Master of Fine Art

at Manchester Metropolitan University United Kingdom

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.

Placement options
At Manchester Fashion Institute, employability is at the heart of our teaching. All of our undergraduate courses offer an optional sandwich year route that gives you the opportunity to apply for an industry placement between your second and final year. If you choose this route, you will commit to working full-time in the fashion industry for the entirety of your third year, before returning to complete your degree in your fourth year.

A placement year is an incredibly valuable element of your course as it allows you to apply your university-based knowledge, skills and understanding to your job role. During your placement, you will make your own industry contacts and enhance your CV by gaining real-world industry experience. Currently around 40% of our student cohort take part in a one-year full-time industry placement.

We have a dedicated placements team with over three decades of experience sourcing and securing outstanding placement opportunities. They will provide you with extensive support and advice prior to and during your industry placement.

Placement opportunities are available both in the UK and internationally, with students previously working in countries such as Austria, Germany, Norway, Hong Kong SAR, Sri Lanka and the USA.

Educational psychology draws on a wide range of psychological theory and real-world experiences to build an understanding of how children develop and learn.  It takes account of the social and cultural contexts of children’s lives and schooling, as well as their individual growth and development.

Here at Manchester Met, we are working with key partners in services, schools and communities across Greater Manchester and beyond to create a vibrant place for study.  This course will bring psychological theory and research to life by looking at its influence in key areas for education.  Our course themes reflect priorities shared with our partners and with local and national policy-makers: school readiness; inclusive cultures of practice; and health and wellbeing.  

You'll cover all the core areas of psychology set out by the British Psychological Society, applied to the context of education.

During the three-year course, you’ll experience placement opportunities to develop an understanding of the different psychological approaches needed to address social problems and you'll use data from real world projects to develop skills in research and evaluation with academic staff .

Learning psychology through its real-world applications will provide you with the best opportunity to develop a deep understanding of psychological theory and practices. For example, you'll learn to understand the experiences of children with special educational needs or disabilities. We will also explore how wellbeing can impact learning, particularly how social, emotional, and mental health aspects changes how able a student is to learn.

The Living Lab is at the centre of the Educational Psychology program. It is a place of connection where you'll develop the knowledge and skills to become independent researchers.

As a social worker, you’ll often be in complex and challenging situations but you’ll help to improve lives and bring about social change through working in partnership with individuals, families and communities.

Working within health and social care teams, and with partner agencies, from the police to housing services, you will help to promote human rights and social justice. It can be difficult to appreciate the difference social workers make until you’ve experienced social work practice in action – and that’s why you’ll complete placements in your second and third years.

Our BA (Hons) Social Work course is approved by Social Work England*. This means, when you graduate, you can apply for professional registration with Social Work England to practice as a registered social worker.

Some of the topics you’ll explore include how to communicate with service users and carers, theories to inform practice and the factors that influence our journeys from pre-birth through to death.

Social work can be difficult and challenging at times and, as well as developing your academic knowledge, we aim to develop your resilience and help you learn ways to manage the situations you’re faced with.

This is a flexible and challenging masters course, delivered by a team of tutors with internationally recognised academic expertise in an array of specialist areas.

MA English Studies allows you to build your own bespoke masters experience, selecting from a range of units to reflect your interests in the further study of English. Or you could choose to follow one of three bracketed specialisms: MA English Studies (Contemporary Literature, Film and Theory), MA English Studies (The Gothic) or MA English Studies (Postcolonial Studies).

From ragworms and rhinos to locusts and lemurs, the animal world is an ever-changing and always fascinating place to explore. On our BSc (Hons) Animal Behaviour and Conservation degree you can delve in and discover it all – developing an understanding of the vast range and huge importance of animal behaviour.

With us, you’ll consider the drivers of different types of animal behaviour, looking at the interaction of genetics, evolutionary history and present-day environments. You’ll also investigate how and why behaviour changes over an animal’s lifetime, from genetic and hormonal factors to the physiological and environmental mechanisms. You will be equipped with the tools needed in conservation and will study real-world examples of how species and their habitats can be conserved.

Through a blend of laboratory and fieldwork, we’ll show you how to record behavioural data and use professional-grade software for its analysis – vital tools in improving the welfare and management of domestic, wild and zoo populations. Our animal behaviour course also provides the option of spending an extra year expanding your horizons, either studying with one of our partner universities overseas, or working on a placement with a business or non-governmental organisation. This will be subject to national and international travel restrictions.

Operations and supply chain management is much more than simply moving items from A to B. It’s a diverse, evolving discipline that's fundamental to the flow of goods and provision of services all around the world, adapting to changing consumer expectations, shifting economic conditions, achieving sustainability principles, and emerging technologies, among a range of other global issues. This course offers the advanced understanding and practical skills to master it all.

You'll learn from leaders in the field, exploring the latest issues around supply chain sustainability and the international regulatory environment, while getting to grips with enterprise systems like SAP and tackling the challenges of managing strategic procurement.

We also offer a range of option units, giving you the chance to shape your studies around your interests and professional aims. From there, you’ll be ready for your dissertation, picking a topic of your own interest and putting the theory into practice.

From breaking news to cultural reviews, sports reporting to in-depth investigations, we’ll help you scrutinise, interrogate and report on the issues that really matter.

This degree is geared towards inquiring minds and creative thinkers seeking a career in journalism and the creative media industries. Throughout the program, we’ll encourage you to carve out your own creative identity as you express yourself through a variety of media and genres – including print, broadcast and digital publishing.

You’ll start with the core skills of interviewing and reporting, before going on to look at specialist areas like media law and ethics, magazine journalism, editing and production. You’ll also get the chance to work on live events and learn how to cover breaking news – all under the pressure of tight deadlines.

In your third year you’ll be able to focus on your own particular interests, such as sports and music journalism. You’ll also create a portfolio of original journalism, rooted in the real world – real people, real issues, real events.

Throughout it all, you’ll have access to the multimedia newsroom, TV studio and radio production facilities, getting you up to speed with all the latest technology. So, by the time you’re finished, you’ll have acquired the wide range of skills necessary to work in today’s multiplatform digital environments.

You may also have the opportunity to spend an extra year expanding your horizons, either studying with one of our partner universities overseas, or working on a placement with an organisation.

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.

If you're interested in the way in which we communicate and how it can influence people, studying linguistics will help you unravel how language is inextricably linked to who we are. Linguistics is a popular course taken on its own or in combination with English or a modern language. It is devoted to the scientific study of natural language and concerned with how languages evolve, are structured and what they have in common. It also studies how languages are acquired and used.

Our program enables you to develop a sound knowledge of both theoretical and applied perspectives. It places emphasis on English, with examples from other languages where appropriate. The core elements of the course teach you about sentence structure (syntax), meaning (semantics and pragmatics), forensic linguistics, and phonetics and phonology. You will also learn about language use and variation in different social contexts, the media, and intercultural settings. Communicating effectively, critical thinking and developing rigorous analytical skills are valuable assets in the job market and are transferable to various professions.

In French, emphasis is placed on communicating effectively and developing transferable skills such as translating, interpreting, and interview techniques and the practical language classes embrace speaking, listening, reading and writing.

If you take French as a major or equal subject you will have the opportunity to spend your third year abroad in France. If French is your minor subject, the course will be three years with no study abroad.

Marketing has changed with the arrival of the digital era. Today, any business can operate on an international scale via different online channels. With so much competition, connecting with customers has never been more important.

This industry-accredited master's offers you the chance to explore the latest thinking and techniques in this rapidly changing field.

You'll look at both traditional and digital marketing principles and strategies, as you develop an in-depth understanding of the marketing role in organisations of all shapes and sizes.

You’ll also examine the issues and opportunities in marketing, strategy and consumer behaviour.

Optional internship year

If you choose to take the optional one-year internship, you’ll do so once you have successfully completed your taught units. The internship takes place over 36-48 weeks – you will be supported by our Placement Office, who have extensive contacts within the industry and over 25 years’ experience of helping students to find placements..

The Placement Office advertise a variety of opportunities, support and advise on the application and recruitment process and continue to support you whilst you are away from the University.