Hi! I’m Mafalda, a 20-year-old girl from Portugal who’s about to join Bournemouth University to study an MA in 3D computer Animation, to add a twist to her academic life.

It’s hard for me to delimit my journey to BU, getting to where I am was somewhat of a long run, with a certain amount of obstacles, fast and slow-paced chapters.

When you’re good at, or really love something, your heart tells you it’s the path you should follow. Arts, science, sports, whatever it is, it’s calling you. Your gut tells you to dream about it, even if all odds stand against your success. In my case, it was arts. And science. And sports. I was pulled towards many things, under the hovering feeling that choosing one meant giving up on the other.

It didn’t.

After choosing, and completing, a Bachelor Degree in Informatics Engineering, something was still missing. Programming is great, computers are awesome, but you know what sounded even better? Adding art to it. Technology and art are allies. I realised animation would allow me to explore both fields – and I pretty much loved it. With no formal education in arts, my odds seemed slim, so I applied to a few courses with my fingers crossed.

BU was the first reply I got, but hesitating was no longer an option. If you’re familiar with the university, you know why! I’d never come across such a forward-thinking, accessible and wide-ranged university quite the dream offer, really. I was extremely excited to enrol.

It only really sunk in after I saw the campus with my own eyes and realised this was it, BU is the opportunity I spent years longing for. Above all, it made me realise that there’s no such thing as improbability, as long as you look hard enough and, above all, believe hard enough!