UCL India Summer School Student Reflections - The Creative Laboratory, New Delhi, 2024

The UCL Summer School was a five day experience held in collaboration with The British School, New Delhi. There were six pathways in total but this blog serves as a reflection space for students from the Creative and Cultural Industries pathway to share their learning and outcomes. This course was brilliantly led by Dr Tim Beasley-Murray, an expert in the field of Arts, Humanities & Sciences. Over the course of the five days, students in this pathway learnt about the core theme of ‘Creativity’ under four majors such as the strange and the familiar, Play and chance, Uncreativity and even Ethics. 

Jayditya Lodaya, Garodia International Centre of Learning, Mumbai

Going to the Summer School was a dream come true, not only did I make the most wonderful of friends but I also honed a lot of knowledge under the guidance of our excellent teacher. My favourite part about the experience has to be collaborating on the final exhibition together which revolved around topics from the classroom. Notably, I loved working on the topic of defamiliarization where we took photos of common objects from a different angle to defy their original citizenship in our world. Via this topic, I improved my critical thinking as it made me think in new unfamiliar perspectives. 

Additionally, I realised the crucial value of ‘rules’ in creativity. While exploring the central theme ‘philosophy of creativity’, I found the concept of ‘Ludus and Paidia’ quite interesting as I learnt that having a world with no rules can lead to utter chaos. This concept also applies to creativity, where sometimes having constraints or rules may lead to being creative. We exercised this concept through a series of games of Exquisite Corpse, where players take turns writing one word to a sheet of paper, concealing it before passing it to the next player. 

Above all, this experience made me realise that I have to spend my university years discovering myself. It also made me think about why not having a ‘Why Not?’ attitude (pun intended). As if you can do something, then why not?

Ishika Jain, Pathways World School, Gurgaon
“Creativity is collaboration” 

At the end of the summer school, these words echoed louder in my mind as I reflected on a week of learning and collaboration. Attending the UCL Summer School under the ‘Creative and Cultural Industries’ pathway gave me an opportunity to express my creativity in a variety of forms. This included poetry, sketching, sewing, photography, creative writing and even acting.

The course structure was designed to balance two of what I believe to be the most important aspects of learning, theory and implementation. Learning about the work of philosophers all the way from Socrates to Shklovsky helped me appreciate that our creative bent of mind distinguishes us from any other species. From conversations about ethics, habituation, uncreativity to simply lying down on the floor and observing the world around us. We were truly immersed in creativity. 

Alongside the coursework, I got an opportunity to make friends and have discussions about common interests and learn something new from each conversation. The second half of the day was always spent learning about university life. We got an opportunity to interact with alumni, current students and even the British Council India. This experience taught me to not take myself too seriously and worry less. More than anything else, my time in university must be used to explore my passions and interests and discover myself. These experiences have been key to nurturing creativity and curiosity, setting the tone for university life and beyond! 

Ose Ada Modi, Navrachana International School, Vadodara

I always imagined studying in university as a serious, highly academic process. I imagined that fun and play can only be conducted outside the classroom, in informal settings, be it the dorms or a club. Studying has to be serious. My time at the UCL Summer School India proved me wrong. Very wrong. 

It was a refreshing break from the monotony of school classes. Together we explored the philosophy of creativity. Through engaging group discussions we realised that nothing humans create is original, it is simply a distortion of what we already know. Be it drawing abhorrent portraits of my classmates or lying on the floor to listen for sounds, every exercise we undertook had a different meaning. My personal favourite was our remake of the classic bollywood film “Sholay”. Having grown up watching this movie, re-enacting it was a fun yet nostalgic experience. Through this experience, I learnt that just because something is unoriginal or a “copy” does not mean that it does not have value. Anything can be creative, as long as it starts a conversation between the viewer and the “creator”.

Apart from this, I explored what college life truly has to offer academically. I learnt that while learning is a serious academic process, it goes far beyond that. It involves play, disagreement and hours of conversation. Learning at the university level, while being technical and knowledge based, is creative and enriching. Above all, it's fun. 

Maayra Ahuja, OPG World School, New Delhi

UCL has been my dream university for what feels like a long while. While I was planning to look for UK Summer Schools, this opportunity showed up and I knew there was no going back. I think I was most excited to have found a pathway which reflected my creative bent of mind - Creative and Cultural Industries.

While the one line portraits, weaving, photographs and the writing was the fuel to my engine, what stuck with me the most was a line Professor Tim casually stated. He said “ If we do not have sense of the rules then breaking them will have no effect”; this is what defined the term creativity for me. Generally known, creativity is when you use unorthodox ways to give newness to existing ideas. What is newness if one isn’t aware about what was old; what power does breaking the rules carry if in your aware mind there are no rules ? Creativity is derived from nowhere but existing matters of the world and this realisation was a Eureka moment that came with a brand new lens to look at the world. 

Concluding this one way conversation we are having, which by the way was another sliver that stuck - “Producing a creative piece and not sharing it with the world is as good as dancing in the dark”; UCL Summer School with The Creative and Cultural pathway felt like a trailer to the movie of my future, and I am nothing but looking forward to life at university. 

Our collective time at UCL taught us more than we could imagine. Old, seemingly ragged concepts appeared glittery from the new perspectives we were exposed to. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the faculty and organisers for giving us this amazing experience.

To know more, contact us via email or on Instagram:

Jayditya Lodaya - @_jayditya 

Ishika Jain - @__.ishikajain

Ose Ada Modi  - @ose_modi

Maayra Ahuja - @maayra_ahuja