Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Creative Writing and Journalism

at University of Bedfordshire - Luton Campus United Kingdom

The Full Time MBA is a flagship generalist management qualification designed to meet the needs of early career individuals and is structured to support your aspirations for fast track career progression through the development of leadership and strategic management skills and a contemporary understanding of business.

This postgraduate degree aims to enhance your professional prospects by developing your capability to apply the latest thinking relating to organisational development and change in the competitive global context.

Successful completion of the MBA highlights your potential to have a real impact on the transformation of the organisation you join.

The course combines core MBA disciplines with innovative subject areas supported by the latest research in strategic management and leadership to develop business competence and strengthen confidence and credibility, providing you with the practical and theoretical capabilities to master the complexities of a competitive and changing business environment.

Our courses are designed to be engaging, attractive and flexible in the current global marketplace. There are six entry points through the year. This allows you to start when it is most suitable.

Your course takes place over three semesters. Depending upon when you join the course, this will determine the order of units which you will study. You will benefit by beginning your studies with others who started at one of the earlier points of entry.

Why choose this course?

• The course adopts a practice-led curriculum and aims to develop an advanced knowledge of organisations and their effective management in the dynamic competitive global context, and the ability to creatively apply this knowledge and understanding to complex issues to systematically and innovatively enhance strategic business and management practice.
• This offers a challenging learning opportunity to encourage the integration of theory and practice supported by experienced academics with substantial management experience.
• Through practice events you will work with academics and professors of practice on live consultancy projects with leading employers in organisations across private, public and not-for-profit sectors to support your personal and professional development as a creative and innovative leader with the knowledge and skills needed in the global, knowledge-based economy.
• You will develop the attributes and skills expected of post-graduates, as recognised by professional and industry bodies such as the Chartered Management Institute and the Confederation of British Industry, including team-working, negotiation skills, leadership, confidence and the ability to apply critical and creative thinking to complex and unclear problems to develop innovative solutions.
• This postgraduate degree aims to enhance your professional prospects by developing your capability to apply the latest thinking relating to organisational development and change in the competitive global context. Successful completion of the MBA highlights your potential to have a real impact on the transformation of the organisation you join

Offering the in-depth technical and professional training you need for a career as an information technologist, this course is run in collaboration with local companies so you gain real-world experience while studying.

In your first year, you develop the skills to study the specialist topics later in the course including an introduction to software; hardware and how computers are built; how computers work with databases; and Structured Query Language (NoSQL). You will also learn about software applications (such as Microsoft, Oracle and Java) and hardware installation, configuration and maintenance.

In year two, you focus on software design and development; how software and hardware work together; designing secure systems; and approaches for testing software.

Learning in your final year focuses on research methods and emerging technologies as you undertake an independent IT project.

Why choose this course?

• It offers in-depth technical and professional training, including CompTia, Security+ and CCNA, which are required to practise as an information technologist
• Throughout the course, you benefit from work-based learning projects and hands-on experience which prepare you to graduate as a professional
• You learn how a wide range of technology can be deployed to provide systems that support organisations to achieve their business objectives
• You develop the knowledge and skills to draw out user requirements from non-IT experts and transform these into implemented system-level designs
• You will be able to lead an IT project, using transferable skills such as effective collaboration and critical thinking
• Take the course over four years and include a professional placement year (see below) where you can gain experience, build your CV and make contacts for the future

This PG degree gives you the flexibility to develop your own practice, whilst working on cross-disciplinary projects and building a research and practice portfolio. The MA provides an exciting environment for you to develop your personal practice supported by established practitioner/tutors in your chosen field.

The course offers:

• A wide range of facilities with access to technical and digital media such laser-cutting, 3D printing, image processing software, moving image software, high definition photographic equipment and high quality photo screen-printing.
• A teaching and learning strategy that is aimed at giving a robust focus to your artistic or design practice.
• Dedicated studio space for you to work, access to workshops and technical support
• Collaboration and guiding undergraduate students hands on practice
• One-to-one contact with staff with an emphasis on your personal creative development. Personal tutor in your discipline

This innovative course gives you hands-on experience across a wide range of journalistic and creative fields. You learn from an inspirational academic team of professional writers, using the latest technology to produce your work.

This degree leaves nothing to chance, covering reporting, news and features, fiction, creative non-fiction and new-media writing. You study cross-industry writing, editorial and production skills, with options in radio journalism, innovative writing and specialist fiction. You work with the latest technology in our TV and radio studios, fully equipped edit suites and Press Association news feeds.

Tutors are all professional creative writers with publishing and broadcast expertise who support you as you develop your own unique voice and channel it through your writing. They can also give you practical guidance when it comes to getting recognised and published.

Why choose this course?

• Learn the essential tools you need for writing across genres and media from experienced writers, journalists, academics, research students and alumni
• Develop practical skills in production for television, print and online journalism
• Gain links with the publishing industry and other writing-related industries through the professional practice element of the course (see below)
• Explore outlets for your own work including the Creative Writing Guild which runs workshops and open mic nights as well as publishing anthologies of student work
• If you need a step-up into higher education, start with a Foundation Year which guarantees entry to the degree course

Marketing graduates, with understanding of the dynamics of modern business marketing, are highly employable, and this professionally-accredited degree will ensure you are up-to-date with developments in communications, digital and social media as well as essential business functions like finance, HRM and operations.

Marketing embraces psychology, consumer behaviour, management, innovation, sociology and popular culture and is central to life in the 21st century.

After studying buyer behaviour, marketing data analysis, branding, competition, and media and communications, you will combine it all in practical assignments.

Why choose this course?

• Learn from staff with extensive industry experience as you engage with real marketing projects
• Study the latest marketing developments ensuring you graduate with up-to-date knowledge
• Develop your career opportunities with an optional placement and links to industry practitioners
• Gain knowledge of marketing and communications areas including management, marketing in contemporary contexts, marketing data and international business
• Explore a range of potential career options including sales, brand management, business development, market research, communications and customer liaison
• Benefit from studying a degree accredited by the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), with an optional placement (sandwich) year.

In each year of study, you will be involved in  practical marketing projects from real companies and you will interact with professional practitioners, allowing you to engage with theory and practice and encourage you to make links between your studies and workplace practice.

This provides you with an understanding of modern business marketing and will ensure that you are up-to-date with developments in communications, digital and social media, as well as business functions like finance, HRM and operations.

Our professionally-accredited course will provide you with the opportunity to take the Introductory Certificate in Marketing qualification awarded by the renowned Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), with further exemption opportunities for the CIM Professional Certificate and CIM Professional Diploma.

After graduation, this could provide a great way to start your marketing career and save you time and money towards your professional marketing qualification

This BA (Hons) Psychology course explores how professional psychologists use evidence-based practice to make a difference in people’s lives. It also introduces you to the psychological theories that explain human thoughts, emotions and behaviour.

The course shows how applying psychological knowledge can help us better understand and explain human behaviour. You learn about the key approaches - cognitive, social, developmental, biological, individual-difference psychology – as well as investigating psychological theories; historical and conceptual issues; and research methods.

In your final year, you complete a literature-based Honours project.

Why choose this course?

• Apply theory to real-life situations so you understand how psychology works in the real world
• Explore different perspectives on issues and problems, and learn to evaluate them in a critical manner
• Learn with an academic team actively involved in leading-edge research, activity which feeds back directly into your learning
• Benefit from studying in our modern facilities with a range of up-to-the-minute equipment to aid your learning
• Develop skills highly valued by potential employers such as the ability to conduct research, manage projects, problem solving, critical analysis, communication and team-working
• Use your degree to move on to postgraduate education and training to become a chartered psychologist, or specialise in a specific field such as forensic or health psychology
• It can open doors to a career in research, the prison service, police, social services, the mental health sector, business and HR, and teaching

Economies are increasingly global. With this degree - designed to give you the knowledge and skills to manage a business effectively in the global context - show potential employers that you understand how business operates on an international scale.

Alongside traditional business skills and disciplines such as strategy, human resource management, finance, operations and marketing, you will acquire global skills via units such as international economics, global marketing, and Intercultural awareness in business.

In your final year you are supported in finding a placement which delivers invaluable international experience, as well as credit towards your degree, as you apply your learning to project work in a live setting.

Why choose this course?
This innovative and interdisciplinary course will help you to gain the skills and knowledge required in key business disciplines coupled with a broader global business perspective. The course provides you with a deeper appreciation of the roles and relationships of businesses in an international context, together with the specific operational and strategic issues, challenges and opportunities that businesses face when they start operating at an international level.

You will also gain a working understanding of foundational concepts in the key functional and operational areas, including business management, business research, marketing, finance, accounting, operations management, human resource management, interpersonal and collaborative communication skills, covering important aspects of working in an international and multi-cultural environment.

The course offers a rich learning experience

• Is highly vocational with a focus on knowledge and understanding of business organisations from a global perspective;
• Focuses on both large and small organisational contexts;
• Instils a high level of professionalism from the outset;
• Has a strong theoretical base in each unit;
• Develops interpersonal and collaborative communication skills
• Includes a supervised final year dissertation involving an individually conducted research element;
• Provides further opportunity for professional development in a work placement relevant to international business
• Has small class interactive teaching environments;
• Focuses on hard and soft management skills for the 21st century

Choose International Business at Bedfordshire and

• Learn through lectures, seminars and workshops, plus projects, research exercises, presentations, and case study analyses with a focus on using your knowledge and understanding in practice
• Study business management, business research, marketing, finance, accounting, operations management and human resource management
• Develop your communication and collaborative skills as well as a recognisable high level of professionalism, enabling you to fit in and be effective from day one
• Gain an understanding of the roles and relationships of businesses in the international arena, and the specific operational and strategic issues, challenges and opportunities that they face at an international level
• Explore opportunities for further postgraduate and professional study
• Benefit from a degree which gives you understanding of global business operations, analytical and problem-solving skills, and personal effectiveness and credibility when working across cultures in international teams – attributes which are highly attractive to potential employers

This course focuses on the technical aspects of network design, network installation and configuration, systems administration, maintenance and management, as well as how they can be applied in modern technologies.

Computer networks have become part of our everyday lives - they form the backbone of modern information systems.

As networks expand, there is a growing need for individuals who understand their practical benefits, as well as how to implement and manage them.

By studying this course, you'll develop the required skills to implement computer network infrastructures in all sectors of the community.

Emphasis is placed on the development of strong technical skills in combination with the management of networks, implemented through design, and managing the needs of clients and businesses.

Why choose this course?

• Learn the highly sought-after skills needed to design, implement, install, configure, maintain and manage the latest state-of-the-art networks
• Study core computing and information systems
• Develop your ability to manage the needs of a wide range of clients and businesses, both large and small
• Gain advanced knowledge on a course that is focused on employment and establishing a rewarding career
• Explore the subject using a carefully structured mix of theory and practice
• Challenge yourself in our dedicated test network laboratory using the latest industry-standard programmes
• Benefit from a course that prepares you for a number of professional certification programmes

Your own interests will drive the direction of this course as you identify and address the latest theoretical concepts, evidence and research that are relevant to your individual practice.

You will have a rare opportunity to critically appraise and shape new ideas as they emerge, and enhance your understanding of the links between theory, research, evidence and policy development and its application to the design and delivery of services to children and young people.

Why choose this course?

• Study and evaluate relevant research and practice, synthesise information from a range of sources, and work with a high level of autonomy and self-direction
• Explore the cultural and social constructions of childhood and youth, and the impact they have on the everyday lives of children and young peopleDevelop an integrated and critically aware understanding of childhood and youth studies, and cultivate an analytical approach to contemporary methodological theories and developments
• Gain an advanced knowledge and understanding of the complexities surrounding the relationship between children’s rights, the ideologies and responsibilities for welfare, and the application of these elements in the experiences that effect children’s and young peoples’ lives.
• Benefit from enhanced career prospects by applying your new learning and expertise in professional contexts.

This MA is designed to allow you to build upon your knowledge and critically consider the theoretical underpinning of societal responses to a range of needs, through policy development and service delivery across children and young people’s sectors in a globalised context.

The majority of units are designed and taught by colleagues within the School of Applied Social Studies or the Institute of Applied Social Research, winners of the 2013 Queen’s Anniversary prize for outstanding achievement and excellence in UK universities and colleges. The departments are recognised for their contribution to policy and practice.

This high quality context is coupled with the opportunities and added value of our extensive professional networks. Partnerships from across private, public and voluntary sectors provide input to courses, as well as research opportunities, placement opportunities and voluntary work experience, making it truly ‘applied’.

The advent of digital media has created an explosion of possibilities when it comes to illustration. This innovative course gives you the drawing skills, techniques and industry know-how to produce, distribute and publish your graphic work.

This course takes in the full scope of contemporary illustration practice from craft-based techniques and drawing to digital and sequential moving image-based work. It ensures you develop the drawing, photography and digital-media skills you need for a career in areas such as film, animation, music video, advertising, publishing, video games and app design.

Working in small, lively, creative groups, you study a cluster of design courses including Animation and Graphic Design, with units covering materials and methods; studio practice; context and ideas; thinking through making; collaborative partnerships; and the critical and creative background to modern design.

Why choose this course?

• Work in spacious, well-equipped studios and benefit from high-spec facilities in digital media, motion graphics, bookmaking, stop motion, risograph printing and screen printing
• Gain skills and confidence with regular one-to-one contact with industry-experienced teaching staff and excellent technical support
• Explore the changing role of the designer and design in society so you can challenge current social, political and environmental thinking in your work
• Develop skills in creative problem solving, collaboration and entrepreneurship
• Take the course over four years and benefit from a year’s placement in industry, building your experience and making contacts for the future
• If you need to step up into higher education, start with a Foundation Year which gives you guaranteed entry to the undergraduate course