Hyper Island Admission Days

Last week I attended the Admission days at Hyper Island in Stockholm for the Interactive Art Director course 2010. It was pretty neat. I booked a hyper cheap hotel quite next to the school which is a bit outside the city center of Stockholm. The whole thing started at 9.oo o'clock in the morning, after we were greeted and divided into groups the first thing to do was a creative test. Two and a half hours to identify ten common needs people have, pick one of them, explain it and create an interactive idea around it that would fulfill that need and make people happier. Great start for the first day in Sweden. My concept was based around the need of people wantng to experience new things – like trying new food. A service called 'Eat the Frog' that helped people with accquiring a new taste. It was good fun to work on.

The next step was a presentations by students who are doing the course at the moment, telling us what the school is all about. I was surprised by their methods, there are no teachers, no classes and no books. It' all about active participation and learning by experiences. It looks like there will be no spec briefs, all or most of the work done for the course will be created for real clients and have real value. After this session with a lot of questions and answers the next part was the interview process. Mine was with a current student (they always seem to involve students in everything) and an external consultant. 20 minutes with them in a room, I tried my best. The second day started with the easiest part of the process, a written English exam. Afterwards was the way more exciting part, the outside bit. Which was all about team work and self reflection. Very demanding but the best example of what the school will be like.

I think they had around 90 people there, and this was already the third round of admission days. Of all who applied only a third will be taken on. I got my result earlier this week, I got admitted to Hyper Island.