Undertaking an arts degree has long been questioned in terms of its ability to enhance the CV of a graduating student. However, from my time at Oxford Brookes University studying fine art and history of art, I now know this stereotype to be ill-informed in its establishment. I have come to realise that all the job prospects and consequent large salaries that come from studying subjects such as law and accounting, to business and engineering, could never amount to the value of personal development and discovery that I have gained at university whilst studying art.

I started my first day of my three-year study period thinking that I would be a painter for the rest of my life, and that no amount of exhibition visits or boring lectures could change my mind. How wrong I was. The lectures in which I thought I would sleep off numerous hangovers whilst sat on the back row of the lecture theatre, turned out to be a culmination of artists and academics introducing me to a whole new world of creative working, sparking my imagination to push myself beyond my known limits.

The opportunity to have a studio space at Brookes was perhaps the most valuable element of the course, for me. With areas large enough to accommodate 10 to 12 students per studio, the spaces provided somewhere that we could not only express our own creativity upon the walls and work benches, but be able to encourage and learn from each other, as we discovered our individuality as emerging artists. I most successfully took advantage of the fantastic photography facilities newly available to me when starting university, and I have since been awarded the Modern Art Oxford Platform Prize for my photography series created in the studio at Brookes. I hope this nomination will not only give me a great chance to meet important figures in the art market, but lead me on to a successful and exciting career as an artist in the future; an opportunity that I would never have had access to had I not chosen to come to university.

Now, more than ever, it is a huge personal decision to study at university at the young age of 18, and to embrace the financial and logistical difficulties that come with taking on such a decision. However, if you make the right choice in your studies, you will find an experience that cannot be valued in monetary terms, but results in the enrichment of your entire future.

I may have been born to be an artist, but I am privileged to study art.