Master of Arts in Future Media

at Birmingham City University - City Centre Campus United Kingdom

Whether you're a recent graduate or returning to study after a break, our postgraduate programs in Vocal Performance provide you with advanced-level training in singing. You're encouraged and enabled to increase your experience as a performer and to broaden your repertoire, though you can also take the opportunity to specialise if you wish.

Alongside your vocal studies, our courses provide excellent opportunities for you to develop other skills relevant to a future career in the music profession. A separate postgraduate pathway is available for Jazz vocalists.

You'll receive specialist vocal tuition from leading UK and internationally renowned performers and teachers. In addition, you'll enjoy regular opportunities to sing in a variety of contexts, both as a soloist and in ensembles with other performers. Such opportunities include not only classes and masterclasses (these last being led by distinguished guest performers), but also in concerts and on the operatic stage.

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.

Are you interested in understanding business concepts and how to use IT to serve business needs?

Our Business Information Technology degree gives you the skills to make IT work for businesses.

Business Information Technology bridges the gap between IT and Business to drive innovation and growth in the modern global organisation. It embeds a systems philosophy of connectivity, to offer an in-depth understanding of business concepts and how to use IT to serve business needs. It will also provide essential skills that will facilitate communicating and discussing technical and business ideas effectively with technical and non-technical audiences.

What's covered in this course?

You will work collaboratively with tutors, researchers and businesses, applying practice-based skills to real-life case studies and live project briefs which will develop your problem-solving and analytical skills. Learn how to think like a coder, to influence the design, development and use of information systems and technology in organizations.

You will also gain an in-depth understanding on how organizations can harness the data to improve decision-making. In a summary, this course will give you the skills and knowledge to make IT work for businesses.

Develop your technical, research, design and organizational ability, and leave with the skills employers want.

Work in our advanced software development and computer programming labs, using dedicated facilities for systems analysis, networking, e-commerce and business intelligence – all of which reflect advanced professional practice.

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.

Want to study investment finance in the UK, and take the first step towards a career in investment banking? Our BSc (Hons) Finance and Investment course with its robust content and unique features allows you to stand out from the crowd when you graduate.

Our course is focused on practical applications of financial skills in the investing world, qualities that are in high demand in modern finance and investment management sectors.

The course will develop your transferrable skills embedded across different modules on the course as well as your engagement with our Graduate+ employability programme. The course is also accredited by Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments (CISI). Designed to equip you with technical knowledge and skills in line with the curriculums of professional bodies such as the CFA Society UK, CFA Institute USA and CISI UK, as well as a range of employability attributes, the course will develop you as a work-ready graduate for careers in Finance and Investment across different industries.

As you progress, you will become more effective and creative in problem solving, as well as being able to critically advise individuals and companies in the UK and internationally. The modules are designed to enhance and develop your theoretical understanding from an academic perspective but also to apply acquired knowledge to the finance and investment sector.

The course is designed with some mandatory subject areas which provide the key underpinning knowledge for the course however allows you an opportunity to select some subjects based on your specific areas of interest. Therefore, during the second and final year of the course, there will be more flexible learning opportunities that will enable you to specialise in particular subject areas, as well as allowing you to tailor your course to a specific career path.

The course also has the option of a sandwich year, wherein you'll get to go on a year-long industry placement, giving you invaluable real-world employment experience.
The international focus of the course is derived from the diversity of the student body and the teaching team, plus the use of international teaching materials. Moreover, students can choose to spend a year or a full semester studying their modules overseas at a partner institution. While doing this course, you will have wide variety of opportunities to compliment your studies.

Based at the University’s new campus in the UK’s second city, you’ll live and study in a vibrant environment and engage with local, national and international businesses. You will be taught by highly qualified academics with industrial and professional experience.

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.

Professional Placement option

The Professional Placement option 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.

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.

Looking for a highly-prized English Literature degree course that you can tailor to your individual interests and career aspirations?

The BA (Hons) English Literature course will support you in developing your critical faculties, instilling in you the power and responsibility of informed reading and analysis, whilst deepening your appreciation for literature.

You will develop your writing, close-reading and research skills and learn to express your arguments coherently and persuasively. In the School of English, you will be taught by respected academics and practitioners offering a diverse range of modules.

You will study literature from all of the major periods, movements and genres. You will also have the opportunity to study cinema, art and philosophy. Your degree will allow you to tailor your studies to your individual interests and career aspirations with both a local and global outlook.

What's covered in this course?

English as a discipline continues to be relevant to the lives we lead and is central to a wide range of contemporary and social contexts. It is this fact on which the School has built its philosophy and approach to English as a subject, which has interdisciplinary reach beyond its own boundaries.

Understanding how language works in practice, engaging with multiple forms of communication, examining how language and literature engage with societies and cultures past and present, and the place of English in a global context, are all vital aspects in understanding how the discipline connects with the wider world, enabling you to focus on the production, interpretation and negotiation of meaning and to understand the world from a variety of perspectives.

You will benefit from student-focused and research-informed teaching in a friendly and supportive learning environment where you will be taught by respected academics and expert practitioners who encourage a community of experimentation, innovation and inclusivity.

Our graduates are characterised by their extensive subject knowledge, critical thinking and intellectual curiosity, reflected in the skills and abilities that enables them to adapt to a wide range of career paths and employment opportunities.

The MSc User Experience Design course will provide you with in-depth theoretical knowledge and hands-on practical experience in designing, developing, and evaluating digital products across a range of platforms and state-of-the-art technologies. The course places a strong emphasis on the development of professional technical skills that are in high industry demand and will position you well for careers around the field of user experience (UX).

What's covered in this course?

The course has been designed to support graduates from a wide range of disciplines (including those with technical and non-technical backgrounds) who wish to specialise in the area of user experience (UX) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). The key topics taught on the course include interaction design (techniques for user-centered design), front-end development (using industry-standard development environments), visual design (creating interfaces with strong aesthetics), accessibility (methods for supporting inclusive design), and usability testing (collecting and analyzing data via user evaluations). You will also have the opportunity to consider and create user experiences for technologies such as virtual and augmented reality, eye gaze tracking, speech interfaces, mid-air gesturing, haptic systems, and brain-computer interfaces.

The course philosophy is focused around industry and research-led activities, supported with assignments that are closely aligned to the development of essential knowledge and technical skills used in practice. You will therefore have the opportunity to work closely with academics, researchers, and industry partners on real-world project briefs thus supporting you in developing a strong portfolio of work (which is essential for gaining employment in this field). The course will also provide opportunities to collaborate with academics based in the School of Computing and Digital Technology’s Mixed Reality and Human-Computer Interaction research group to work on cutting-edge research projects.

Graduates from the User Experience Design course will be well placed for industry roles that are in high demand including front-end developers, user experience designers/developers, information architects, usability consultants and UX researchers, web designers/developers, and interaction designers.

Professional Placement option

The Professional Placement option 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.

Looking for Birmingham psychology courses? Our BSc (Hons) Psychology degree is accredited by the British Psychological Society and allows you to take a year-long industry placement.

Make sense of the real world through gaining a deep understanding of how the core and specialised areas in psychology contribute to our understanding of contemporary issues, as well as looking at the role of brain function across multiple psychological perspectives.

You’ll apply scientific reasoning and evaluate patterns of behaviour, gaining key transferable skills in communication, teamwork and problem-solving.

What's covered in this course?

You will explore scientific approaches to understanding the mind, brain and behaviour. Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the historical and scientific underpinnings of the discipline of Psychology and how these underpinnings change across the core curriculum topic areas. Explore how the six core areas in Psychology can explain factors that influence the mind, brain, behaviour and experience, and of the complex interactions between these.

You will develop knowledge and understanding of Quantitative and Qualitative Research Methods. Our Psychology department works in partnership with the nationally recognized Advance HE to continually develop the quality of both our staff and the course, focusing on self-development, contemporary learning practices and integrating practice within the community.

Want a career in the construction industry? Study our BSc (Hons) Quantity Surveying degree course at Birmingham City University. We are an RICS approved Partnership Centre. so you can be confident that we’ll prepare you for a flourishing career.

With our quantity surveyor training, you will work collaboratively with tutors, practitioners, theorists and designers who will equip you with everything you need to help shape the future of the built environment.

What's covered in this course?

Today’s construction industry is facing the challenges of globalisation, climate change, demanding clients and a complex regulatory framework. The growing importance of technology and integrated delivery plays an increasingly important role in the industry.

This surveying degree will give you the skills to deal with these challenges and more. With innovation at the core of the programme, you will learn through creative problem solving and working with our industrial partners. You’ll also develop the intellectual and practical competencies required by professional bodies such as the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) and Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

You’ll leave with a broad knowledge of the legal, technical, managerial, economic, social and environmental aspects of construction projects, and able to confidently manage both commercial and civil engineering projects.

This course is taught by experienced staff with a wealth of industry experience. A flexible approach to delivery allows construction professionals to study alongside their professional role.

You'll gain expertise in cost management, procurement and quantification skills. You’ll also develop expertise in risk management, costing techniques, design economics, buildability, procurement and the ability to add value. You’ll also learn how to work effectively with a range of people from different construction disciplines.