Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Journalism and Media (with Sandwich Year)

at University of Hertfordshire - De Havilland Campus United Kingdom

Our BA English Language and Literature enables you to combine your study of the structure, development and use of English as a world language with your reading of literature written in English from all parts of the globe.

You’ll be taught by research-active academics who bring fresh thinking to our accessible, engaging courses. We’ll introduce you to writers who will open doors to contemporary worlds and cultures remote from your own, and also help you explore more familiar literature in ways that challenge your preconceptions.

You’ll enrich your study of English literature in its cultural and historical contexts through modules on the history of the English language. You’ll balance your reading of poetry and drama with analyses of how language is used in the media, to inform or persuade. The common link between the two disciplines will be your analysis of language and how it operates in literature and in real life.

A core module in your first year will equip you to read and interpret both traditional and contemporary literary texts critically as a scholar of English literature. You’ll also be introduced to English Linguistics, the scientific study of our language, from how language develops in children, to the ways it reflects society and how it changes over time.

Your second-year core modules will focus on English grammar and the sounds of English, and you’ll also study period-based literature from the Renaissance onwards, gaining an understanding of literary history, from Elizabethan verse and drama to the emergence of modernity in the 20 th century. A core module in English Literature will introduce you to a range of theoretical lenses which you can apply to your further study of texts.

You’ll have the chance to specialise in your final year, tailoring your degree to reflect your own interests. English Literature options include children’s literature, young adult fiction, 21 st century American literature and literary adaptations, amongst others.

Alongside these, a module on Corpus Studies in English Language will allow you to bring your literature and language interests together. Using Sketch Engine, a text analysis tool that enables you to search vast databases of language, you’ll be able to search literary texts to identify how particular words have been used in novels or literature. With more than 15 billion words available to you, you’ll be able to ask questions no one has asked before and pursue uniquely creative research projects.

This course develops your understanding of the business of sport, exploring the sports industry in the UK, as well as from a broader global perspective. You’ll learn key business concepts and theories, using them to review modern sports businesses and best practice in sports management. Throughout the course, we put a strong emphasis on the leadership and management of sports events, as well as developing the strategic skills you’ll need to be successful in today’s sports industry. We’ll help you develop your entrepreneurial skills, so that when you graduate you’ll have a balanced portfolio of knowledge and practical skills which really boosts your employability.

The MSc Sustainable Planning programme for 2019/2020 consists of three courses in MSc Sustainable Planning, MSc Sustainable Planning and Environmental Management and MSc Sustainable Planning and Transport. The programme provides students with the skills and expertise they need in order to meet contemporary sustainability challenges in planning, allowing them to contribute to a much needed and fast changing professional area. 

The Royal Town Planning Institute has formally granted accreditation to the University of Hertfordshire for its Master’s degrees in Sustainable Planning.

The breadth of material covered in our MSc in Sustainable Planning gives students the skills they need in order to meet contemporary sustainability challenges in planning. Planning has a key role to play in improving the condition of life in our towns, cities and rural areas. Towns and cities themselves impact on global sustainability and can play a very influential role in tackling global environmental, social and economic problems. Equally, implementing sustainability principles within urban and rural areas is essential for the well-being of the local residents and improvement of the local environment. Creating more sustainable towns and cities will be central to the future of society and the planet. The planning system is so important because it provides one of the most sophisticated mechanisms for regulating environmental change. Recent policy changes have made planning in neighbourhoods and in communities even more important.

Increasingly planners are being required to facilitate the creation of more sustainable urban environments. This requires expertise and skills in a diverse range of disciplines and nationally there is a shortage of relevant skills. This course offers both personal opportunities for students to gain valuable skills that make them highly employable, and allows them to contribute to a much needed and fast changing professional area.

This exciting new course is specifically aimed at people wishing to gain expertise in contemporary sustainability issues. It provides graduates with excellent career opportunities in planning, environmental management, urban design, community development, regeneration, transport management, climate change mitigation and other planning related careers.

The course is Suitable for

• Students who have work experience in planning or related discipline and require a postgraduate qualification and subsequent professional accreditation to develop their career further.
• New graduates starting their career in planning with a first degree in geography, environmental science, conservation, sociology, architecture and urban studies.
• Students from other disciplines who have developed an interest in planning from voluntary work, work experience or project work.

Key Features

• A combination of stimulating academic study and strong career orientation
• Focus on the role of planning in addressing key sustainability concerns: climate change; urban sprawl; social cohesion; and demands for personal mobility
• Using the latest techniques including GIS; urban design tools and community design engagement techniques such as charettes
• Practical problem based approach to learning that uses real planning issues and case studies
• Flexibility of study based on a programme of short courses scheduled over two or three days at weekends
• UK field trips including visits to the start of town planning nearby at Letchworth and the first New Towns
• International study visit to look at European best practice in France and Germany.
• It is structured around a modular short course structure to enable flexibility whilst working. This allows part-time student to not have to take more than 12 days off a year (if studying over 2/3 years).
• Networking opportunities per module with lunch and refreshments provided within your fees.

A degree in English Literature and Media will help you grow from passionate reader into a critical thinker and literary scholar, while learning how to apply similar skills of analysis to other representations of the world, through cinema, television, magazines, the internet, and the ways in which people communicate with each other.

On a degree in English Literature and Media, we’ll introduce you to writers who will open doors to contemporary worlds and cultures remote from your own, and also help you explore more familiar literature in ways that challenge your preconceptions. This means you’ll study literature written in English by writers from all parts of the globe, whose voices are relevant and important in our modern world. We’ll also develop your critical awareness of the media, sharpen your practical skills and get your career off to a flying start. In a fast-paced, multifaceted media world, people with the ability to write, design and harness new technologies are in high demand.

You’ll be taught by academic staff who bring fresh thinking to our accessible, engaging courses. Some are active researchers of international standing who bring their own passion for their discipline into the classroom; others are dynamic teachers with extensive industry experience.

Whatever your taste in literature, there will be something to interest and provoke you. From The Tiger Who Came to Tea to Jane Eyre, from Paradise Lost to Zadie Smith’s Swing Time, we’ll broaden your literary horizons and hone your critical thinking.

A core Literature module in your first year will equip you to read and interpret both traditional and contemporary literary texts critically as a scholar of English literature. Alongside this you can choose to revisit Shakespeare and consider his cultural relevance today through fictional, cinematic and TV adaptations; or to deepen your understanding of Gothic writing by tracing its origins back to the Romantic era.

In your second year you’ll focus on period-based literature from the Renaissance onwards and gain an understanding of literary history, from Elizabethan verse and drama, via Augustan poetry and the emergence of the novel in the 18th century, to the radical transformations of the Victorian age, and the emergence of modernity in the twentieth century. You’ll also have the opportunity to consider ways of reading that go beyond textual analysis or historical context, such as understanding literature through the political or ideological lens of Marxism, feminism and post-colonial theory.

You’ll have the chance to specialise in your final year, tailoring your literary study to reflect your own interests. Themed options include children’s literature, young adult fiction, Renaissance tragedy, European crime fiction, literary adaptations and the culture of print in the 18th century.

Your study of English Literature will enhance your ability to analyse and synthesise complex ideas, and to express yourself clearly in both written and spoken English. These skills will be hugely beneficial to your study of Media, especially when coupled with practical skills which help to prepare you for your future career. Design your own app proposal, create a hard-hitting ad campaign, build a brilliant website and craft an inspiring feature article -- all supported by our industry- experienced team. Working across different platforms and for different audiences, you’ll develop a packed portfolio that will demonstrate your skills, adaptability and ambition.

But you’ll need more than practical know-how to get published. So, we’ll develop your understanding of the global media industry, its influence on society, the legal and ethical contexts of your work and the impact of emerging technologies.

Our BA History and English Literature gives you the opportunity to study two subjects that speak closely to each other.

Just as poems, plays and novels can offer historians different ways to look at the past, historical documents can also be read as texts to be interpreted as works of narrative.

For both English Literature and History we have modernized and diversified our curriculum to reflect our changing world. Within our research-led courses you’ll study canonical texts and periods of history familiar to a traditional English or History degree but also voices and histories that reflect our modern, globalized 21 st century experiences.

You’ll start this joint degree with a core module that will teach you the skills of close analysis of literary texts. Reflecting on poetry by Danez Smith and Sylvia Plath, Caryl Churchill’s play Cloud 9 as well as work by Shakespeare and Zadie Smith, you’ll discover new ways of thinking about what literature is, and how to read it.

Also in your first year you’ll work through the Historian’s Toolkit, which helps you make the transition from school to university-level study. You will be introduced to an array of primary sources. You’ll also gain insights into historiography, to understand what influences historians, why they write the way they do and how they interact with one another.

Throughout your course, the common link between the two disciplines will be your analysis and interpretation of texts. The skills you’ve learned in your close reading of fiction are in many respects the same as those you will apply to your analysis of historical documents.

One of your second-year core English Literature modules is period-based, focusing on the 18th century, and offers a good example of how English and History are complementary. Your study of 18th century print culture and the emergence of the novel will be enhanced by your understanding of the politics of the day.

In your final year your courses will cover themes aligned to our academics’ research interests. You’ll have the chance to follow your interests and shape your studies, which could include African American literature, young adult fiction, or literary adaptations. Your History modules may focus on a particular region, such as Europe, or period, such as the 20th century.

We give you: 

• A flexible program of study, allowing you to concentrate on areas you find especially interesting
• Exceptional academic teams, conducting world-leading research
• Stimulating, innovative courses that allow you to make rewarding connections between two disciplines
• CV-building potential through work placements and extra-curricular activities
• Teaching rated excellent by 92.14% of our English students in the 2018 National Student Survey, with our History students reporting almost 94% overall satisfaction with their course

Studying Philosophy, Religion and Ethics at Hertfordshire will enable you to explore the connections and contradictions between thought and faith in the world today.

You may have taken Religious Studies at A-level or be fascinated by how religious belief is a driving force behind social and political events in today’s globalised world.

This degree course offers you the opportunity to explore the beliefs that guide people’s lives using the logical and critical skills gained through philosophical inquiry.

You’ll be taught by internationally regarded academics, who will help you understand how the practices of religion and philosophy have influenced – and been influenced by – the modern world. You’ll learn to address the arguments and beliefs of others and to engage with them, so that you can arrive at your own conclusions and create your own original work.

All our lecturers are active researchers, so you’ll share the excitement of doing original work in a supportive and highly-rated academic community. Our Philosophy team is in the top 15 in the Guardian League Table 2019 and rates as one of the 100 best Philosophy departments worldwide in the 2017 QS rankings.

In your first year you’ll take philosophy modules exploring ethics, mind, knowledge and reality alongside an introduction to four of the major world religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. This will be given a modern context through a module on religion and the contemporary world.

Seminars in your first year will explore how to investigate and discuss different beliefs and ideas and to develop your critical thinking, all within a respectful and empathetic environment.

In your second year you’ll study the philosophies of religion, and explore virtues, vices and ethics. Focusing on specific virtues such as forgiveness, hope or love from both a secular and religious point of view, you’ll examine what it means to live a good life.

Alongside options in your final year to explore religion and popular culture, as well as feminist and political philosophy, your dissertation will allow you to develop your particular interests, perhaps encompassing an exploration of some aspect of your own religious belief system.

• An exceptional academic team, conducting internationally renowned research
• A flexible programme of study, allowing you to concentrate on areas you find especially interesting
• The opportunity to write a dissertation on a topic about which you are passionate
• CV-building potential through extra-curricular activities

This multi-award-winning course will give you a thorough grounding and understanding of the commercial applications of illustration. Our aim is to develop creative thinkers and visual communicators who aren’t confined by the conventional boundaries of the industry. We encourage you to think imaginatively to develop engaging and purposeful ideas, and to execute them beautifully. The First Year is about core skills and finding the right pathway. Teaching guides you to be creative, generate ideas and solve problems, with workshops in software, typography and printmaking. Later, we focus on professional projects, emphasising commercial constraints and expectations. We also explore areas like digital design, interaction and motion graphics. In the Final Year you’ll produce a high-quality portfolio.

We have an enviable record of success. In recent years our students have won over many awards in all of the most prestigious national and international design and illustration competitions. These include: the overall winner of the Carmelite Prize, coveted D&AD pencils; various awards at New Designers; countless YCN awards; and many short listings and nominations in competitions such as the Penguin Random House Design awards, Folio Society, the London Transport and Lloyds TSB Illustration awards.

Clever, original ideas and excellent craftsmanship are vital for a successful career working at the top end of the profession and our course is committed to teaching students how to achieve these skills. We foster a fun yet demanding atmosphere that encourages our students to think independently, question the world around them and be opinionated.

The University of Hertfordshire MA in Creative Writing offers you the opportunity to develop your creative, critical and professional writing skills in a stimulating and supportive environment.

Through writing workshops and intensive tutorial-based supervision our teaching staff - all established authors themselves - will help you improve your own writing as you explore the advanced craft, theory and techniques of poetry, prose and drama.

Whether you have an unfinished novel you’re passionate about or want to learn how to write powerful dialogue or create memorable characters, this MA Creative Writing offers a range of modules that give you both literary context and practical professional guidance.

In all modules you will be taught by lecturers who are themselves professional practitioners and who bridge the gap between creative and academic approaches to their fields. These include two award-winning playwrights, Simon Vinnicombe, whose work has been produced at the National Theatre, Old Vic and around the world, and Drew Pautz, who is additionally a screenwriter and director whose work has also been performed at the National Theatre. As a feature film screenwriter he has worked with UK and European production companies.

Guided by our staff, you’ll take two core Writing Workshop modules examining creative and critical processes in your first two semesters. These workshops provide supportive spaces for you to contribute your own writing, reading your work to your fellow students and learning in turn to critique their work from a writer’s point of view.

Other modules may change but could include Working as a Writer and People and Places. As part of Working as a Writer you’ll submit your work to magazines and creative writing competitions, helping you to gain a practical understanding of the publishing world and how to approach editors and prepare your work for publication.

People and Places focuses on aspects of writing with communities, including the methods and approaches writers have used to portray communities or locations in creative work, and the tradition of writers working with communities to create joint artistic projects.

In your final semester you’ll complete a dissertation. This can take the form of a novel, script for stage, TV or film, a work of creative non-fiction, short story or poetry collection. Wherever your writing ambitions lie, this is your opportunity to add polished work to your portfolio and look ahead to your future writing life.

We give you:

• Teaching staff who are all published authors, poets or dramatists
• Visits and talks by writers, editors and agents working across the creative writing industries
• Opportunities to create and develop a portfolio of work, whether poetry, prose or drama
• A platform for publishing your work and a springboard for your future life as a writer

In today’s fast-paced media world, people with the ability to write, design and harness new technologies are in high demand.

Studying our BA Media degree will equip you with a portfolio of practical skills as well as a theoretical and critical understanding of Media. Our industry-focused approach, combining theory and practice, will help build your confidence, give you the  communication and technological skills required for the industry and help you plan your career.

You’ll learn how to design your own app proposal, build and edit brilliant websites and create a hard-hitting ad campaign, including PR. You’ll also learn what makes a good news story or feature, and how to write one. Using industry standard software and equipment, our professionally-experienced academics and researchers will help you develop skills across divergent platforms and for different audiences.

These hands-on skills will be underpinned by an understanding of the global media industry, and the legal and ethical contexts of your work. In your first year you’ll explore Global Media and Society, looking at who owns the news, at the influence of the BBC and commercial entities such as Sky and Murdoch’s News Corporation, and consider issues such as fake news.

Other core modules (courses) include introductions to Media Communications and Visual Communications – how to use text and graphics to reach key audiences – while you’ll gain technical skills through Photoshop or animation projects.

In your second year you’ll learn key research methods and skills including how to conduct interviews and run focus groups, and how to pitch to different client groups. You’ll explore radio journalism and social media, while a module on App Design will help you understand the commercial potential for your ideas.

If you’re into music, film, food or travel, you’ll have opportunities to create magazine layouts and pdfs for online publications on whatever subject interests you. A video option will give you the chance to create a brand for a product or service.

In your final year you’ll develop and refine your ideas and skills further. Whether you’re keen to work in web design, social media, customer relations, PR or advertising, the skills you’ve gained will prepare you to be tomorrow’s creative entrepreneurs, confident in using different platforms to get ahead in your chosen career.

• Communication skills (both oral and written),  enabling you to create and publish content across a broad range of formats
• Theory and practice – your critical understanding of Media will help futureproof your practical skills as an author and publications designer
• Individual support – a personal tutor will help you grow in confidence and support your development
• Industry insights – our Media Matters series of talks are delivered by professionals from a wide variety of media including TV, national newspapers and start-ups.
• An international perspective through the chance to study abroad 

The MSc Management is designed to provide you with a multidisciplinary approach to management. Upon graduation, you’ll be equipped with the personal and professional skills needed to be competent and successful managers in modern businesses.

You’ll develop a strong foundation of understanding of the role of management and its implementation across different industries. From developing an understanding of the role of management in the wider international economy, to the responsibilities of management to society, sustainability, and the planet, you’ll explore management from a range of perspectives.

Sustainability is becoming increasingly important to businesses as consumers become more conscious of their impact on the environment. Businesses are required to balance the need for transparency in the choices they make, while considering the needs of the business. Throughout the course, you’ll explore the key challenges of sustainable decision-making and the importance of managing relationships with communities, society and the environment. You’ll learn to bring together a range of business practices, knowledge and skills, and apply them to develop sustainable business activities.

So, whether you’re a graduate looking for a broad management qualification, or a professional who is looking to progress into management through a formal qualification, the MSc Management will provide you with an exciting learning journey.