Master of Arts in Illustration

at Manchester Metropolitan University United Kingdom

The world of business is always evolving – adapting to new technology, moving with geopolitical events and reacting to the shifting financial climate. But there is one constant: people. Growth, change, success – it’s only possible with a well-managed workforce, no matter what the industry or sector.

By focusing on the human element of effective business leadership, this is a course that offers vital transferrable skills, providing the first steps of a range of career paths. You’ll leave us equipped to pursue roles across a vast range of sectors in a wide variety of disciplines.

We’ve built an impressive network with industry experts and major employers – sharing understanding and opportunity. For us, it means keeping our expertise at the cutting edge of business and human resource management. For you, it means learning from leading professionals from organisations like PwC and AJ Bell. Plus, if you opt for a third-year placement, it’s a network that can open doors to the sort of employers where you can turn classroom theory into workplace practice.

Designed for anyone with a passion for computer-generated content, our BSc (Hons) Computer Animation and Visual Effects degree will help you learn and hone the skills needed to launch a career in an incredibly exciting industry.

We take a learning by doing approach on this course. So, as well as expert guidance and support, you’ll have access to a fully equipped computer animation suite, with dedicated green screen room, lighting rigs and motion capture equipment. In other words, you’ll have everything you need to learn how to create your own assets for integration with virtual environments and live-action footage to produce complex visual effects.

You’ll learn about creating, rigging and animating 3D models, developing advanced particle effects such as fire, smoke and moving liquids, and about compositing and integration methods. And most importantly, at all stages you’ll have the creative freedom to develop your own ideas and concepts right through to the finished article.

Teamwork is at the heart of this industry and you’ll have plenty of opportunity for team-based study to help prepare you for the world of work. You’ll be perfectly poised to enter this rapidly expanding and exciting digital sector.

Our computer animation and visual effects degree also provides the option of spending an extra year expanding your horizons by working on a placement in industry.

Our BA (Hons) Product Design and Craft course has a material-led, experimental philosophy that pursues a thinking through making approach to design, supporting the development of personal creative agendas. Through a program of study that explores our understanding of the material world, you will learn how to be a designer and maker of objects that enhance our daily interactions. You will develop essential skills in creative thinking and design strategy, and then apply these to challenge how you design for product and for craft.

You will discover how to design and produce objects that embrace both traditional handmade approaches and contemporary machine and digital manufacturing. Through creative experimentation, we strive to give ideas a material voice, as the thinking behind an object and its material execution are of equal importance. Your design work will also look to address a diverse range of areas including social issues, global awareness and local demand by considering the objects you design and the materials and processes you use. This course will enable you to explore strategies, materials and processes so you can develop creative and professional skills to support a sustainable career in design and craft making.

This course is a popular joint honours combination which brings together two subjects with highly complementary approaches and interests. Study English and history and you will explore a wide range of sources and representations that enhance our understanding of the world around us, both past and present.

As well as offering a balanced combination of core and option units rooted in each of the two subjects, this course has been designed so that your growing knowledge and skills in each subject will help you to develop a distinctive perspective, and strengths, in the other. During year 1, for instance, you will study the history of Manchester as a radical city on the History side of the joint curriculum, and the various ways in which it has been represented in literary and cultural texts on the English side. As you do so, you will be developing foundational skills and subject knowledge in the study of each discipline.

You may also have the opportunity to study abroad and, if you wish, to take your third year as a placement – in Britain or abroad. In your final year, you will have a chance to spread your wings with a substantial piece of project work, presented in a thesis, building on the skills you've been developing over previous years.

The English and history subject groups are staffed by internationally renowned writers and academics, and there’s a strong research culture, creating a learning environment that is both supportive and intellectually challenging. We pride ourselves on our excellent teaching and highly positive student feedback. And with our extensive cultural links both in Manchester and further afield, you will be in the right place to begin building a network for your future.

From evolutionary development to environmental stimuli, animal behaviour is shaped by a range of factors. This masters course is your chance to explore them all – not only developing the theoretical principles of behaviour, but also learning how to harness these principles to tackle real-world animal welfare and conservation issues.

It’s an area that covers a diverse range of disciplines, from a strong numerical approach in the classroom to a practical approach in the lab and in the field. While the course is built around strong core units, it also offers the flexibility to explore specialist areas, such as genetics and GIS.

Above all, this is a course that offers the chance to study animal behaviour up close. As well as a field trip to Poland, Ecuador or Tanzania, your dissertation project could take you to Kenya, the Philippines or Mauritius (not to mention sites across the UK) for your research.

As well as expert analytical abilities and practical research techniques, you’ll leave us with an in-depth understanding of animals physiology, and how experience and environment combine to create behaviour – everything you need to pursue a range of career paths, from animal management to education or further research.

The Combined Honours program offers you an opportunity to study two subjects at degree level.

English:
English is a well-established humanities discipline, which explores the role of the written word in defining and transforming human experience. The modern discipline of English is rooted in the study of literature and the language in which it is written. Students of English can expect to study all major periods and forms of literature and to learn how to analyse literary texts by drawing on disciplines such as history, sociology and politics. The study of English develops strong critical thinking and communication skills, attributes that are highly valued in humanities graduates by employers. The English department has access to a community of internationally renowned writers and critics through the Manchester Writing School, one of the most successful of its kind in the UK. The Creative Director is Carol Ann Duffy DBE (Poet Laureate 2009-2019). You will develop the necessary skills in critical thinking and communication that are of value to graduates entering a wide array of career paths.

Spanish:
Proficiency in modern languages will give you the competitive edge in the global jobs market. In both the private and public sectors, there is demand for professionals with strong language skills who can work in culturally diverse environments. Studying Spanish at Manchester Met will give you the opportunity to learn from native speakers. Our languages department have created their own multicultural community, including British, exchange and international students, along with foreign language assistants, allowing you to be absorbed into the everyday use of your chosen language.

We have been providing professional language courses for more than 30 years and our staff are nationally, and in many cases internationally, recognised experts in their field. Our strong local, national and global links will help to enhance your study and future employment opportunities.

Placement options
If you take Spanish as a major or equal subject you will spend your third year in Spain or Latin America and we will assist you in choosing from a wide choice of partner universities where you can study.

The roles of buyers and merchandisers are key to the success of any fashion business. They are responsible for generating revenue through trading the product by assessing sales, customer demand, market trends, selecting, sourcing and managing products to maximize sales. The performance of these two roles is crucial to the success of the business.

The BSc (Hons) Fashion Buying and Merchandising course provide students with a thorough understanding of all aspects of the management of the product from concept to consumer, including the strategies needed to start a new business and improve business performance, helping students to succeed in a truly exciting field of work.

The breadth of knowledge gained from this course also includes product innovation, market analysis and business analytics with the essential skills needed to not only to secure graduate employment or start a new business, but for career progression to more senior functions through the focus on business strategy, supply chain and the management of people.

Students who graduate from this programme will have the ability to experiment with fresh approaches and have creativity and commercial acumen for the future buying and merchandising roles.

Decision making, big data, management… there’s more to accounting and finance than numbers. By studying our accounting and finance degree, you’ll explore every aspect of the area and learn to support businesses across different sectors.

Whether you want to work in a top accountancy firm or start a career in research, we’ll help you develop the expertise you need. You’ll take some of the professional exams too, so you’re one step closer to professional or chartered status when you graduate.

On our MSc Artificial Intelligence course, you’ll be taught by academics who are experts in the area, many of whom are currently conducting research into the subject as part of our Centre for Advanced Computational Science research group. This ensures that our curriculum is based on research-informed content at the leading edge of this fast-paced field.

This course will build on your existing computing knowledge. We aim to equip you with the fundamental principles of AI to be able to critically evaluate the theories, techniques, tools and systems used in the field. And the interdisciplinary applications, allowing you to specialize in this exciting, developing area.

You’ll also complete an in-depth master's project with the support of our academic and technical team. By the time you complete our postgraduate degree in AI, you’ll be well placed to succeed in this high-growth industry and ready to tackle the challenges facing businesses.

A taught postgraduate course that conducts research into how global cultural and economic forces influence contemporary cities. The design, functioning and future of urban situations is explored in written, drawn and modelled work that builds on the legacy of twentieth-century urban theory and is directed towards the development of sustainable cities.

Placement options

Strengthen your skillset by spending time in industry on a placement year, applying the skills you’ve learned throughout your academic studies in a practical, real-world environment. It’s an excellent opportunity to develop a professional career development plan and gain transferable workplace skills that can boost your employability.

Following completion of the taught elements of your MSc course, you can gain additional practice credits by working for a minimum of 36 weeks and a maximum of 42 weeks in an industrial setting, relevant to your course.

It’s your responsibility to search and apply for advertised placement opportunities, but you’ll be supported by academic staff and the University’s Careers and Employability Service to find a placement that is suited to you and your career ambitions. However, not all students can be guaranteed a placement.

All placements are approved and monitored in accordance with the University’s Institutional Code of Practice for Placement and Work?Based Learning. For international students, this includes additional checks on study visas to ensure the appropriate visa status.

Right from the start, our product design engineering degree is all about developing your creativity and problem-solving skills. Even the introduction is a team-based design-and-build challenge – reflecting the kind of project-based, hands-on approach to learning you’ll experience throughout your time with us.

It’s a degree that provides the specialist knowledge and expertise required for a career in commercial product design, introducing you to industry-relevant methodologies, materials and production methods. You’ll also look at the influence on the design of history, culture, markets, materials and lifestyles. And in our specialist laboratories, you’ll get to grips with some of the latest technologies, such as 3D printing and rapid prototyping.

More generally, you’ll learn to look at the world around you through the eyes of a designer, as you establish the fundamentals of design and technology, together with the relationship that products have with their users and their environment.

Study product design engineering with us and in your final year you’ll be ready to put these skills into practice in a new product design challenge and an individual project. You’ll then have the chance to showcase your work in front of industry representatives at the department’s degree show as you look to kick-start your career in this challenging and rewarding field.