Lily was drawn to ECA due to the unique nature of the Acoustics and Music Technology course which combined her interests of music and physics. After visiting for the first time, Lily fell in love with the city of Edinburgh. 

Since graduating, Lily now works for an environmental organisation where she carries out recordings for noise monitoring which is closely tied with the theme of her final dissertation.

Why ECA? 

I first found out about the course at my high school’s university fair and thought it sounded great, as it combined my love of music and physics. I then came to Edinburgh for an open day and fell in love with the city and immediately knew I wanted to study here. I got the chance to meet the course organisers and learn about the course in more depth, and I just really loved the range of courses that were available to me both in the School of Music and the rest of ECA.

Tell us about your time at ECA 

I probably had quite a unique experience, as my courses were split between multiple schools, including ECA. I definitely found my music courses the most enjoyable, these were the courses where I came across things I hadn’t seen before, and they were all really different from each other.

I really enjoyed how practical some of the projects I worked on were, for example the Sound Recording course where we learnt techniques for recording live music, or in the Acoustics course where we recorded and analysed impulse responses of indoor spaces.

I loved the range of courses I was able to take over the four years, especially the more creative courses, where I took on projects such as creating a piece of music by sampling another artist and using coding to create synthesised sound pieces that evolve over time by themselves. One of my favourite projects was in Interactive Sound Environments, where I learnt how to make and design the sound for a basic game, making use of sounds that I recorded myself, which was really exciting and completely new to me.

I loved the optional music courses I chose to take, for example in the course Music and Human Communication I got to choose a case study to analyse the musical communication from, and I really loved the flexibility and how I was able to pick a topic for myself.

If I could have done anything differently I would have probably used my first couple of years to explore more courses within the ECA that were not related to my degree, such as more essay-based music courses, or a performance module. I would also make sure not to leave coursework till the last minute and plan out the timescales of my projects a bit better.

Tell us about your experience since graduating

It felt very strange to leave university, as it was the first time that I did not have a plan or some specific next step I was meant to follow. It definitely was and still is very nerve wracking, and I found it hard to find motivation for what to do next, especially as I was affected by the marking strikes so had still not received a degree classification. I honestly did not have a career plan before university, I really liked the idea of doing something creatively involving music, but beyond that I hadn’t really thought anything through.

I’m very lucky to have now already found a job that I’m enjoying and is related to my degree. I’m currently working as an environmental consultant, where I’m putting to use what I learned at ECA by performing environmental noise monitoring, tying into my dissertation topic, which focused on the recording and controlling of unwanted environmental noise. I’m really happy to be doing this now, and I wouldn’t have got this job without the skills I learnt at Edinburgh university. I don’t know if this is what I want to do forever but for now I’m very happy.