My university is held in extremely high regard within the industry. Having witnessed it first hand, I think deservedly so, and that is part of the reason I chose it over other offers, despite exceeding the requirements threefold. They push students almost to the point of breakdown, and it is relentless. Totally relentless. But that's the beauty of it for me; I have learnt more life skills in 3 years than a lot of people do over 3 decades.

Dealing with pressure, ignorant clients, short deadlines, team work (which is actually much more difficult than many think) and the art of persuasion; politics, politics and even more politics – a microcosm of the harsh realities of surviving in the competitive business world. And that's all in addition to furthering my design, analytical and theoretical skills.

There are two things though – more a reflection of the whole industry than the institution – that disturbed me whilst I was there:

I was continually prevented from designing buildings in a style such as Gothic. Every time I tried, the pressure was always to return to Modernism, without fail. As a huge admirer of the likes of Pugin, Barry, and Scott, I was upset not to be allowed to try - never mind taught - the skills that they had already mastered at that age.

I can, and do, love Modernist and Industrialist buildings too - there are thousands of elegant and beautiful examples - but the characterisation of any new, remotely classical designs as simply pastiche is condescending at best, and hugely damaging to the built-environment at worst. The criticism should be levelled at poor quality attempts of any style, rather than the style itself. After all, modernism works best when set against an historical variety of buildings or the natural variance of nature.

Everyone can appreciate the sleek crisp modernist additions to a beautiful old building (the contrast is stimulating), yet who would want to live in an entire urbanity of pure modernism? It would remove the colour from life; perhaps quite literally! It is not altogether surprising, though, that on the other hand there are many examples of urbanisms entirely based on classicism, which are admired globally; one only needs to look at the old world's capitals to see that.

The other thing was the lack of support for my attempts to re-imagine the city as a whole. Buildings should be designed from a city level as a first port of call. Architects should look at human interactions on an urban level to build a successful environment, rather than the disjointed, 'egotistical' efforts of late.

I have studied psychology in my own time, thanks to a personal interest, but why is this not a key element of architectural teaching in the first place? Surely a detailed understanding of subconscious human behaviour is absolutely intrinsic to designing human spaces? Little wonder, then, that so much of modern architecture is not loved by its inhabitants. Although they may not know it, many of their buildings are hard-wired to conspire against them.