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English and Creative Writing at University of Portsmouth - UCAS

Course options

2025 - 2026
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There are other course options available which may have a different vacancy status or entry requirements – view the full list of options

University of Portsmouth has participated in the Teaching Excellence Framework. These ratings were awarded in 2023, for four years.

Open days

7Dec
University of Portsmouth Open Day
Undergraduate

Course summary

This is a Connected Degree Portsmouth is the only University in the UK with the flexibility to choose when to do an optional paid placement or self-employed year. Either take a placement in your third year, or finish your studies first and complete a placement in your fourth year. You can decide if and when to take a placement after you've started your course. Overview Take your love of literature to a higher level and refine your writing skills with academic rigour on our English and Creative Writing degree course. Explore literature through an academic lens in theory and in practice, enhancing your understanding of each through participation in the other. You'll learn to analyse literature as a critic, historian and linguist, and from the perspective of future creators, storytellers, playwrights and poets – all of which will transform your writing skills. Develop techniques for producing short stories, poetry and plays, and learn to dissect, critique and perform your own writing. By the end of your degree, you’ll open up professional career paths and postgraduate routes eager for writing and literary expertise, including editing and publishing, teaching, and broadcasting. Course highlights

  • Take part in Portsmouth's annual Comic Con for the latest developments in creative writing and literature, popular culture, fan communities, and technology – course lecturers and students are panelists
  • Build your writing portfolio by contributing to our course blog The Eldon Review and our local news zine Star & Crescent
  • Contribute to cultural preservation projects with staff members, such as the Portsmouth Literary Map and the Writing Literary Portsmouth blog, to enhance your research practice
  • Learn from experts in both creative writing and English literature: from published novelists and industry-active writers, to renowned specialists of 19th to 21st-century literature and culture
  • Gain valuable professional experience by taking an optional placement
  • Spend a year or a semester studying abroad to discover another culture and way of learning
  • Take advantage of our extra-curricular Institute-Wide Language Programme to improve your linguistic skills and earn credits
Careers and opportunities An excellent writer and speaker will prosper in a vast field of career opportunities. You’ll graduate from this course with outstanding writing and speaking skills, as well as proofreading and grammar proficiency. All of these qualities will help you from the moment you write your first job application. You’ll also have developed excellent skills in imagination, empathy, and research, which are valuable assets to any employer. Graduate areas Areas graduates from our Creative Writing courses have worked in include:
  • creative writing (prose, poetry, script)
  • advertising and marketing
  • arts and events management
  • local and community broadcasting
  • teaching
  • stand-up comedy
  • travel industry
Graduate roles Roles graduates from our Creative Writing courses have gone onto include:
  • novelist
  • poet
  • playwright
  • teacher
  • copywriter
  • journalist
  • theatre manager
  • editorial assistant
Graduate destinations Some of our graduates have landed spots in big companies and organisations, including:
  • BBC Radio 1
  • Red Magazine
You'll get help and support from our Careers and Employability service in finding your first role and for 5 years after you graduate.

Modules

Year 1 Core modules in this year include:

  • Body Politics (40 credits)
  • Telling Tales (20 credits)
  • The Short Story: Murder, Madness and Experimentation (20 credits)
  • Tips, Tricks, Techniques (20 credits)
  • True Stories (20 credits)
There are no optional modules in this year. Year 2 Core modules in this year include:
  • Literary Prizes and Public Acclaim (20 credits)
Optional modules in this year include:
  • Bloody Shakespeare: the Politics and Poetics of Violence (20 credits)
  • Creative Writing and Critical Thinking (20 credits)
  • Crime Writing (20 credits)
  • Dystopian and Apocalyptic Environments: Ecocrisis in the Literary Imagination (20 credits)
  • Engaged Citizenship Through Interdisciplinary Practice (20 credits)
  • Finding Form - Fiction (20 credits)
  • Finding Form - Nonfiction (20 credits)
  • Finding Form - Speculative Fiction (20 credits)
  • Press and Public Relations (20 credits)
  • Professional Experience (20 credits)
  • Puritans to Postmodernists: American Literature (20 credits)
  • Research in Practice (20 credits)
  • Screenwriting (20 credits)
  • Space, Place and Being (20 credits)
  • Student Enterprise (20 credits)
  • Women's Writing in the Americas (20 credits)
Placement year (optional) Have the chance to do a CV-boosting work placement year after your second or third year on this Connected Degree - we're the only UK university to offer flexible sandwich placements for undergraduates. Year 3 There are no core modules in this year. Optional modules in this year include:
  • Advanced Screenwriting (20 credits)
  • Consuming Fictions: Food and Appetite in Victorian Culture (20 credits)
  • Creative Writing Dissertation (40 credits)
  • Dissertation (English Literature) (40 credits)
  • Finding Form - Fact and Fiction (20 credits)
  • Holocaust Literatures (20 credits)
  • Magical Realism (20 credits)
  • The Gothic (20 credits)
  • Time, Temporality, Contemporary Fiction (20 credits)
  • US Masculinities (20 credits)
  • Writing Project (With Publishing) (20 credits)
We use the best and most current research and professional practice alongside feedback from our students to make sure course content is relevant to your future career or further studies. Therefore, some course content may change over time to reflect changes in the discipline or industry and some optional modules may not run every year. If a module doesn’t run, we’ll let you know as soon as possible and help you choose an alternative module.

Assessment method

You’ll be assessed through:

  • short stories
  • a novel in progress
  • a screenplay
  • a collection of poems
  • a video production
  • presentations
  • reports
  • a research portfolio
  • examinations
  • dissertation/project
You’ll be able to test your skills and knowledge informally before you do assessments that count towards your final mark. You can get feedback on all practice and formal assessments so you can improve in the future. The way you’re assessed may depend on the modules you select. As a guide, students on this course last year were typically assessed as follows:
  • Year 1 students: 8% by written exams, 17% by practical exams and 75% by coursework
  • Year 2 students: 8% by written exams and 92% by coursework
- Year 3 students: 100% by coursework

How to apply

29Jan

This is the deadline for applications to be completed and sent for this course. If the university or college still has places available you can apply after this date, but your application is not guaranteed to be considered.

Application codes

Please select a course option – you will then see the application code you need to use to apply for the course.

Points of entry

The following entry points are available for this course:

  • Year 1
  • Year 2
  • Year 3

Entry requirements for advanced entry (i.e. into Year 2 and beyond)

We welcome applications for advanced entry. If you’d like to apply for advanced entry, you need to select the required year when you complete your UCAS application.

Entry requirements

Qualification requirements

Additional entry requirements

Portfolio

Applicants without a relevant subject or experience will be asked to provide a portfolio to support their application.

English language requirements

TestGradeAdditional details
IELTS (Academic)6English language proficiency at a minimum of IELTS band 6.0 with no component score below 5.5.
Cambridge English AdvancedCambridge English: Advanced (CAE) (taken after January 2015). An overall score of 169 with no component score less than 162.
Cambridge English ProficiencyCambridge English: Proficiency (CPE) (taken after January 2015). An overall score of 169 with no component score less than 162.
PTE Academic62An overall score of 62 with a minimum of 59 in each skill.
TOEFL (iBT)7979 with a minimum of 18 in Reading, 17 in Listening, 20 in Speaking and 17 in Writing.
Trinity ISEPassTrinity College Integrated Skills in English (ISE) Level III with a Pass in all 4 components.

Student Outcomes

Operated by the Office for Students
55%
Employment after 15 months (Most common jobs)
95%
Go onto work and study

The number of student respondents and response rates can be important in interpreting the data – it is important to note your experience may be different from theirs. This data will be based on the subject area rather than the specific course. Read more about this data on the Discover Uni website.

Fees and funding

Tuition fees

EU £9535 Year 1
England £9535 Year 1
Northern Ireland £9535 Year 1
Scotland £9535 Year 1
Wales £9535 Year 1
Channel Islands £9535 Year 1
Republic of Ireland £9535 Year 1
International £17200 Year 1

Tuition fee status depends on a number of criteria and varies according to where in the UK you will study. For further guidance on the criteria for home or overseas tuition fees, please refer to the UKCISA website .

Additional fee information

Students who are resident in EU countries: please note that the net fee is inclusive of the Transition Scholarship Placement Year and Year abroad (at the time of publishing for 2024/25): UK/Channel Islands and Isle of Man students – £1,385 EU – £1,385 (including Transition Scholarship) International (Non-EU) – £2,875. Fees are accurate at the time of publishing and are subject to change at any time without notice. All fees are subject to annual increase. For more information about fees, go to port.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/undergraduate-fees-and-student-finance/tuition-fees-living-costs-and-other-study-costs
English and Creative Writing at University of Portsmouth - UCAS