Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Media and Communication

at Birmingham City University - City Centre Campus United Kingdom

Launch your career in the fast paced media industry, with our BA (Hons) Media Production degree. Prepare to become ‘industry-ready’ as you learn from guest speakers and industry experts. Make useful contacts and get a head start with your work placements and gain professional skills as you use our industry-standard facilities to create your media content. If you wish to make your mark in the media world, then this could be the course for you.

BA (Hons) Media Production develops the key skills you’ll need to enter the profession, alongside a range of transferable skills, which will help you gain employment in a range of careers. Previous School of Media graduates have gone onto employment in careers such as researchers, producers, editors, reporters and many more!

Highly regarded across the creative sector, our school of Media has fantastic links with industry, thanks to our blend of technical and academic studies - meaning your learning will always be relevant and up to date with current media industry practices.

What's covered in this course?

You’ll create your TV content in our four industry-standard TV studios, learning about all the important roles as you go. You’ll learn how to shoot single camera and edit on Adobe Premiere and Avid suites and develop the technical and personal skills you’ll need to operate a TV studio effectively. You’ll also learn how to develop and pitch your own ideas, a necessary skill in today’s competitive industry.

When you work in our enviable complex of six radio studios, you’ll be getting to grips with how to operate a studio, present a show, record interviews, and use digital technology to edit and mix sound. As progress through the course, you’ll put together music radio shows, short features and podcasts, with the ultimate aim of running a live radio station at the University.

A truly stimulating course, which will immerse you in the practical aspects of program-making and content creation You’ll have ample opportunity to make documentaries, dramas, music shows, and studio programs for both television and radio.

Throughout your time with us, you’ll be supported by academic staff who have years of experience in the broadcasting sector, such as award-winning former BBC producer Vanessa Jackson, and internationally recognised radio documentary producer, Sam Coley. You’ll also be taught by visiting lecturers who still work in industry, widening your knowledge and experience of the sector.

Our MSc Counselling (Children and Young People) course includes a minimum of 100 hours of supervised client practice hours.

The placements will be managed through an agreement with St Martin’s Counselling and Psychotherapy service, who will support you in placements across the city. Placements in areas other than Birmingham may be possible by negotiation.

The course aims to meet the professional accreditation requirements in counselling children and young people that will enable successful graduates (who have also met all required professional practice components) to achieve accreditation through UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) or British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). St Martin’s will be actively involved in supporting your accreditation and will support you with this after graduation from the course.

Following the successful completion of this course you will have demonstrated sound practical counselling competence and will be able to continue to work alongside other professionals offering counselling support to children and young people within supported contexts such as schools and voluntary agencies.

Public Relations shapes our world. Organisations use PR to get noticed, to change opinions, and pass on vital information that helps us to make decisions about health, education and welfare. PR is a fast-growing discipline, employing 83,000 people in a £13bn industry offering a wide range of job opportunities.

Our MA teaches you how to construct an effective PR campaign, combining theory with the practical skills needed to communicate persuasively on behalf of businesses, charities, public bodies, community groups and activists.

What's covered in this course?

The MA in Public Relations combines theory and practice, providing real intellectual challenge with a sharp focus on real-world events and firmly grounded in extensive industry links. We recognise that most applicants are looking to build a career in PR and our emphasis is on employability.

We look at techniques for raising awareness, listening to stakeholders and influencing ethical policies. We will develop your strategic planning and help you to engage with a wide range of tactical devices, including building expertise in using a range of social media platforms and tools. You will also learn techniques that will build your confidence as a presenter and a communicator.

The MA explores the ever-changing media landscape while critically examining PR’s impact on society.

The global luxury sector continues to grow, with increasing profits for both well-established and new brands.

The MA Luxury Jewellery Management course addresses the specific challenges and opportunities of the luxury jewellery industry and is the perfect choice for you if you see your future career with premium, high-end and luxury jewellery brands.

What's covered in this course?

You will learn global business strategy and leadership supported by ethical, responsible and sustainable practices. In developing skills to adopt appropriate codes of conduct to improve global operations, you will learn how to promote intercultural communication to enhance business culture and preserve cultural heritage in the luxury jewellery industry. These emerging and significantly important skills are key for managers of luxury jewellery business all over the world.

You will investigate the DNA of brands; designing and creating marketing plans and effective campaigns, with regard to the multicultural aspects of the audience. You will integrate innovations of new technologies, such as additive manufacturing, to embrace the change, meanwhile preserving and enhancing the artisanship’s heritage of the luxury jewellery industry.

The course is global in its outlook and reflects business systems, standards and practices from around the world, drawing upon international case studies and fostering intercultural fluency amongst students. These aims will develop your confidence and ambitions to explore a breadth of careers within a global luxury jewellery industry. Where possible, your learning will be supported by an international field trip, factory visits, exhibitions visits, guest speakers, live projects and simulated practice requiring actual problem-solving.

MA Luxury Jewellery Management is based on the philosophy that management education should provide a thorough grounding in the disciplines related to the functional aspects of management, and the interaction with contextual forces that impact on organisations. This knowledge and understanding is then further contextualised to provide integrative strategic themes. The impact of globalization on business in all disciplines is a coherent theme throughout the course.

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.

The LLM International Law analyses how international law operates within the key areas of international human rights and international business law.

The end of the Second World War has witnessed not only the creation of numerous international organisations, but also an increased level of global interconnection and the creation of common standards in many areas. International Law has become an important area of study because of the role it plays in regulating the relationships between states and how different states shapes their laws and legal systems.

Therefore, the knowledge and understanding of the legal aspects of international law and how international law operates in the areas of international business and international human rights law is an important attribute that is highly regarded by prospective employers such as academic institutions, non-governmental organisations and charities, policy and research organisations, and international organisations.

Our pioneering MA Arts and Education Practices course focuses on the exploration of educational models at the intersection of practice, teaching and pedagogic theory.

The only Arts Education MA in the UK based in a School of Art, we provide a unique platform for the art educator. This setting helps to facilitate an innovative community of experienced and aspiring art educators, welcoming those willing to critique current practices to ask not only how we should teach art, but also how art can teach us.

What's covered in this course?

Our students come from diverse phases and sectors in the field of art and design education and the expanded fields of gallery, community and self-organised educational practices. Through the course individual perspectives and experiences meet with those of your peers providing you with the stimulation and challenges that different perceptions can bring. We seek to evolve a dialogue through direct experience and engagement with the arts and their value as taught subjects, both within the institution and outside of it.

Our taught modules strengthen your subject knowledge and connect you with contemporary creative and educational practice.

MA Arts and Education students follow a core modular structure that explores the past, current and future practice of arts education. You can personalize your learning through your choice of an optional module and pursue your interests within the expanded field of arts education through research and practice.

The structure of the course enables you to focus your research within the context of your own creative field and workplace. Through this study you build independent research leading to your major project that can be focused through educational models, workshops, creative practice and encounters that inform and are responsive to art educational contexts.

The course offers opportunities to connect with and expand your knowledge of your creative field through collaboration, live projects and visits that explore educational situations and projects.

This degree will put you at the heart of music in the UK, with coursework designed to equip you with the skills, knowledge, and experience, not just to work in, but to shape the music industry.

Music is one of the UK’s biggest cultural exports. It’s worth an estimated £5.2bn to the UK economy, and sustains almost 191,000 jobs.

The program is tailor made for anyone seeking to develop a career in music, or with an interest in music as relating to wider creative and cultural industries.

Studying in our industry-standard media centre in the heart of Birmingham, you’ll develop skills through a combination of hands-on learning, supported by critical investigation into the creative cultures, fans, and practices that make the UK music industries world-leading. You will have the opportunity to apply these skills and knowledge through work placements with key organisations within the UK music industries.

What's covered in this course?

You will develop and work on real-world music industries projects with clients, enabling you to add professional jobs to your portfolio. Our learning and teaching is informed by the changing demands of a vibrant and dynamic music industries, to make sure that you are industry ready.

If you want to take an in-depth look at promotion, music PR and music media, running a record label or producing music videos and websites, then this is the ideal course for you. It will help you to position yourself at the forefront of creating and developing innovative ideas, and exploring niche markets within the music industry.

While studying with us, you’ll have the opportunity to set up a record label, promote artists or organise a music event for a paying audience. You will develop practical business know how, applying your skills to a creative music enterprise project, as well as exploring music entrepreneurship, music online, music promotion and PR, music video, and television and music programming.

Our MA Arts and Project Management course helps you explore how arts organizations, cultural spaces, and visual and performing arts projects are managed in different social and economic environments.

You will be introduced to arts policies in different regional and national and circumstances while gaining advanced organizational, planning and marketing skills. This prepares you for life as a professional project manager, a PhD researcher or to work in other career sequels.

This stimulating course offers you a specialist education in Arts and Project Management. You will be encouraged to develop your knowledge and understanding in order to be effective in managing and marketing the arts within contemporary culture.

What's covered in this course?

This stimulating course offers you a specialist education in Arts and Project Management. You will be encouraged to develop your knowledge and understanding in order to be effective in managing and promoting the arts within contemporary culture.

There is scope to work on live projects with external clients such as Selfridges and you will benefit from our close links with Ikon, Eastside Projects, New Art Gallery Walsall, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, and the lively alternative arts scene including: The Lombard Method, Grand Union, Trove, Stryx and MSFAC.

Our academic staff team is highly experienced. Program leader, Beth Derbyshire has 20 years’ experience working in the creative industries as an interdisciplinary artist and Creative Director in Design and Brand Development.

The staff team has national and international research profiles including the artist/curator, Mona Casey who has extensive experience in the creative industries and Kathryn Burns who supports entrepreneurs and small arts businesses.

The launch of our Eastside Jazz Club has helped consolidate the integral role that Royal Birmingham Conservatoire has to play in a major UK city that enjoys a thriving jazz scene. While Birmingham’s jazz scene has been established over many years, our bespoke venue promises an exciting future for Jazz in the city.

Our Jazz Department is based around the Club, where student musicians share a platform and get invaluable side-by-side performance experience with the best on the scene, whom we welcome to our stage on a regular basis.

This course meets with the needs of the modern jazz performer – it places emphasis on practical work, with the majority of time dedicated to one-to-one lessons, small group coaching and private practice. You'll study modules that have been specifically and skilfully designed for jazz musicians, and as part of your learning we encourage you to explore in depth the relationship between improvisation and composition, which is central to developing your individual voice. You will graduate as a versatile, professional musician who is knowledgeable about the entrepreneurial opportunities available to you, and aware of the commercial realities for musicians joining today’s UK jazz scene as a portfolio musician.

Delivered by performers, band leaders and composers who enhance their teaching with professional experience, insights and connections, the course hones both your performance and professional awareness.

With individual specialist tuition throughout all four years of the course you will get the individual attention you need to prepare for a successful career in the music profession.

As well as having our own club that has taken its place on Birmingham’s vibrant jazz scene, our students enjoy professional experience opportunities with external gigs that familiarise them with the industry – for example through our partnership with Cheltenham Jazz Festival – one of many ways we prepare you for the future.

What's covered in this course?

The BMus (Hons) Jazz course is a specialist course for performers in jazz. Its main aim is to prepare students for a career in the music profession in the field of jazz. At the heart of our course's philosophy is the ideal of the informed musician; someone who is able to combine both advanced skills and musical knowledge in the advancement of their musical career. The BMus (Hons) Jazz course therefore aims to develop the specialist skills, the theoretical, historical and practice-based knowledge and to encourage the individual creativity required for you to become an independent learner, a critical thinker and a reflective practitioner.

You will be taught by performers, band leaders and composers, who are ideally placed to share their professional experience, insights and connections. With their guidance, you will hone both your performance skills and your professional awareness.

The BSc (Honours) Accountancy degree at Birmingham City Business School will equip you with the skills and knowledge that you will need to become a professional accountant.

The course provides a valuable insight into the worlds of accountancy practice, commerce and industry, underpinned by principles of good governance and ethical decision-making.

Delivery of the course is flexible and includes a blend of lectures, workshops, field trips and online learning. The modules, which feed into the course, are broad, covers key current topics such as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and help you to appreciate accountancy from a range of perspectives. Ultimately, decision-making in accountancy, calls for one to exercise judgement and intuition and this course helps you to strengthen that judgement.

This will prepare you for a long-term financial career as an accountant, allowing you to progress in many financial and related roles as well as the accounting profession. We create graduates who possess a global outlook, with the conceptual and applied knowledge in the field of accounting that will enable them to make a positive impact on society.