Looking back on the past two academic years

Time flies and I’ve already spent my second academic year at Newcastle. It’s like I’ve only just arrived at the school and nine months have gone by in the blink of an eye, I think it’s because life here has been full and memorable, with all sorts of hardships but no shortage of joy, and blogging has been one of the more interesting parts of these two academic years.

After the first academic year of blogging, I had a basic knowledge of this particular way of learning and gradually became clear about how to annotate references and how to cite others’ content. While the first semester of blogging on the topics given in the course was a quick way to get us started, the second year required a change of mindset. However, it was more a case of apply

ing what we had learnt from the previous semester’s blog, including research, sourcing and citation, as well as thinking about the profession of urban design itself, and applying it naturally to this year’s blog.I think that’s why this semester our teachers trusted us to choose our own blog topics, to stimulate us to think independently about theories and fresh insights related to our major, and to exercise our ability to think positively and creatively.

Earlier this academic year, we visited Manchester, a city that is one of the more successful and outstanding examples of urban regeneration, with much to learn from, from building distribution and urban layout to transport settings and public space construction. This is where my first blog of the academic year begins.It was also through this writing that I found that through blogging I was able to more clearly summarise the key points and reflections of my learning life, and that recording the actual content of the investigation also inspired me to actively look up similar information and gain more new design ideas. This has also made me more enthusiastic about blogging itself.

Another course we are working on is the final design and thesis, which is a course where we have to choose our own topic, and at first my thinking was unclear, if I wanted to get by I could have chosen a simple and general topic, but I didn’t want to, so where should I start to make it more interesting? And once again, the writing of the blog provided me with ideas. Initially I was looking for something to blog about, and after summarising a number of topics I came across climate change as a direction to thin

k about. The impact of climate change on urban design was obviously a good topic, and through blogging I was able to flesh out the broad concept of climate change in more detail and then formalise the direction of my thesis. I feel more and more that blogging is necessary for a designer to record our thoughts, but it can also stimulate new ideas and promote active thinking.

(Image from Jiaxi Chen)

Summary

Halfway through my studies in the UK, I’m afraid that if I return home afterwards, it will be difficult for me to come across courses like blogging in China, but I will still try to push myself to record and post my thoughts and reflections on my expertise in a similar way. This not only ensures that I am up to date with the latest industry news, but also keeps my expertise fresh. Sharing my thoughts on urban design may also allow me to meet fellow practitioners with similar interests and promote the development of the discipline. And by reading these blogs years later, I may still be able to refresh my knowledge of the past.