Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in History with Anthropology

at Goldsmiths, University of London United Kingdom

This course will teach you how to use game design to develop aesthetic awareness, and create meaningful experiences. Students learn how to build compelling mechanics, craft innovative narratives, and develop immersive playable environments. Together, we will push games into new territories and intellectual domains.

As technologies have integrated into our everyday lives, elements from games have been woven into everything, from the way museums educate the public, to how scientists do cancer research. With the rise of mobile games, console creators no longer hold a monopoly on gaming platforms. This new-found freedom has resulted in an explosion of independent games – from putting players in immersive augmented worlds, to telling transformational personal narratives, these new experiences are redefining the rules of play.

Games are now part of everyday life. As a result, markets previously dominated by traditional media have begun to leverage the ability of games to tell stories, generate knowledge, and educate the public. An explosion of games and apps has created a new breed of entrepreneur, who uses small teams to create projects accessible to millions.

Why Study MA Independent Games Design at Goldsmiths?

• This MA has several informal focus areas students can choose from:
  • Independent games design and development
  • Mixed reality (XR), playful experiences, and installation design
  • Games for change
  • Machine learning and game user experiences
  • Using Creative Coding and Physical Computing
• You can build skills to start your own game design studio.
• You will be mentored on how to grow in your creative career.
• When you graduate, you can use game design in a wide range of fields both inside and outside the game industry, including independent games, XR studios, interactive film, advertising and media outlets, journalism, non-profits, education, design, and fine arts.
• You will be part of a supportive community of games creators who actively release titles, and have access to a large library of video games and board games.

Photography is a key medium of the 21st century. We record every aspect of our lives with smartphone cameras, consume knowledge through image flows, are exposed to constant surveillance via security cameras while feeding computer databases with our social media images.

Photography itself is undergoing a radical transformation in its encounter with CGI (computer generated images) and AI (artificial intelligence). This MA programme gives practitioners and theorists the opportunity to research and develop the new boundaries of image-making made possible by technological change within the context of post-industrial culture.

The programme joins theory and practice, equipping you to develop and achieve highly in the new image media culture. The practice uses both digital and analogue technology, still and durational photography, as well as the study and production of interactivity.

It also allows for specialisation in photography and/or electronic arts – which, in addition to still photography, can include interactive, durational, and internet work – but encompasses a broader interpretation of practice.

You'll look at the meaning, production, and distribution of images in their present and historical contexts, and at the relationship between theory and practice in image production and management.

If this degree were a film we’d be watching the beginning and the end. We think, like Walter Benjamin, that it’s in these moments – in their inception and their obsolescence  – that you see the utopian possibilities of a form or social movement.

Are we in the midst of a beginning? What can we learn now from visual culture’s past? What’s happening to our bodies when we play a video game? What are the gestures involved in everyday life? How do our bodies relate to technology?

These are the kinds of topics we analyse on this MA. We want to go beyond the borders of a traditional film studies degree so we go back to the beginning of film history to explore what it meant to fashion yourself in an image, or for a society to see itself in an image. Then we explore how images gain meaning now, and where they’re going next.

This MSc is tailored for people who want to work in the game industry. You will learn multi-platform game development and gain a solid foundation in programming to help you develop your own skills. The MSc has a strong focus on business and entrepreneurship, including the possibility to work with industry partners as part of your internship.

As a fast-growing 150 billion dollar business, the game industry offers countless professional opportunities. The MSc Computer Games Programming is right for you if you want to make game development a sustainable career and to work in this creative and rewarding industry.

This is also one of the only programmes taught by actual game developers, designers, and artists with years of experience in the game industry.

Why Study MSc Computer Games Programming at Goldsmiths

• Learn how to design and develop games, using state of the art tools and game engines from actual game developer and industry veterans
• Focus on which skills you want to learn through a selection of option modules
• Collaborate with colleagues from other courses, including the MA Computer Games Art & Design and the MA Independent Games and Playable Experience Design
• Build your portfolio through practical coursework
• Access state of the art game labs and facilities
• Get your first internship in the game industry (or work on a research project instead)
• Take part in annual events and game jams organised by the department, and be part of the creative and diverse environment that surrounds Goldsmiths
• Access a strong UK community of publishers and creators with innovative voices creating groundbreaking titles

This degree allows you to explore critical perspectives in literature and media alongside each other while developing your skills in creative writing (script and short story) and editing.

Why study BA Media and English at Goldsmiths?

• The media shapes our lives in many unseen ways, from our views on race and religion to the way we see the economy. You’ll be given the tools you need to understand and address these issues. We encourage you to be critical – a vital skill for questioning the status quo.
• You’ll develop a vocabulary for discussing and analysing works of literature from different genres and historical periods.
• This course offers you the chance to cultivate your creative skills – you’ll be creating screenplays for film and TV, plays for radio, and short stories. These will form a portfolio that you can show to future employers.
• You’ll gain an understanding of media production and how writing impacts on the technical aspects of the media industry.
• We regularly host events in which major international researchers, writers and critics present and talk about their work; they have included Danny Boyle, Gurinder Chadha, Noel Clark and Sir Lenny Henry.

It’s really important for us that you graduate with a set of core digital journalism skills so half of the degree focuses on the computing side of the discipline and half on media and communications. This means you get a holistic MA, where you study the foundations of digital journalism and practise it in its most current forms.

You’ll have the chance to study multimedia and interactive journalism, look at interactive documentaries, digital reporting, and video journalism. You’ll also learn coding, so you can get to grips with using algorithms and data sets, and do social network analysis to monitor what’s going on behind the screens.

Through our partnerships with BBC news labs and The Times’ development team, we make sure we’re keeping up with industry but also working with it.

We want you to reimagine the medium while you’re here, so you get the chance to specialise in your own area of interest for your final project. This could be anything from an interactive website to a video production using interactive story telling and text.  We offer a lot of support when it comes to the coding side of the course. A boot camp before the start of the programme gives you an introduction to some of the techniques and languages.

What you go away with are the core skills for news writing, video, and computational techniques and some amazing industry contacts.

The MSc Data Science will provide you with the technical and practical skills to analyse the big data that is the key to success in future business, digital media and science.

The rate at which we are able to create data is rapidly accelerating. According to IBM, globally, we currently produce over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data a day. This ranges from biomedical data to social media activity and climate monitoring to retail transactions. These enormous quantities of data hold the keys to success across many domains from business and marketing to treating cancer or mitigating climate change.

The pace at which we produce data is rapidly outstripping our ability to analyse and use it. Science and industry are crying out for a new generation of data scientists who combine the statistical skills of data analysis and the computational skills needed to carry out this analysis on a vast scale.

Studying this Masters, you will learn the mathematical foundations of statistics, data mining and machine learning, and apply these to practical, real-world data.

As well as these statistical skills, you will learn the computational techniques needed to efficiently analyse very large data sets. You will apply these skills to a range of real-world data, under the guidance of experts in that domain. You will analyse trends in social media, make financial predictions and extract musical information from audio files.

The programme includes:

• A firm grounding in the theory of data mining, statistics and machine learning
• Hands-on practical real-world applications such as social media, biomedical data and financial data with Hadoop (used by Yahoo!, Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, IBM, Amazon, and many others), R and other specialised software
• The opportunity to work with real-world software such as Apache

This exciting, intellectually rigorous programme gives you the opportunity to develop the study of literature from a variety of perspectives through a number of flexible pathways.

The pathways you can take are:

• Pathway in American Literature & Culture
• Pathway in Comparative Literature & Criticism
• Pathway in Literature of the Caribbean & its Diasporas
• Pathway in Critical Theory
• Pathway in Modern and Contemporary Literature
• Pathway in Romantic & Victorian Literature & Culture

These enable you to combine theoretical angles with the close reading of a wide range of texts, from different media (literary, filmic, visual), periods, and cultural, geographic and linguistic backgrounds – though all texts will be studied in English, in English translation, or with English subtitles.

Bringing together media practice and communications theory, this degree covers a broad spectrum of critical perspectives on the media, and will introduce you to a range of contemporary media practices.

Why study BA Media and Communications at Goldsmiths?

• You will study in one of the UK's and the world's top media and communications departments.
• You'll be taught by leading names in media, communications and cultural studies.
• We concentrate on high quality lectures and small group work, and all our teaching takes place on one purpose-built site.
• On practice modules you'll be taught by industry professionals engaged in TV, film, journalism, radio, photography, scriptwriting, short fiction, illustration, interactive media and animation.
• You'll have access to industry-standard practice facilities, including TV/film, radio and photography studios, digital video and audio editing suites, and animation software and hardware.
• Our close links to the media industry bring you into regular contact with media professionals. You will have the opportunity to apply for an internship in the media as part of the course.
• We regularly host debates and talks by international figures in media and cultural research and the media industry; recent guests have included Danny Boyle, Gurinder Chadha and Noel Clark.
• You'll be taught alongside students from all over the world and with diverse cultural experiences that enrich the department and the learning experience.
• You'll develop skills that you can use throughout your career whether in the media industries or elsewhere. Our recent graduates are now working as television producers, news readers, editors, journalists... Others have gone into a whole range of careers such as research, teaching and law.
• We're ranked third in the UK for the quality and impact of our research (Research Excellence Framework), which means that by studying in the department you'll be working alongside academics who are leaders in their fields.

This programme will equip you for working life in the arts and cultural industries, with a specific focus on working in and managing the arts.

Why study BA Arts Management at Goldsmiths?

• Culture and the arts are vital to the global economy. You'll develop a powerful combination of theoretical insights and professional practice skills to help you navigate these important and expanding sectors.
• You’ll learn how to understand arts and creative organisations, from small community endeavours through to world renowned flagship organisations. This will prepare you for a career in this fascinating subject, in settings such as museums, galleries, theatres, dance and live music venues, festivals, and cultural centres.
• The programme includes talks from experts and visits to cultural organisations, so you’ll gain direct experience of professional practice. You may also benefit from a work placement as part of your studies in, for example, an audience development, fundraising or event management context.
• We're based in London - a global leader in the arts and one of the most important cultural centres in the world. London is the perfect place to study this subject, giving you unrivalled access to a diverse range of arts organisations. The city will become your classroom.
• You can tailor the degree to your unique interests, through independent work in your final year.