New Beginnings: Why I Dropped Out of University
Earlier this year I decided it was definitely a time for some spring cleaning. Not in the actual cleaning sense (if you saw my bedroom you'd understand!), but instead I took a big long look at different areas of my life, and where I could clear out the clutter. This meant recognising the right things to let go of, and planning new things to replace them. This all sounds rather vague, deep and meaningful, but it really boiled down to four categories: my career, my studies, my living situation, and my blog.
The biggest 'new beginning' I've made is to my university life. As you may know, I studied Fashion Management at RGU last year, but decided to defer my studies for a year for health reasons. After staying back in Edinburgh for a while with my parents and doing my fantastic internship at The Scottish Design Exchange, I realised I was finally feeling happy after the miserable time I had in Aberdeen, and that maybe the capital was the best place for me at the moment. So after much ado about nothing I got an unconditional offer to study Fashion Communications at Heriot Watt University, which I start in September! Also this Autumn I move into a brand new flat with three of my best friends, and although I won't be able to do as much with SDX as I'd like due to all the uni work, I'm really enjoying my new part-time job at Harvey Nichols in the menswear department, so job-wise, I'm pretty satisfied!
In terms of my baby blog, this year I've really started to massively revamp and rebrand. Urbanity started out as a joint venture with my friend (and new flatmate!) Sarah Ewen, but we decided to split and Sarah plans to start her own blog later on. After that change of direction, i redesigned the site, making it more streamlined, minimalist, SEO and user friendly. I also began to focus my writing on three main topics-ethical fashion/beauty, local creative/business talent, and mental health, all from an Edinburgh perspective. I think this is the most important thing, for a blog to have a USP, but also be open to new experiences, spontaneous adventures, and networking/collaborating with other bloggers. I've also started to grow my social networks, and plan content, events, promotion and finances well in advance, which has helped me become a lot more organised. At only a year old and done on a very part time basis, Urbanity has a long way to go, and I have a lot more to learn about the big bad world of blogging, but I'm so proud of how far I have come.
Photos by Erin Kerr, London, 2013