University Centre Leeds, Leeds City College
UCAS Code: W7Y9 | Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Entry requirements
Sorry, no information to show
About this course
See your future in full colour with the BA (Hons) Art Top-Up Degree. Delivered from studio space in the creative quarter of Leeds city centre, it offers a supportive and creative environment to explore and develop your artistic style. It combines practical, academic and industry practices to help you find and establish your place in this thriving sector. Offering a robust programme that is reflective of creative and cultural industries, this course will support you on your chosen trajectory.
There’s never been a more exciting time to develop your artistic flair - the creative industries are booming, with previous growth in the industry up by 7.4% (five times the growth across the UK economy as a whole). The arts and culture industries contribute around £10.5 billion to the UK economy (House of Commons, 2019) and in 2020 the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the HM Treasury announced funding of £1.57 billion for cultural, arts and heritage institutions. This makes pursuing a career in the creative arts the perfect way to become a successful practitioner.
The BA (Hons) Art Top-Up Degree puts your creativity at the forefront and provides you with the opportunity to nurture a strong and coherent art practice. It offers multiple opportunities for self-promotion including: public exhibitions; working with gallerists and curators; self-promotion; collaboration with other artists, designers and makers; working with the public, exploring academic research; and creating an identity for your practice. The course is driven by the reality of being an artist in the real world and therefore is designed to offer real industry opportunities. The content has been developed with local galleries and art organisations, as well as freelancers.
You will develop your creative skills through technical supervision, critical questioning and individual agency; consolidating your creative identity with an increased understanding of social, cultural and theoretical art debates and influences. You will also prepare for life as an artist following graduation, receiving plenty of time with tutors to discuss your practice, ideas and creativity across a diverse range of course modules.
Modules
You will study 120 credits and the modules may include:
Year 1 (Level 6)
Ideas and Concepts (20 credits)
The aim of this module is to engage you in your creative output, exploring and challenging various ideas and concepts through practical investigation.
Major Creative Project (40 credits)
As the name suggests, this module enables you to produce and exhibit a body of creative work.
Collaboration Project (20 credits)
Delve into the exploration of collaborative practice. Within the module you will develop a professional external project working across specialisms of your choice.
Contextualising Practice (30 credits)
You will explore and develop an area of academic research related to your creative practice, culminating in a written dissertation.
Portfolio Review (10 credits)
This module gives you the opportunity to present your work through interview to external industry professionals.
Assessment methods
Our assessments draw on a range of skills to reflect the activities typical of a practising artist in the industry.
Ideas and research are assessed through a presentation as well as written and practical outcomes. Reflection and evaluation are important in self-directed learning, feature in the collaboration module and inform the Portfolio Review.
Creative practice and practical outcomes are the chief component of assessment on the BA (Hons) Art course. The Major Project and Ideas and Concepts both require practical bodies of work that demand creative stamina.
There is an expectation of presenting the creative work through exhibition opportunities both during the course and at its culmination; as well as having the chance to present work in an interview scenario to external professionals.
Assessment methods may include:
- Portfolio
- Log
- Project
- Interview
- Research proposal presentation
- Dissertation
- Exhibition
Tuition fees
Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:
What students say
Sorry, no information to show
This is usually because there were too few respondents in the data we receive to be able to provide results about the subject at this university.
After graduation
The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Fine art
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
Quite a few students of fine art have already retired and are taking the degree for the excellent reason that they love art, and they're willing to pay to study it. You should bear this in mind if the stats you see feature particularly low employment rates. If you need to earn a living once you've finished your fine art degree, be aware that freelancing and self-employment is common - about one in six fine arts graduates were working for themselves. Also common are what is termed 'portfolio careers' — having several part-time jobs or commissions at once - and many courses actually help you prepare for freelancing. One in ten of last year’s fine arts graduates had more than one job six months after graduation — over twice the average for graduates from 2015. Graduates from these subjects are often found in arts jobs, as artists, designers, photographers and similar jobs, or as arts and entertainment officers or teachers — although it's perfectly possible to get jobs outside the arts if you wish, with jobs in events management, marketing and community work amongst the most popular options.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Fine art
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£19k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
Explore these similar courses...
Higher entry requirements
Lower entry requirements
Nearby University
Same UniversityThis is what the university has told Ucas about the criteria they expect applicants to satisfy; some may be compulsory, others may be preferable.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
This is the percentage of applicants to this course who received an offer last year, through Ucas.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
Course location and department:
This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF):
We've received this information from the Department for Education, via Ucas. This is how the university as a whole has been rated for its quality of teaching: gold silver or bronze. Note, not all universities have taken part in the TEF.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).
This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), for undergraduate students only.
You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
Post-six month graduation stats:
This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.
It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
Graduate field commentary:
The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
