Course summary

Maker? Thinker? Futurist? Coder? Performer? Technologist? Conservationist? Designer? Interested? Our new hybrid BA (Hons) is a course for the future, where you will explore the intersection of art and design to create your career in the evolving creative industries. Many innovative creative studios now define themselves as interdisciplinary, a word which defines the fluid movement across the fields of art, design and technology. Rather than specialising in a particular creative discipline, our cutting-edge course reflects how these studios practice by exploring the intersection between art and design, with the implementation of new creative digital technologies. Our course will prepare you to be ready for employment within the creative industries by providing you with long-term creative skills to map out your creative future. With you at the centre, we will explore the intersections of art and design, providing a space where you can understand, develop and create a career in the evolving creative industries. You will develop the necessary self-awareness to question, make, play and create with others. The versatility of our experimental studio environment will enable you to explore the necessary collisions that innovative ideas creation now requires, while enhancing a range of core skills including design thinking, creative problem-solving, collaboration, communication, and making. Whether you choose to combine creative coding with foraging for natural materials, photography with artificial intelligence, or welding with audio performance, you will respond to live briefs set by real-life clients. The flexible, student-centred approach to the curriculum, informed by professional practitioners, will enable you to be imaginative, confident and convincing in designing and shaping your role in tomorrow’s free flowing, boundary free creative industries. Creative Technologies Pathway: Students who choose the Creative Technologies pathway will cover the same curriculum as BA (Hons) Art and Design, but will opt for technology-based outcomes. Students will be assessed in relation to their exploration, questioning and use of a range of contemporary digital technologies and their creative applications in relation to the module theme. Work may still embrace a sense of physicality but the focus will retain an element of Creative Technologies. This course is available as a professional placement course and we encourage every student to take their third year as a placement year (making the degree a four-year course in total).By choosing to take this route you will graduate as a highly employable, experienced professional with the competitive advantage of progressing from your work placement directly into your chosen career. You'll have work experience relevant to your career that you wouldn't have on a standard degree. Professional Placement Year This course offers a professional placement year. This allows you to spend a whole year with an employer, between the second and third years of your degree, and is a great way to find out more about your chosen career. Some students even return to the same employers after completing their studies. The University will draw on its extensive network of local, regional and national employers to support you in finding a suitable placement to complement your chosen area of study. If you do not find a suitable placement, you will be automatically transferred back to the standard, non-placement version of the course. Please note that fees are payable during your placement year. For details, visit the course page on the Birmingham City University website.

Course details