After working for some years as an architect, I decided it was time I got global exposure and a professional degree in Landscape. My first choice was the University of Sheffield as it is the alma mater of one of the pioneer landscape architects in India, Professor Mohammad Shaheer.
I was ecstatic when I received the news of winning the Department of Landscape Architecture 50% Scholarship in 2017. This, along with another scholarship offer for Indian students at the university covered the lion’s share of my tuition fees and helped me travel from India to the U.K. for the first time.
I fell in love with the city almost immediately. Everything was not super smooth but Sheffield felt like the perfect place to study Landscape, with the Peak District within half an hour from the city. The city is safe, friendly and welcoming for all students.
In the first year, most modules involved studying outdoors, which is important for a Landscape student. The Cultural Studies and plant walks were something I enjoyed much in my first semester. Sheffield has an accomplished group of immensely dedicated teachers and professors. My tutor and advisor on my special project and dissertation, Andrew Clayden, has been a great influence. His teaching and advice is something I will cherish throughout my life. As for my classmates, there is such diversity in the batch with people from different ethnicities, professions and skill sets.
Open doors
Studying at Sheffield opened numerous doors for me. I was tutored and guided by many stalwarts in the profession such as Nigel Dunnett and Adrien Gueze, principal landscape architect at West 8. I also got the opportunity to do an internship in the award-winning firm, Urban Wilderness, in my first year. I received the Erasmus Grant in 2018 in my second year and got to study and experience a semester in The Netherlands. This year in June, I got another opportunity to participate and exhibit in a long border design competition in the RHS Flower Show in Chatsworth along with my classmates. The feeling actually was inexplicable when we received the silver medal. It was such a memorable experience seeing our design and work being experienced by thousands in the historic Chatsworth Estate and displayed on the background of the magnificent Chatsworth House.
Now alongside writing my dissertation I am also working part time in a landscape design studio and will enter into a long-term contract after my course ends. Writing my dissertation on ‘Practice of reservation of existing trees in urban areas’ had given me perspective as to how much my approach has changed in these two years with respect to landscape architecture as a profession and its potential. I hope that my experience at the University of Sheffield will enable me to create a positive and necessary impact on the social and public realm in the future.
Pranabanti Karmakar is a second-year student of MA Landscape Architecture at the University of Sheffield , the U.K.
