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Hello, my name's Sarah Sayce. I'm head of the School
of Surveying and Planning here at Kingston University.
I'm also a Professor in Real Estate.
My role here is to ensure that the School is vibrant,
exciting and a great place to study.
We hope that from the moment you are thinking of
coming to Kingston to the time that you graduate
and move on – either to further study or out into
a career in property or construction with the view
of becoming a planner, or a chartered surveyor –
that you have a worthwhile experience.
As head of School I am also responsible for ensuring
that we have a vibrant research community. We have a
number of PhD students here, mainly studying in the
area of sustainability and real estate.
But we also have research interest stretching across
construction right through to most aspects of the
property industry. So what do we do here at the School?
Well, at the moment we've got around about 800 students,
three quarters of whom will be studying at the
undergraduate level and about a quarter at the masters
level. We offer a range of programmes from a foundation
degree in Historic Building Conservation with our
partners at the Building Craft College which is a
unique collaboration; we run a range of undergraduate
programmes, most of which are accredited by the Royal
Institution of Chartered Surveyors and we are a partner
Institution. That means that anybody successfully
completing those programmes is eligible to enter into
practice with what's called probational status with a view
for getting fully qualified within a period of two years.
Among the programmes we offer, we have a unique one,
the only one in the world, which is Arts Market which is
preparing students to go into the exciting and
growing area of the arts industry, possibly working for
a big auction house or for traders or maybe in the
museum sector. So that's a rather unique course.
The remainder of the undergraduate programme is geared
towards the stronger markets, the bigger markets so
we have quantity surveying, building surveying,
planning and development, and real estate; as well as
another niche programme in residential property which
takes a broad view of all the aspects you might need
if you want to work in that sector.
At the postgraduate level, all our programmes
are fully professionally accredited and two of them
are accredited not only by the RICS but are accredited
by the Royal Town Planning Institute and we're very
proud of our planning programmes because they both
feature what is I think a real strength of the School
which is our interest in sustainability and sustainable
property. We've got a long reputation for sustainability
and it was in fact six years ago that we were awarded
a government grant to set up a centre for sustainable
communities, achieved by integrating professional
education. So we seek to produce graduates who are
not only knowledgeable about this new agenda but
who have developed the value sets that they want to
go out and really make a difference.
One other thing that we do in the School is we do
a lot of work to prepare students post graduation
for their final assessments to become chartered
surveyors and I think it's something like 10,000 students
who have come through those programmes – not all
graduates of Kingston obviously but all people who are
working out there in industry and want to get qualified.
But I suppose the big question for any of you is
why come to Kingston? There are a lot of surveying
and a lot of planning courses out there, why choose Kingston?
Well, what I would say is we're a very friendly school.
We've got our own area of space where you can mix
and mingle together, our reading room and our
debating chamber, and that helps to be the heart
of what we feel is a family enterprise. We have
administrators who work very closely with the academics
and we hope that all of our students feel that they have
a lot of support throughout their time with Kingston.
Another thing we try to do is very much to mix theory
and practice so every student has the opportunity to
go out on a field trip, a residential field trip and a
number of site visits. That's really important. We also
maintain very good links with our alumni, many of whom
come back and deliver lectures because it really is
important if you're taking a degree or a masters
qualification which is going to lead onto a specific
career that you do understand just what the industry
wants at the moment, so we try and integrate to you
as much as possible. It also means that all of our
programmes at undergraduate level are offered both full
time and in sandwich and the majority with a part time
mode as well so we do offer opportunities for you
to learn and earn at the same time. Again at the masters
level we try to be very flexible, we have full time and part time
and indeed we have some innovative methods of
delivery which are moving towards short block rather
than conventional in order to make sure that you can
maximize your learning opportunities but also your
earning opportunities if that's going to help you get
through your programmes.
The other reason I would say come to Kingston is
because we do offer good quality education. All our staff
are very well connected, most of them have got periods
of experience in practice, as you will see from other
Interviews, as well as academic qualifications. So we
value our research, we value our connections with
practice but most of all we value you, the student.