BA

Creative Arts

Key Facts

WW48

  • UCAS Tariff

    120 - 96

  • Course Length

    3 Year

Further details on entry requirements

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This unique learning experience at Aberystwyth University allows you to follow a self-selected pathway through and across our four creative disciplines simultaneously; Fine Art, Creative Writing, Theatre, Performance and Scenography, and Film & Television, you will select a range of modules from each discipline which will include 1 cultural contexts module during the three years. As well as your own self selected suite of module options you will follow the suite of interdisciplinary core modules; Interdisciplinary Practice 1 - 6. In these modules you will work together as a group through a series of weekly practice and process based workshops towards a collective student led outcome. You will also conceive and develop a series of independent self – directed interdisciplinary research and practice projects contributing to a portfolio of 6 projects developed over the 3 year course. You will have the opportunity to exhibit your 6 projects in two public exhibitions each year, the first at the School of Art and the second at the RIBA award-winning Aberystwyth Arts Centre, staging your site-specific intervention projects in and around the centre in one of the UK’s largest Arts Centre’s and ‘national flagship for the arts’ with over 70,000 visitors a year. You will develop key skills in professional practice through the group workshops, your self-directed practice, the event managing opportunities open to the third year and the public exhibitions, giving you the skills you need to move directly into the creative industry.

Student Satisfaction and Employability Results

92% student satisfaction (NSS 2020).

The School of Art is second in the UK for teaching experience and third in the UK for teaching quality (The Good University Guide, The Times & Sunday Times 2018). 

97% of our graduates were in work or further study within 6 months, 3% more than Creative Arts and Design graduates nationally, (HESA 2018*)

Overview

Why study Creative Arts at Aberystwyth University?

  • Benefit from one of the largest Arts Centres in the UK, Aberystwyth Arts Centre.
  • Learn from practicing artists, authors, arts administrators and performers.
  • Excel with your links with the creative industries locally, nationally and internationally.
  • Experience a different culture and study in one of our partnered Universities across Europe or further afield with the Erasmus + programme or Aberystwyth's International Exchange Programme. 
  • A degree from the well-established department, the School of Art has history that goes back to 1917, making us one of only a few British Universities to be concerned with the Arts and Crafts Movement.
  • Create and learn within state-of-the-art teaching facilities; well-lit studios for painting, dark rooms, print workshops, a MAC suite, as well as lecture theatres and seminar rooms.
Our Staff

Our teaching staff are practicing professionals. As exhibiting artists, publishing researchers and curators, they provide an informed and stimulating learning environment. This ensures that the skills you learn at the School of Art are practice orientated, relevant and applicable.

For further information, visit our individual staff profiles.

Modules

Please note: The modules listed below are those currently intended for delivery during the next academic year and may be subject to change. They are included here to give an indication of how the course is structured.

Core

Module Name Module Code Credit Value
Interdisciplinary Practice 3 AR25320 20
Interdisciplinary Practice 4 AR25420 20

Options

Module Name Module Code Credit Value
Book Illustration 1 AR21820 20
Book Illustration 2 AR21930 30
Life Studies 1 AR22110 10
Life Studies 2 AR22210 10
Painting 1 AR20120 20
Painting 2 AR20230 30
Painting 3 AR20920 20
Painting 4 AR21030 30
Photography 1 AR20720 20
Photography 2 AR20830 30
Photography 3 AR21620 20
Photography 4 AR21730 30
Printmaking 1: Etching and Relief Printing AR22320 20
Printmaking 2: Etching and Relief Printing AR22430 30
Printmaking 3: Screenprinting, lithography & hybrid printing AR22520 20
Printmaking 4: Screenprinting, lithography & hybrid printing AR22630 30
Creative Documentary * FM26520 20
Creative Fiction: Horror FM20920 20
Creative Studio FM25420 20
Writing for Film and Television FM21620 20
Acting: Process and Performance TP21220 20
Contemporary Theatre in Wales * TP26220 20
Devised Performance Project TP21620 20
Directors' Theatre: Staging Modern Drama TP21820 20
New Media Performance TP23820 20
Principles of Scenography TP22320 20
Scenographic Composition TP22520 20
Television Genre FM20620 20
Theatre Design Project TP22620 20
Adventures with Poetry WR22120 20
Beginning the Novel WR20220 20
Exploring Professional Writing WL20120 20
Shaping Plots WR21720 20
Telling True Stories: ways of Writing Creative Non-Fiction WR21120 20
Writing Selves WR20620 20
Adaptation: Versions, Revisions and Cultural Renewal AH23120 20
Art in Wales AH23720 20
Art/Sound: Practice, Theory, and History (1800-2010) AH22920 20
Drawn to Order: British Illustration since 1800 AH23620 20
Gothic Imagination AH23420 20
Modernisms: Art in the Early Twentieth Century AH20520 20
Postmodernism and Contemporary Art AH20620 20
Rethinking Impressionism AH23520 20
The Image Multiplied: European Printmaking since 1400 AH21620 20
Thinking Photography? Post-Modernism, Anti-Modernism and the Politics of Identity AH22820 20
Advertising FM21920 20
Art Cinema FM24420 20
Digital Culture FM25520 20
LGBT Screens FM20120 20
Stardom and Celebrity FM21320 20
Television History FM26220 20
Youth Cultures FM22320 20
Theatre and Contemporary Society TP20420 20
A Century in Crisis: 1790s to 1890s WL20720 20
Contemporary Queer Fiction EN21620 20
Demons, Degenerates and New Women (Fin de Siecle Fictions) EN23420 20
Forms of Children's Narrative Prose EN27820 20
In the Olde Days: Medieval Texts and Their World EN23120 20
Literary Theory: Debates and Dialogues EN20120 20
Literature since 1945 EN22920 20
Place and Self EN22120 20
Shakespeare, Jonson and Company EN23020 20

Core

Module Name Module Code Credit Value
Interdisciplinary Practice 5 AR35320 20
Interdisciplinary Practice 6 AR35420 20

Options

Module Name Module Code Credit Value
Book Illustration 3 AR32330 30
Book Illustration 4 AR32440 40
Exhibition 1: Graduation Show AR30130 30
Exhibition 2: Graduation Show AR32540 40
Life Studies 3 AR31610 10
Painting 5 - Paint Directed Practice AR31730 30
Painting 6 Paint Directed Practice AR31840 40
Photography 5 - Photo Directed Practice AR32130 30
Photography 6 - Photo Directed Practice AR32240 40
Printmaking 5 - Print Directed Practice AR31930 30
Printmaking 6 - Print Directed Practice AR32040 40
Documentary Production FM33740 40
Experimental Media Production FM33540 40
Fiction Film Production FM34240 40
Contemporary British and Irish Drama TP30820 20
Contemporary Theatre in Wales * TP36220 20
Ensemble Performance Project TP35520 20
Musical Theatre Dramaturgies TP39020 20
Performance and Architecture TP33420 20
Place, Space and Landscape TP32820 20
Playwriting * TP34640 40
Advanced Scenographic Project TP35940 40
Advanced Studio Practice (scenography) TP31240 40
Kapow! Reading and Writing Graphic Narratives WR32320 20
Poetry for today WR31220 20
Reading and Writing Science Fiction WL32220 20
The Writing Project WR30040 40
Writing Crime Fiction WR32420 20
Writing and Place WR32120 20
Adaptation: Versions, Revisions and Cultural Renewal AH33120 20
Art in Wales AH33720 20
Art/Sound: Practice, Theory, and History (1800-2010) AH32920 20
Curating an Exhibition: Researching, Interpreting and Displaying AH32720 20
Drawn to Order: British Illustration since 1800 AH33620 20
Gothic Imagination AH33420 20
Rethinking Impressionism AH33520 20
The Image Multiplied: European Printmaking since 1400 AH30620 20
Thinking Photography? Post-Modernism, Anti-Modernism and the politics of Identity AH30820 20
Cult Cinema: Texts, Histories and Audiences FM38220 20
Experimental Cinema FM34520 20
Gender and the Media FM38320 20
Media Law FM36720 20
Media Semiotics FM34120 20
Videogame Theories FM38420 20
Independent Research Project TP36040 40
Theatre, Gender and Sexuality TP33120 20
Haunting Texts EN30820 20
Reading Theory / Reading Text EN30120 20
Romantic Eroticism EN30520 20
Undergraduate Dissertation EN30040 40
Victorian Childhoods EN30320 20
Writing in the Margins: Twentieth-Century Welsh Poetry in English EN30420 20

* Also available partially or entirely through the medium of Welsh

Employability

What career opportunities are the for me on completion of this degree?

Our graduates have moved on to become employees in the following:

  • Design Council
  • Arts Council
  • Tate Gallery
  • Royal Academy
  • Carlton Television
  • The Observer
  • Saatchi Gallery
  • Damien Hirst
  • BBC.

Some of our graduates are currently:

  • Secondary School teachers
  • Art Gallery Managers and Curators
  • Children’s book illustrators
  • Photographers
  • Graphic designers
  • Art directors in publishing
  • Medical Illustrators.

How does the degree prepare me for my career?

You will gain skills that are highly valued by employers:

  • Conceive creative solutions for specific problems
  • Research, evaluate and organise information
  • Clear communication both written and spoken
  • Work independently and with others
  • Time organisation
  • Self-motivation and discipline.

What work experience opportunities exist whilst studying? 

Click here to find out about the various opportunities that our Aberystwyth University Careers team offer. 

Enhance your employability prospects with GO Wales and YES (Year in Employment Scheme) managed by our Careers department. 

Learning & Teaching

What will I learn?

The breakdown below will provide you with an illustration of what you may study during the three year degree scheme.

In your first year you may discover:

  • Art practice
  • Theatre
  • Scenography
  • Fiction and Creative writing
  • Anthology.

In your second year, you will explore:

  • Fine Art
  • Film and Television Production
  • Theatre production
  • Creative writing
  • Cultural Contexts of Art.

In your third year you will study:

  • Print, Photo and Paint
  • Documentary or Film production
  • Advance Studio practice
  • Playwriting
  • The creation of texts in different genres
  • Art History
  • Your independent research project.

How will I be taught? 

Our programme is delivered through workshops, demonstrations, practicals, lectures, crits, tutorials and field trips.

Assessment if by course work – portfolio, film, performance. You will also be assigned a personal tutor to whom you may turn for guidance and help, academic-related or pastoral. You should feel free to contact them at any time for help and advice. 

Typical Entry Requirements

UCAS Tariff 120 - 96

A Levels BBB-CCC, plus satisfactory portfolio

GCSE requirements (minimum grade C/4):
English or Welsh

BTEC National Diploma:
DDM-MMM, plus satisfactory portfolio

International Baccalaureate:
30-28, plus satisfactory portfolio

European Baccalaureate:
75%-65% overall, plus satisfactory portfolio

The University welcomes applications from students studying the Access to Higher Education Diploma. Our inclusive admissions policy values breadth as well as depth of study. Applicants are selected on their own individual merits, and offers can vary. If you are studying a qualification not listed on this page, please get in touch with the Undergraduate Admissions Office for further advice. Details about the country-specific qualifications the University accepts can be found on our country-specific pages. For further information, contact ug-admissions@aber.ac.uk

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