Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Drama and English Literature with Placement

at Anglia Ruskin University - Cambridge Campus United Kingdom

Our BA (Hons) Illustration and Animation course explores the connections between animation and illustration, helping you to create sequential narratives using a variety of methods – from traditional handmade image-making, to the latest specialist 2D digital animation, 3D CGI used in industry and cutting-edge interactive techniques.

As well as gaining strong software skills and a good understanding of animation, timings and motion, you will become an innovative and creative thinker. You will develop creative abilities, technical skills and a personal language within animation, with the focus being on illustration and design.

Within our supportive and vibrant studio culture, you will work on a range of projects from narrative animation, animated idents, motion graphics, character design, storyboarding, CGI and concept art to develop a body of work for your professional portfolio and showreel, preparing you for industry.

Perhaps most importantly, you’ll get time, guidance and support from a team of industry professionals, animators and illustrators and visiting industry experts who are dedicated to your creative development. In your final year you will also receive guidance from an assigned industry advisor dedicated to the year.

While developing a unique visual style, you’ll also focus on the core foundations: studying the world around you, refining your drawing skills, learning the fundamentals of animation skills using industry standard 2D and 3D animation software, such as TV paint and Maya and learning to create engaging stories through moving images.

You’ll go on group reportage drawing trips, with opportunities to visit museums, galleries and animation festivals in the UK and overseas. You’ll find lots of visual inspiration in Cambridge – from the Botanic Gardens to the art collection in the Fitzwilliam Museum, to the city’s architectural beauty and vibrant cultural and student life.

Experiment with methods, explore ideas and critically reflect on your practice to develop your own personal visual vocabulary. Create original children’s book projects, supported by a team of internationally-recognised illustrators.

The first course of its kind, MA Children’s Book Illustration was established at Cambridge School of Art in 2001 and is led by Course Leader Shelley Jackson. Over the last twenty years, we’ve seen hundreds of graduates publish children’s books around the world, many to critical acclaim. Students and graduates often dominate national and international awards, too.

On each module of this Masters course you’ll propose and develop a project guided by our leading team of tutors—all practitioners with a wide range of specialisms. Teaching is primarily through one-to-one and group tutorials, seminars, workshops and studio critiques, in which you will learn about relevant theories, contexts and practices. As the course progresses, you are increasingly encouraged and expected to develop your work and research independently so that you’re prepared to enter the role of a freelance illustrator upon graduation.

You’ll work in our dedicated illustration studios overlooking the Ruskin Gallery, with access to a fully equipped printmaking studio, other specialist facilities, and open access life-drawing sessions. With studio culture at the heart of the MA, you'll share and discuss your work with other students, attend course-wide lectures that will inform your studio practice, and participate in community activities.

On our Media and Communication degree you’ll develop an in-depth understanding of our data-driven society and contemporary media environment. You’ll explore issues such as digital media theory, identity and representation, politics and popular culture. You’ll learn to analyse and debate the latest theories and discover the impact of media on all our lives such as the role of ‘Fake News’ and the ethical responsibility of journalism in a 'post-truth' age.

Working in our specialist facilities, you’ll also get hands-on and engage with media production including documentary filmmaking, photography, and digital publishing; creating apps, podcasts or new online platforms.

Choose to study abroad for one semester and get funding to cover the cost, and hone your skills through work placements. You can also choose to take an optional placement year.

As a BA (Hons) Media and Communication student at ARU, you’ll be able to focus on particular areas of interest, such as social media, TV, music, journalism, popular or subculture. You’ll also have the opportunity to carry out a work placement, or produce a commissioned product, in the area of your choice as you prepare for a career in media-related roles, including film, TV, photography and social media, broadcasting, production, post-production, digital content creation and journalism.

On all of our modules, you will work with industry-standard equipment and software, including Adobe Premiere, Photoshop and After Effects.

Exciting and intriguing spaces offer experiences that make us want to return again and again.

Discover how you can embed stories into your designs – stories that help others to develop social connections and make your designed spaces important to the community.

By studying BA (Hons) Interior Design at ARU, you’ll explore the relationships between design, experience and narrative.

With our small studio groups, your tutors will really get to know you and your work, and help you become a resilient interior designer with a distinctive creative voice.

Design can reveal a lot about the people who use a space, and the community they inhabit. On our BA (Hons) Interior Design degree you’ll learn to create effective design proposals, while considering how to develop spaces that connect stories with people.

Throughout the course, you’ll be encouraged to propose design questions, such as: How can public spaces cater for multiple activities and users? How much space do we need to live in? How do major brands reinvent themselves to respond to new markets?

We think your ideas and design skills are important. You’ll develop these by working in small teams at different stages of your degree, sometimes alongside students from other creative courses.

There’s also the opportunity to get inspired on European field trips, and to study abroad for a semester – with funding available to help cover the cost.

With small studio groups, you’ll engage in a consistent conversation with your tutors too. It’s one of the reasons our Design & Crafts courses ranked 8th in the UK for 'Satisfied with Course' and 3rd for 'Satisfied with Teaching' (The Guardian University Guide 2020).

With an eye on your future career, you’ll receive ongoing support to find placements and work experience and you can also take an optional placement year.

You can see your designs become reality in live projects and foster professional relationships through Design Bench, a series of industry networking meetings.

Our BA (Hons) Television Production course has a specific focus on the television Industry. In the UK, the industry has proved to be resilient and as it bounces back post-COVID, technically competent, creative professionals specialising in TV will be highly sought-after.

Study at ARU in Cambridge, and develop your technical and creative skills in our industry-standard facilities, which include a fully-equipped HD multi-camera TV studio.

With an increase in streamed content, on-demand services and UK exports – and with innovations always round the corner – TV is the place to be.

Television and its associated internet/streaming platforms are among our most dominant forms of media, producing vast amounts of entertainment, factual and journalistic content.

The emergence of streaming over the last ten years, and the way it has shaped and transformed our habits, makes this a fascinating time to address traditional and new modes of production and distribution.

As well as developing your technical skills, you’ll look at important issues around representation, identity, and ultimately a central critical question: what is television?

Our MA Graphic Design and Typography is unique in its focus on building your graphic design practice and exploring and developing your role as visual designer and creative.

The course addresses issues including integration and diversity, behavioural change, community cohesion, and environmental challenges.

Whatever your background, you will advance your visual practice in areas that are important for design, such as concept development, communication and typographic design and textuality. You will combine this with extending your knowledge on the complexities of socio-environmental problems; insight into institutional and government structures; creative project development and management; design methods; and collaboration processes. This means you will gain the confidence to progress your career as graphic designer and have an active creative role in social and environmental change-making processes.

As a postgraduate student at ARU, you’ll have access to a dedicated base studio, along with specialist facilities such as film, photography and printmaking studios. You will receive training in creative software such as Adobe Cloud – and can access training in all our other art and creative industries facilities, too. 

Studying in our dedicated studios at Cambridge School of Art and at project locations, much of your work will be practice-based. You will take part in live projects, working with an external partner and students from related Masters degrees, as well as proposing and undertaking your own self-directed projects.

Throughout the course, you will collaborate and discuss your graphic design work with staff, external partners, visiting professionals and fellow students, giving you an invaluable opportunity to see how others respond to it. All our teaching team are practising designers, design researchers and artists, so you will hear about the latest news and issues in the industry, as well as getting access to sound careers advice.

You’ll study classic literary texts alongside genres including sci-fi and children’s literature, and find out how English literature has been affected by, and influenced, culture, language, technology and economics.
You’ll draw on a range of other subjects, including history, politics, philosophy, religion, psychology and the history of art to develop an all-round understanding of the written works that have shaped our world.
You’ll develop several skills that are valued by employers, including literacy, communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, research, and working independently and as part of a team.
Our wide range of optional modules offer you the opportunity to learn about the publishing industry, develop your creative writing skills, and gain work experience. You could also improve your CV by studying abroad for a semester or learning a new language with our Anglia Language Programme.

Our Artificial Intelligence degree course has been designed with the industry and employers in mind, meaning you have the opportunity to learn the professional skills you’ll need after graduation.

You’ll learn all about the history of AI, the systems that underpin AI and the advanced algorithms that are employed. To achieve this, you’ll be using the most up-to-date technologies including software packages and hardware infrastructure.

This course gives you the opportunity to take a placement year during your studies, where you’ll build up experience working and make industry contacts to benefit your studies and enhance your long-term career prospects.

As part of your studies with us, you will be able to access online educational resources from the Intel AI Academy and AWS Educate programme. Our specialist facilities include a Cisco and AI lab, and we use tools such as Microsoft Imagine Premium and VMware IT Academy. We encourage collaboration, so you’ll also learn through activities with your peers, and lectures and seminars from industry experts.

On our Sport and Exercise Science degree course at ARU, you’ll explore the scientific principles and techniques that underpin health, wellbeing and sporting performance.

Sports and exercise scientists can work at all levels, from the general population to elite performance – and our course prepares you for that.

You’ll study the nature of the human machine: how this operates when engaged in sport and exercise, and how to interpret and evaluate its responses.

Our students are based in the Cambridge Centre for Sports and Exercise Sciences. Here, you’ll learn to work safely and ethically as a sport and exercise scientist in our laboratories. There’s the chance to hear from world-leading guest speakers too, through our Excellence in Sports seminar series; and to take part in training opportunities, such as working as a strength and condition coach or as part of the student led Physiology testing consultancy team.

Develop your writing in a supportive and creative environment, with tips from our team of professional writers on how to improve your technique and get published.

Join a course taken by many successful published authors and take your creative writing to a professional level.

Our Masters course in Creative Writing will give you the opportunity to improve your writing by practising and sharing it with a close group of fellow writers, including specialist lecturers who are published authors.

You’ll study the most acclaimed writers of the past 200 years and discover the techniques they used to make their work stand out. We’ll give you opportunities to practise your technique in areas such as characterisation, structure and pacing, and experiment with different forms of writing.