Master of Arts in Acting

at Birmingham City University - City Centre Campus United Kingdom

The MSc Advanced Computer Science program intends to develop your competence in using tools and techniques for producing computer systems solutions, from a sound mathematical and scientific base while appreciating the professional responsibilities and quality needed by industry.

What's covered in this course?

The course is designed to cover a number of advanced computing topics in computer science, namely, ontological engineering, service-oriented design, database design, data engineering, and mobile-application development. In addition, you will receive a solid grounding in research methods and project management before undertaking an individual project that provides an opportunity to demonstrate technical and general employability skills in preparation for career progression. More specifically, the individual project simulates typical graduate workplace tasks that require in-depth knowledge and skills in a specific area of computer science. This will include consideration of wider issues and the ability to manage activities and resources, as well as generate, implement and report on solutions to meet task objectives.

Throughout your masters in computer science, you’ll be supported by our expert teaching staff, all of whom have a wide range of research and industrial experience in areas such as intelligent systems, mobile computing, Semantic Web, machine learning and software engineering, which they use to enhance the curriculum.

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.

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.

Looking for a security studies Master’s in Birmingham? Our MA Security Studies is open to graduates from all subjects.

The subject of security has considerable contemporary relevance, both nationally and internationally. A long and diverse list of issues have been characterised as security threats from warfare to global warming.

On this Master's you will consider events such as these across a range of different perspectives discussing their implications for security at the international, national and local levels as well as their relevance to different actors such as the state and the individual.

For example, the ongoing Syrian civil war and the breakdown of the Syrian state may represent a security risk for the UK by giving groups likes ISIS the space to operate and potentially attack the West. However, if we alter our focus we quickly become aware of a range of different insecurities felt by civilians displaced from their homes and struggling to survive as a result of the conflict.

Professional Placement option

For our MA Security Studies degree, 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 purpose of the Professional Placement is to improve your employability and transferable skills. The placement experience will allow you to evidence your professional skills, attitudes and behaviours at the point of entry to the postgraduate job market.

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.

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.

Our BA (Hons) Textile Design degree courses nurture fresh thinking and industry-ready creatives through a dynamic and carefully structured three year programme.

Our Fibre Arts option typically appeals to students who enjoy the process of making and are interested in producing work that transcends commercial design in the form of textile art or installations aimed at gallery exhibitions. Students who take this route often enjoy working with mixed media and will choose to engage with traditional techniques such as weaving, dying, macramé, felting, paper-making and many more unconventional approaches. The focus on the course is exploring and developing a clear personal identity to creative work and an understanding of where it sits within the artistic field. Alongside, you will develop the skills and confidence to apply for funding, residency and exhibition opportunities with which to build a career.

Studying with us will provide you with the skills, insights and experiences required to succeed in a broad scope of professional textile-related roles. Students secure placements with arts organisations, styling companies, galleries and within education.

By the end of your degree you will have a clear vision of where you fit in the industry and a tailored professional portfolio to take with you. Our BA (Hons) Textile Design: Fibre Art students go on to find employment as Textile Artists, Creative Facilitators, Arts Coordinators, Designer Makers and Curators. They also take up other roles where their material sensitivity, creativity and problem-solving is valued.

Our brand new hub for the arts in the thriving Eastside of the city has been purpose-built to stimulate creative minds within an open-access, contemporary studio environment. You will become a part of our lively and close-knit student community and be guided by an experienced and passionate team of staff who value the importance of getting to know you as an individual.

Through encouraging and promoting experiential learning, the MA Interior Architecture and Design course embraces the truth that designing is a creative adventure.

This twelve-month program will enable you to form an understanding and appreciation of theoretical, practical and professional issues that are informing the evolution of contemporary interior architecture and design professional practice. 

What's covered in this course?

On the MA Interior Architecture and Design program you will explore the distinctive qualities associated with the interiors of inhabited architecture.

By looking at the cultural, practical and atmospheric aspects of interiors created by architects, artists and designers, as an innovator you will be able to strategically develop creative interfaces and determine how users will perceive and behave in the spaces that your are conceiving.

Making speculative work is an important aspect of the program. As individuals you will establish your professional identity as autonomous creative practitioners by blending philosophy, artistry and practicality in order to compose an interior design scenario that is future-focused and personally and culturally meaningful. By exploring innovative practices embedded within your own design process, this reflective practice will act as a stimuli for you to challenge existing assumptions about interior design and push the international platform for the profession forwards into new and versatile directions.

A key aspect of the course is that it will encourage a spirit of 'internationalisation', which will contribute to the establishment of a culturally rich, vibrant and diverse learning studio environment. Fostering the ambition of ‘lifelong learning’, you will create a dynamic continual development plan. This will allow you to draw on the expertise and global networks associated with the institution, reflecting the full spectrum of opportunities that can help you to enrich and nurture your career. Previous postgraduate students on the program have been employed at leading international architectural practices as architects, interior designers, or as design lecturers in further and higher education institutions, with the pathway to postgraduate Doctoral PhD study also opened up as a result.

This course aims to provide you with a comprehensive program of study of international finance, providing you with the knowledge and professional skills including digital skills to develop a career in banking or another financial institution dealing with international operations.

You will develop a broad vision and understanding of the changing role and nature of finance within the context of a global marketplace. You will become competent in dealing with international investment and financing transactions, international payments and exchange rates. In addition to traditional areas of international finance, the course will provide skills in areas including responses to international financial crises and cryptocurrencies.  This course is offered for local as well as international students.

Birmingham City University is a modern practically oriented and student-oriented university. You will be taught by highly qualified academics with industrial and professional experience and actively involved in research.

Professional Placement option

For our MSc International Finance degree, 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 purpose of the Professional Placement is to improve your employability and transferable skills. The placement experience will allow you to evidence your professional skills, attitudes and behaviours at the point of entry to the postgraduate job market.

Digital Transformation is an innovative MSc degree course designed for those who want to pursue careers as managers and leaders in implementing technology-based information systems solutions and managing technological transformation within organisations.

What's covered in this course?

Digital Transformation Specialists must understand the complex relationships between people, information, processes and technology in order to support business with digital development. The course will equip you with the requisite multi-dimensional skillset necessary to help organisations unleash their potential to thrive in an inclusive digital society aligned with the innovative application of digital technology to transform organisations, industries and societies.

You will learn:

• Strategic IS Planning: How to develop a strategic IS/IT plan that is aligned to the strategic information needs of the business.
• Enterprise Systems: How to manage the business processes to support the organisation to gain competitive advantage, improve performance, reduce operational cost, implement efficient business processes, and improve real-time decision-making capabilities via Enterprise Systems (ES), which incorporates ERP, CRM, SCM, and so forth.
• Technology Optimisation and Integration: How to analyse the current business IT status, plan technology solutions and develop a roadmap for legacy systems migration.
• Digital Change Management: How to address the socio-technology challenges of leveraging value from the IS/IT in the digital society using agile methods. This involves making sense of the business requirements in order to ensure the end products will solve the business problem.
• Business Intelligence and Technology Entrepreneurship: How to manage and apply a range of visualisation tools to analyse and make business sense of data lakes, and to exploit data to construct informed business decisions.
• Principles of Project Management: How to deliver strategic value within an organisation and ensure the project (or business solution) is completed on time, within budget, within scope and at the desired performance level.
• Individual Master’s Project: A practice-based module working in collaboration with an organization or research-based project within the Socio-Technical Systems Research group to apply multi-disciplinary skills to design innovative solutions to the challenges of digital transformation.