed us up every morning for an hour to help build our strength and stamina and although it was so tiring at times, it really helped us in our performances. I think without Sean we would have found it very hard to be that physical for the whole time while we were performing.

Although there were some parts that had a lot of lines and some parts didn't have as many, we were on stage pretty much all of the time so it didn't matter that much if you didn't speak as much you still had something to do. As we were on stage all of the time our rehearsal schedule was super busy, we were in 9-5 pretty much every day which was exhausting for all of us physically and emotionally. 

We all had to make sure that each animals physicality was clear so the audience knew what animals we were playing. There was only about four of us who had only one character to play so it was so important for us to have a clear physicality and vocal quality so that the audience didn't get confused. That was quite difficult for me because there were times when I literally had to switch between different characters so quickly. 

In order to do this we all had to research our animals very carefully, we watched so many videos of animals and their behaviours. We also had a trip to Manor Wildlife Park in Tenby which the whole cast enjoyed. We observed the animals there and took notes to see how their physicality could be filtered into our characterisation. We were unsure for a while as to whether we were going to be on two legs or on all fours and after some experimentation with crutches we decided that two legs would be better and easier for us to do. 

We all had to work collaboratively to create the animals physicality and we all had to make sure we were clear on the differences so that any one of us could switch and play a different animal at the drop of a hat. This was hard for us at first but with the help of Sean and the wonderful direction of Ioan we all managed to pull it off effectively. 

Ioan was very clear from the offset what he wanted to get across with this piece. He was so passionate about the message and what he wanted us to portray on stage. We had regular chats about what was going on in the world and how disconnected people are to what's going on. We spoke about how meat gets to our table and why some people don't seem to care about where it comes from. A lot of people in our cast had their eyes open, mine included, about what was happening in the farming industry, many people decided to go vegetarian or vegan from watching the things we had to and from the discussions.  

When we were cast in this play none of us thought that we would have to sing or dance as we didn't have to sing in our audition. But as we decided to do the Peter Hall version there were a lot of opportunities to sing and do a bit of movement. Luckily two of our cast members, Rosey Cale and Charlotte Edge, were very good at putting their original music onto the lyrics that were already existing in the play. They created their own original tunes to go along with the songs and they taught us them. We didn't have any accompaniment to the songs, we just sang them all acapella as Ioan just wanted the music to be more raw and have a little bit more of an impact that it would have done if we had music backing us up.It would also have looked a bit odd if a horse or a cow suddenly started playing guitar or whatever. I think it worked quite well with just us singing. Sean then choreographed any pieces that Ioan wanted movement in, my favourite of which was an awesome dance to Sugarcandy Mountain in the style of a gospel choir. This show also gave me the chance to have my own solo, something that I had never ever done before in a show. I had sung before but I never had a solo in front of such a large audience and I was so nervous about doing it. I think I pulled it off... well at least I hope that I did. 

I have to say, the show wouldn't have had the impact that it did if we didn't have the amazing Design and Production students designing and organising every technical thing to do with our show. Alice Walker did a fantastic job at designing the whole of our set, our costume, our hair and every tiny little detail about the show. She and Ioan worked collaboratively on the concept of us being in an abattoir and having us all in scrubs, I have to say I think she did an excellent job on the whole visual concept behind Animal Farm. We also had the talented Ben Males who created all of the AV for the show, he spent upwards of 300 hours creating his own version of the Animal Farm game and working through it all and making it work. He basically did what he calls a cheating version of stop start animation. He did an absolute amazing job at it. I couldn't believe what he came up with and how amazing it looked. He worked so incredibly hard to create the AV, I certainly couldn't do it. He did a fantastic job, I cannot sing his praises enough. We have such talented DP students here with us at UWTSD, I feel so grateful to be around them and to be able to work with them. I can't forget to mention our fantastic stage manager Prunella Marsh. She organised all of us and was so helpful and calm at all times. She brought us all together and ran the whole operation. We would have been so lost without her. She was brilliant. I cannot sing our DP's praises enough. Unlike us, they worked on three shows at once which meant that they were always so busy, but they totally pulled it off. It might have meant late nights and early starts but they managed it. I'm so proud of them all and they should be proud of what they've achieved too.

Although pretty much our whole cast was ill in some way or another we managed to do our three shows and we were all so proud of what we created. I would like to thank everyone who came and supported us in the show, it means so much to all of us that people would take time out of their day to see us and laugh and clap. We had the best audience anyone could ask for and we all appreciate it so much. I hope everyone who watched Animal Farm enjoyed it.

I would also like to thank our director Ioan Hefin for casting me in this and giving me such a fantastic opportunity to make something great. I know I was a handful at times, but I will be forever grateful for your patience. You made this show wonderful and so unforgettable, I will never forget this experience and feel so blessed to have had you as a director. Good luck in everything you do. 

Thanks guys!!

Photo credit to Jennie Caldwell 

It's Not Too Late

Hey everyone,

I hope everyone is well and enjoying being at university or indeed looking forward to coming to study with us here at UWTSD. I know for a lot of people these next couple of months can be stressful while you're waiting to hear back from universities and weighing up the different offers that you receive. 

There will, of course, still be some of you who want to go to university but haven't yet applied. There is still time to do so! Here at UWTSD we offer a wide range of courses over three main campuses. Our three main campuses are in Swansea, Carmarthen and Lampeter. I currently study the BA Acting course on the Carmarthen campus and am in my final year. We have two other smaller campuses as well, an academy of voice in the heart of Cardiff as well as a campus in London. Go on our website which I will link at the end to have a look at some of the brilliant courses that the university has to offer. If there's anything that takes your fancy or that you are interested in you can still apply!

UCAS Extra runs from 25th February until 4th July and are for applicants who have made their initial five choices and were unsuccessful at getting any offers OR declined the offers they have received. On 5th July Clearing begins and this ends on 20th September. This is the time when universities will offer up any spaces they have left on their courses. 

If you are still considering going to university I would highly recommend looking into UWTSD. Here, you're a name, not just a number. The lecturers are all so friendly, knowledgeable and helpful. We also have such an awesome team working at Student Services who are willing to help you whenever you need it. All the staff are so understanding and want you to do the best that you possibly can do. Here at UWTSD there really is a personal learning and teaching environment. I know if I had any issues a number of staff members would go above and beyond to make sure I was supported. There are also so many opportunities to join clubs and societies including an LGBT+ society and many sports teams such as rugby and hockey.

I'll leave a link to the UWTSD Youtube channel so you can look at what other graduates have said about studying with us here at UWTSD as well as the university's website so you can look at the type of courses on offer. 

UWTSD Youtube Channel

It's Not Too Late Youtube Link

UWTSD Website

Touring Theatre

Hey All! I hope you've all been enjoying university here at UWTSD, I've been so incredibly busy this term with being in a touring show. I can't believe the first term of university is almost over! It's gone by so quickly. But I thought what I would do today is give you guys a little insight into what you do in third year in terms of the module Touring Theatre.

We started off the module with two days worth of audition workshops. One that was mainly improvisation based and the other were we dealt with actual pieces of text and script. This allowed Dave and Lynne (two of our lecturers) to cast us in the show that they felt would most suit our skills and would enable us to develop them further. I think the most nerve racking part of the audition was having to sing in front of everyone. The good thing is that we've all had singing lessons before from the wonderful John Quirk who takes us for Musical Performance in the first year. So we were all used to having to sing in front of everyone which made it a whole lot easier. If a lot of us had been asked to do that in first year a lot of us, myself included, would not have had the confidence to do so.

There are four touring groups this year, two of which were devised pieces. The four pieces were:

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? - Directed by Lucy Rivers. This show was about marathon dances in 1930s America.

No help, no fix, no save - Directed by Jain Boon. This was a devised piece about care leavers and the care system in the UK.

Deepcut - Directed by Eleanor Shaw. This show was about the death of  Private Cheryl James, as well as three others who died in Deepcut army barracks between 1995-2002 from gunshot wounds.

A Verbis ad Verbera - Directed by Ioan Hefin. This show was a devised piece in response to the world of 2016. This piece contains many different languages. 

I was cast in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? which I was so excited about. It was the show I most wanted to be in. We were given our directors tasks for over the weekend and then rehearsal began.

The first week we spent analysing the script and the characters within it. This was so helpful when we were actually cast because we knew each individual character journey and how we, as a company, wanted each of them to be portrayed and shown throughout the piece. When we had exhausted all sorts of script analysis and having ago at staging some of the scenes we were cast.  I was so glad to be cased as Mary Hawley, a taxi dancer who ends up marrying her dance partner Vee in the show. 

The good thing about this show is that most of the parts are really equally weighed so it meant that pretty much everyone had the same sort of lines. Everyone was off book pretty quickly which made the process much easier to do. We didn't have our scripts in our hand too long which would make it harder to experiment and work with. 

We were really lucky with our director because Lucy liked to work in a real collaborative way, if there was ever a problem in the show that needed to be solved, she would ask the cast and crew as a whole if we could come up with any solutions. I feel so privileged to have worked with her. Lucy has her own theatre company called Gaggle Babble and she was a very talented musician and singer which helped when finding the chords for certain songs and helping us all with harmonies for the songs we sang. We had a bit of a live band with some of the songs we sang with helped create a really awesome atmosphere and transported you back to the thirties. 

We were also very lucky to work with two amazing DPs who designed the set, sorted out sound, LX, costume and props. We wouldn't have been able to make the show as brilliant as it was without their support and guidance. They ensured that our set was amazing, that our props were authentic and that everything we wore suited the times.  Things must have been incredibly stressful at times for them and we tried to be as helpful as we possibly could but I cannot get over how much THEY achieved in a few short weeks. 

The rehearsal period for the whole show was five weeks, one of which being the first week where we analysed the script, and the final week which was production week where we did tech and several dress rehearsals. So we really only had three weeks to pull everything together and I think we did an amazing job. It makes such a difference being in a company that works well together and all support each other. Those five weeks of rehearsal were not easy at times, our feet would hurt from dancing, our voices would be hoarse from singing, our bodies would be tired from working 9-5 but I'm sure we can all agree it was worth it. 

We all learnt some amazing new skills from doing this module. We learnt how to pack and unpack a van full of set, as well as being able to set it all up, warm up our voices and get into costume within one hour, then take it all down again in an hour. We were taught how to independently reflect on what's going on around us in the get ins and get outs in order to make them efficient

as possible. We did have a lot of set but we all worked so well as a team to get it up and working ready for that beginners call.

We always knew our touring week would be difficult, we didn't have a single day off and most of our call times were quite early. We had seven shows to do in five days and we wanted every single one of them to be perfect. Our hardest two days were Tuesday and Wednesday as we literally did four shows in about 30 hours, with a call time on Wednesday of 6:15 to go up to Aberystwyth ready for a show at 9, having finished our get out at about 10:30 in the Parry Theatre the night before. Everyone was on edge for those two days, but then something happened that made up for it. Previously, our Thursday plan was to perform in the Parry Theatre, but due to popular demand we moved it to a larger space: The Halliwell Theatre. This presented as a bit of a challenge as we had to reblock a few things, before the show was always played on a thrust stage rather than head on. So we all came in a few hours earlier than we needed to in order to sort all of it out. That show went exceeding well and we ended up having an audience of over 90 which was fantastic! 

Friday was our last show in Llansteffan and we were unsure as to how many people would actually come and watch this performance. However, we did have a really good audience, mainly of elderly ladies and gentlemen, but the best part of it was, they sang along to quite a lot of our songs! We never expected them to, but as it's their sort of era of music they knew all the lyrics and we had audience members singing along to us which was an amazing experience. 

As a year we were so lucky with all of our directors, they're all amazing individuals with such a good vision for their pieces. They Shoot Horses, Don't They? and No Help, No Fix, No Save may be over but Deepcut and A Verbis ad Verbera are still to come. So keep a look out on my Twitter as to the dates that they will be in the Parry theatre. I'm really looking forward to seeing these two pieces, they look awesome and I'm certain they will be spectacular. Touring theatre will always be something I hold dear to my heart, and I am so proud to be a part of this show. Lucy was a fantastic director and I really hope I get to work with her again sometime in the future. 

I'm just going to round this off to say a huge thank you to everyone involved in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? I have enjoyed every single second of it. Without all of the hard work of the lecturers, crew, cast and our fantastic director this never would have been the wonderful experience it was. Also a huge thank you to all the venues for having us and for every single audience member who made touring this show so awesome. Thank you so much guys!

Photo credits: Jennie Caldwell

Tips for First Year Actors

Hey guys! I hope you have all had a good first week with us here at UWTSD, I've seen a couple of you around and you seem to be having so much fun. This Freshers has been amazing and I hope you have all been enjoying it as much as I have. So in this blog post I want to give all my first year Acting buddies a few hints and tips in terms of getting through first year that I wish someone had told me. I've consulted with other people in third year and they all agree that these things are super helpful and important for you to know, so let's get stuck in!

If you're on time, you're late

The lecturers will reiterate this so much throughout your time here at UWTSD so it's just something I thought I should mention too. It is imperative that you turn up early for lectures. If you're on time, you're late. The reason why they do this is to help you get into the habit for when you go out into the real world of acting. Get to your lectures at least five minutes early, I tend to be at least fifteen but that's just me. Just make sure that if you have a lecture at 9, you turn up at 8:55 or earlier. Also, never, ever be late. They most likely will not let you in the lecture if you are late. If you cannot come to a lecture due to sickness or other circumstances email the lecturer apologising and explaining why you cannot come. You must then catch up with all work that occurred in the lecture as well as the study tasks set. 

Read the plays given

In one of your modules, Theatre Styles, you will be given plays to read every couple of weeks. It is so important to actually read the given play rather than just a synopsis. Dave will know if you haven't and it really does show through during the lecture. A lot of us in first year got into reading groups and read it aloud which was really helpful. 

If unsure, ask!

I know this seems like a pretty obvious one, but things are done a little differently here than in college or Sixth Form, so it's so important to ask if you're unsure about something. The lecturers would prefer to clarify something with you rather than you getting confused and then being unable to complete the task.

Be Open and Willing to Learn

There are going to be a few things on this course that you're not going to be 100% comfortable with. For me, that was singing and doing movement, but in order to improve and widen your skill set as an actor you have to be open and totally willing to learn and try new things. Not everyone is an amazing singer, and that's something I learnt in first year, however, you can improve so much over the course of a year. In first year I cried every single time I had to sing, I just got overly emotional about it, but now in third year I'm totally comfortable with it.

Support Fellow Performers

This is such an important one. In the end of first year you will be doing a show that will run for two days, you will want people to come along and support you in this show. However, don't expect second and third years to turn up if you can't be bothered to support them and come along to their shows and presentations. It is vital to see as much live theatre as you possibly can, and therefore you need to go and see the third year shows. I have seen every single third year show when I was in my first and second year because I felt like it was my duty to go and support them. It is your duty to do the same. The lecturers will take note of who cannot be bothered to turn up and support the older years and it's reflected badly on you if you do not. This is also important in class to be supportive of fellow actors, you will not be a better performer if you bring others down and constantly criticise and belittle. Always clap after someone performs, always be supportive of other actors, even if there is personal problems between you. You are one big family, make sure you always look out and support each other.

Manage Your Time

In first year it can be super hard because you are juggling six modules at the exact same time. With this being said it is so important to manage your time effectively and appropriately. I see it time and time again when people don't manage their time effectively and then have to do an all nighter or two to get all of the work finished. Do not be this student. While it is important to socialise and get the most out of that side of university, it is also so important to keep on top of your work load. Complete the study tasks set as soon as you're given them, and always write up your notes from the lecture in your process workbook and reflect on your learning. Process workbooks can be so hard to write, believe me, I've had two years of writing them, but the quicker you get use to sharing your thoughts and evaluating yourself and your learning the easier it will become for you. You do not want to be stressing because you're three weeks behind on your process workbook and can't remember what you did. The sooner you get it done, the sooner you can go out and socialise.

If It Gets Too Much, Talk To The Lecturers

Dave, Lynne and all of the other lecturers may seem super scary, but they're really not. They are pretty much the loveliest people you will ever meet and will always be there to help you and listen to any problems you have. That's the same with all over lecturers you have. They all want you to do well and succeed. If you get too stressed or too worried about the course please, please go and talk to them. They have most likely heard it all before and know how to help you with your problems. That's the same with me, if you want any help or need some advice, I am always here. It's so important to talk and be open when you're finding things a little tricky. It means that they can put things in place to help you. The amount of times I've sat in Dave's office and spoken to him about my problems and worries doesn't bear to think about, but he is ALWAYS there for me no matter what. He will always fit in a little chat or meeting to make sure that I'm okay. When I was having a really tough time in second year he emailed me every week asking how I was doing and if I wanted to come in for a chat. Both Lynne and Dave want you to do well and will go above and beyond the call of duty to make feel better and help you with any problems you have.

Talk to the Second and Third Year

Again, we may seem big and scary or whatever but we have been through what you've been through and are more than willing to chat to you about how you're doing or help you if you need it. We know the best books on certain subjects and we know where to look for good audition pieces or good songs to do. It's so important to build a relationship with second and third year because then they can give you an idea of what's expected of you and give you little pointers. We are so supportive and do want to get to know you, you don't want to wait until the last term and realise we could have been amazing friends sooner.

Lastly, GOOD LUCK and break a leg with first year. It goes by so quickly and although a lot of work, it is so much fun. You'll make friends for life in the first year and wish you could relive it again and again. I cannot believe I'm in my third year now, just make sure that every single day of your degree counts. 

Packing

Hey everyone! I hope you're all well and are super excited to start UWTSD in September. Congratulations to all of you who got your results, I know how terrifying it can be to open that envelop and look at a piece of paper with letters on it, but you should all be so proud of what you've achieved over the last two years of college/sixth form and now it's onwards and upward to starting uni with us! I'm so excited to meet you all, and if you see me walking around campus feel free to stop me and say hello, it's not hard to miss me, short girl with red hair and glasses! 

So, now you've got your results you're probably starting to think about all the different bits and bobs you need to buy for the start of uni. I know it can seem totally overwhelming and like it's a never ending list of things but honestly, you'll probably pack way more than you actually need so in this blog I'm going to mention the main things you're going to want to take with you to UWTSD.

I feel like when going to uni a lot of people tend to over pack, one of my good friends literally had a van dropping off her stuff and a car full. She bought with her an extra chest of draws and a mini sofa chair, which I feel may be a little too much. I'm the complete opposite, I literally have to fit all of my stuff in my tiny little Kia Picanto, so I feel like I've got this whole packing thing down to a tee. So if you're moving in to halls this year here's some must haves that will be vital to take with you.

• Duvet, pillows and sheets, single size. So if you don't know, you guys need to take your own duvet and bed stuff with you as they're not provided. On the Carmarthen Campus pretty much all of the beds are singles so taking a double duvet probably isn't the best idea. 
• Pots, pans and cutlery. Again, these things are not provided for you so it's important to have your own pots pans and cutlery. I recommend getting the cheap stuff because there's not much point in getting loads of expensive stuff, they will get ruined, especially if you're not that good at cooking. I would also say it's probably a good idea to keep most of this stuff in your own room, flatmates tend to think it's okay to use your stuff and will probably never wash it up.
• Clothes, toiletries, towels etc. Pretty obvious one here, but really you only need to take one suitcase, which is what I did. There are washing machine facilities on campus so I would recommend only taking the things you know you're going to wear otherwise it's just space taken up in your wardrobe and drawers. 
• Pictures and happy memories of back home. When you first go to uni you can get pretty home sick, so it's important to have a few bits that remind you of home and make you feel more comfortable. You have noticeboards in your room so you can put them up on your board to help you feel better and more at home. It's so important to make your room feel homely and safe.
• Laptop/computer and maybe a small TV. Your laptop or computer is a must have a uni, you need it to complete your essays and do research. A small TV may also be a good idea if you want to watch movies or whatever while at uni. I say small because it's probably not the best idea to get a huge one as it will take up a lot of space in your room. Alternatively you can just use your laptop as a TV which is what I did in first year.
• Books. I'm a massive reader and love books, however you will have some books that you need to get for your course so it's important you purchase them and keep them somewhere safe in your room. 
• Clothes horse and laundry basket. Although there are tumble driers on site, I much preferred to dry my clothes by air because it saved me money. A laundry basket is a must have to ensure your dirty clothes don't lie on the floor until you go to wash them. 

So I think that's the most important things you need to take with you to university. A lot of people do tend to over pack so that's why I only have a few very important things that you need to take with you. Obviously there will be more that you want to take but this list is just the very basic stuff that you'll want to take with you. I hope it's been helpful!