Don’t feel pressured to live up to the expectations that others, yourself and society place on you. Don’t do things just because it seems like the correct and expected path to take. This as much freedom as you’ll ever have, so now is the best time to take a risk in your work.

The only person standing in your way is yourself. The sooner you realise it’s your own ideals making you feel trapped by boundaries the better. If you completely believe in yourself then you can have total agency over your creativity and build upon your own brand in a way that makes sense to the way you work.

Focus on what really inspires and excites you. Once you’ve found it you’ll need to learn how to continually fuel the fire, so that you’re able to challenge yourself in the real world without briefs from tutors.

Be professional and open with everyone. You shouldn’t take any of the facilities or a single person that you meet during education for granted. You never know how integral they could be in terms of building your own network post-graduation.

Be especially respectful to technicians and educators. The main difference between you and them is experience and knowledge. Stay connected after you graduate with those who you built a rapport with. Having a similar figure as a mentor could save you a great deal of anguish when you’re trying to figure out how to sustain a creative career in one of the most expensive cities in the world.

It’s really important to have an outside perspective. Get this as early as possible, even if it means simply learning how a business is run or how not to run yours. Having that experience while studying makes it far more realistic to imagine placing yourself in your future career.

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