Jac Lewis

BA English and Visual Culture

What has been the highlight of your time at Exeter?

My third year was certainly the time that made me realise my career was set in higher education when I received the British Association for American Studies’ best undergraduate essay prize, a first class degree, a Dean’s Commendation for Exceptional Performance as well as two Art History and Visual Culture prizes all in the space of three months! I did also enjoy my time outside my academic pursuits through my student journalism and scripting dramas with the university radio station.

What will you miss the most about University?

The exciting interaction with peers and lecturers during seminars and tutorials, the freedom to dedicate time to researching, discovering and expanding new areas of interest and the opportunity to present my work to others who are supportive and encouraging. I also had the opportunity to engage with others via the radio and Exeposé and meeting people from different backgrounds and nationalities.

What did you enjoy about your particular programme?

My English and Visual Culture course at Exeter enabled me to intellectually explore freely, experiment with and integrate a wide range of separate academic fields from political science, sociology and economics to art history, aesthetic theory and film studies.

What advice would you give to current and future students?

The transition from the coherent structures and rules-oriented system of schools and colleges will be disorienting in what is very often the anxious new freedom of university. But this anxiety can be exhilarating and life-fulfilling in an academic environment where everyone is just as fretful as you are! It can (and will) spur creative impulses and academic rigour in a place where you have both the committed encouragement as well as the empathetic reassurance of lecturers and students alike.

What are your plans now that you have graduated?

After my inspiring and rewarding experience at Exeter, I shall be going further into higher education by pursuing a Masters degree in philosophy.