Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Costume Design and Practice

at Birmingham City University - City Centre Campus United Kingdom

Serious about working in games? Then enrol at the industry-endorsed finishing school for games developers and artists.

Gamer Camp: Pro (MA and MSc Video Games Development) has been created in partnership with the likes of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Codemasters, Rare and Exient.

We aim to help you become the perfect recruit for development studios within the game industry, uniquely combining professional, multidisciplinary game development practice with the latest industry insights and tools.

It's a winning formula. With mentoring from industry veterans and support from leading game development teams, our graduates are prepared for success. Recent graduates are employed by companies including Creative Assembly, Ubisoft and Codemasters.

What's covered in this course?

The course was founded by Oliver Williams (Deputy Head of the Birmingham Institute of Creative Arts) and Guy Wilday, former Studio Director at SEGA Racing Studio (SEGA Rally) and Head of Studio at Codemasters (Colin McRae Rally), currently Development Director at Sony's London Studio. It was developed in partnership with the industry to provide a ‘finishing school’ that produces work-ready graduates with the practical skills they need to be successful. Many companies recruit directly from the course, giving you access to jobs that you would not come across elsewhere.

You will get specialist skills training, mentoring and support from leading game developers, the chance to develop a working game that can be published, and experience every stage of the game development cycle. You will receive real game briefs, training and mentoring from industry partners such as Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Exient, Mediatonic, Rare and Codemasters.

Working in teams in your own game development studio, you will be provided with all the software you need for the duration of the course. You will create a fully working game for a series of platforms, culminating in the development of a working PlayStation4 game prototype for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.

Professional Placement option

The Professional Placement version of the course is optional and is offered as an alternative to the standard version of the course.

This will allow you to complete a credit-bearing, 20-week Professional Placement as an integral part of your Master’s Degree. The purpose of the Professional Placement is to improve your employability skills which will, through the placement experience, allow you to evidence your professional skills, attitudes and behaviours at the point of entry to the postgraduate job market. Furthermore, by completing the Professional Placement, you will be able to develop and enhance your understanding of the professional work environment, relevant to your chosen field of study, and reflect critically on your own professional skills development within the workplace.

Black Studies is ground-breaking because it puts the experiences, perspectives and contributions of African and the African diaspora at the very heart of university education.

More importantly the aim of the subject is to break down traditional barriers and apply the work we do on campus to improving the conditions facing those who live off campus. In creating the BA (Hons) Black Studies (Criminal Justice) routeway we have taken the strengths of the Black Studies program and directly applied them to one of the most significant problems facing Black communities.

In Britain, Black people are more likely to be subject to stop and search, arrested, charged, given a prison sentence and even to die in suspicious circumstances after police contact. The situation is particularly bad for young people, where ethnic minorities represent half of all those held in young offenders institutions. None of this is new and there have been decades of campaigns and protests around the injustices in the system. The aim of this degree is to provide the context to understand the issues as well as the tools and experience to work to remedy these major social problems.

You will take Black Studies modules, which explore the history, politics and experience of Black communities as well as examining the issues in society that produce such stark inequalities. Alongside these modules, you will study Criminology-specific modules that explore the basis of, and issues with, the criminal justice system.

You will gain experience of the criminal justice system in the second-year placement. You will be encouraged and supported to find your own placement, however the course team is committed to ensuring all students have an appropriate placement. You will also be encouraged to draw on your learning and experiences to create a final year project that is applied to the real-world context.

BA (Hons) Fashion Imaging will enable you to become highly creative, innovative and employable fashion imagemakers. By effectively embracing new and traditional technologies with an open and experimental approach, you will learn how to create exciting and challenging fashion imagery.

Professional Placement Year

Every student has the option of a professional placement year, taken in your third year of study, making the course four years in total. This gives you the opportunity to gain important industry experience in preparation for your third year and significantly increase your chances of direct employment after you graduate.

Whether you are interested in developing a career in the Global Food and Beverage sector or working in the Global Hotel industry, this course will enable you to fulfil your potential.

To help in equipping you with the knowledge and skills to apply for work in the exciting global hospitality industry, the BSc Global Hospitality Management course will combine academic theories and hands-on practical experience throughout the degree, with embedded work-based learning opportunities at levels 4, 5 and 6.

You will learn how to analyse the strategies of global hospitality companies, the management of hospitality facilities (including rooms division), food and beverage management, business analytics, revenue management, emotional and social intelligence. You will be adept at understanding cultural differences, customer relationship management and global marketing strategies, in addition to a variety of other highly transferable skills.

More than many industries, those who operate in this industry are dynamic and fast-moving in order to meet the ever-changing needs of consumers. As with many industries risk assessments are necessary to anticipate the potential occurrence of crisis that need to be managed and assessed. A well-managed response to such crisis will ensure future security of your future industry.

The program acknowledges and contributes towards Birmingham’s vast industrial heritage and geographical position, maximising professional links, trade fairs and its transportation network.

What's covered in this course?

• MA Product and Furniture Design challenges perceptions around 'alternative living', exploring what else might be possible in a world already full of things.
• You’ll be prepared for a successful career in a wide range of product design-related roles.
• You will also benefit from studying in a large, diverse and dynamic postgraduate community brought together through a well-equipped workspace at our City Centre Campus.

Professional Placement option

The Professional Placement version of the course is optional and is offered as an alternative to the standard version of the course.

This will allow you to complete a credit-bearing, 20-week Professional Placement as an integral part of your Master’s Degree. The purpose of the Professional Placement is to improve your employability skills which will, through the placement experience, allow you to evidence your professional skills, attitudes and behaviours at the point of entry to the postgraduate job market. Furthermore, by completing the Professional Placement, you will be able to develop and enhance your understanding of the professional work environment, relevant to your chosen field of study, and reflect critically on your own professional skills development within the workplace.

Want to study a Film Production degree? Explore the fundamentals of technology in film, from narrative, composition and film theory to camera testing, designing digital production workflows and post-production.

Like the film industry itself, BSc Digital Film Production enables students to exercise a broad range of technical and creative skills with the support of the university’s cutting edge facilities and software, including our Parkside Media Centre.

What's covered in this course?

The Digital Film Production degree course combines a study of audiovisual technologies and production processes, with contextual investigations and production experience. You’ll develop knowledge, understanding and skills relevant to the production of digital film content and to the wider film, television and video industries.

You’ll focus on fundamental technical concepts, including the physics of sound and light being recorded during production (and the tools and techniques required to do this), as well as the technology used to digitally store and manipulate both images and audio in post-production.

When you graduate, you will be versatile, technically literate, and creative: well-equipped to perform a variety of craft roles within film, television and video production and will bridge the gap between technology specialists and creative artists.

Birmingham City University is a great place to study - the city has an active and accessible film-making community, and you will be studying in the same campus as undergraduates studying a range of arts, including acting, music, photography, fashion and theatre.

You’ll also be encouraged to engage with industry, with a number of flexible paths to help you gain work experience, including: basing selected modules around work experience, taking a placement year and working on commercial productions within the University.

A law degree is an important first step into a career in law, as well as an important foundation on the route to many other careers, and Birmingham City University is a long-established provider of legal education to the Birmingham legal community and beyond.

This course has been developed to enable anyone wishing to qualify as a solicitor or barrister to undertake this first, important academic stage of their career. To achieve this, the course has been designed to align with the subjects that you will need to study further in order to successfully undertake the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE), while also meeting the requirements of the Bar Standards Board for an undergraduate law degree.

What's covered in this course?

The study of law is both academic and practical, and therefore both of these are important elements in the LLB (Hons) degree at BCU. Theory and academic study are important on an LLB, but so too is the application of that knowledge, and so our LLB (Hons) degree offers plenty of opportunity for you to develop the practical lawyering skills, as well as the transferable skills enhancing your employability, that graduates will need when entering the workplace.

The different pathways on the LLB course will allow you to make decisions regarding the direction in which you want to take your studies, with named degrees in Law with American Legal Studies, Law with Business Law, and Law with Criminal Justice, as well as a broad range of optional modules ranging from more theoretical topics through to those aimed at the practical application of the law in real-world situations.

You will also have the opportunity to put those skills to practical use, both in the local community and beyond. Whether that is through our programme of placement opportunities with local providers such as Citizen’s Advice and various legal advice charities, through opportunities in the local legal community, or via BCU’s own Law Clinic, established to serve the local community from our City Centre campus, there are plenty of options available to you.

You can also apply your legal knowledge further afield, through our US internship programme which has been placing students with attorneys throughout the US for over 20 years. A professional placement year is also available, between years 2 and 3 of the degree, offering further opportunity for you to put your knowledge and skills to practical use, and thereby enhancing your CV further.

By focussing on the development of a range of transferable skills, the course employs numerous innovative assessment methods, going beyond the typical forms of written academic assessment.

You are also encouraged to engage in extra-curricular activities to support your learning, with student societies such as the highly successful Mooting Society. Furthermore, you will have the ability to engage with the wider Birmingham legal community through our connections with the Birmingham Law Society, the largest regional law society in the UK.

With an array of contradictory information, the financial world and the capital markets specialists provide critical and innovative analysis of business and financial data to make short and long-term financial decisions.

Thus at postgraduate level the study must be integrative, blending economic, mathematical and financial theory with analytical approaches to solve complex problems and implement solutions. Finance must also be treated as international in context to ensure its relevance in the global economy. Our MSc Finance will provide you a career in the finance industry or a finance-related role more broadly such as business, major international organisation or government.

The MSc Finance degree at Birmingham City University represents an ideal choice if you wish to pursue a career in financial institutions, private equity or corporate financial management. The course is designed to ensure you gain a well-balanced understanding of modern finance theories and apply your knowledge to practical case studies throughout your learning journey.  You will gain a strong command of analytical techniques, computing and research methods for problem-solving and develop confidence in the use and presentation of finance arguments in your professional role.The course will give you the core knowledge, skills and confidence necessary to sift through diverse and often complex information, derived nationally and internationally, to make key decisions.

Want to start a career in criminal investigation? Our Criminology, Policing and Investigation University course has close ties to the West Midlands Police Force.

Our degree offers an in-depth study of policing and criminal investigation, helping you develop your understanding of criminological thought, as well as historical, political and practical applications. This course offers a varied yet focused choice of subjects through which you will be able to develop your interests within the specialised field of criminology.

What's covered in this course?

Within this course, students will explore the who, what, where, why and when of criminology. That is the understanding of who and why people commit crime, where crime takes place, and the motivations for different crime types.

This is done through a range of exciting and engaging modules which are taught by expert lecturers who are well published in the field. In this course we explore the concept of policing and how different countries have chosen to manage crime. We use a variety of trips, guest speakers and specialist workshops to give students a wide range of understanding of policing.

Specialist facilities include the interviewing suite, which allows students to simulate police interviewing environments for both suspects and witnesses, with access to tape recording and video playback analysis.

You will benefit from well-established links with a variety of external bodies, including police forces, charities, pressure groups, criminal justice agencies, criminal rehabilitation probation service and prisons.

The dynamic and fast-moving industry of investment offers wide variety of careers; it demands professionals with high level of finance knowledge, technical skills and the abilities that quickly adopt to new challenges.

The MSc Finance & Investment degree at Birmingham City University will equip you with the knowledge, skills and abilities required to start a graduate-level career and make a difference in the industry.

As the investment professionals of the future, you will gain knowledge as well as the essential soft skills like adaptability and lifelong learning skills. While you progress throughout the course, you will become more effective and creative in problem-solving. You will develop ways of analysing and thinking about investments that will remain with you in the years ahead when new and different investment opportunities become available.

Professional Placement option

You will have the opportunity to take the Professional Placement version of the course, which is offered as an alternative to the standard version of the course. This will allow you to complete a credit-bearing, 20-week Professional Placement as an integral part of your Master’s Degree. The Professional Placement will enhance your employability and transferable skills and allow you to evidence your professional skills, attitudes and behaviours at the point of entry to the postgraduate job market. These skills enrich your experience and provide an added advantage in your endeavors to pursue their future professional careers in a highly competitive industry.