Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Acting

at Anglia Ruskin University - Cambridge Campus United Kingdom

You’ll study classic literary texts alongside genres including sci-fi and children’s literature, and find out how English literature has been affected by, and influenced, culture, language, technology and economics

You’ll draw on a range of other subjects, including history, politics, philosophy, religion, psychology and the history of art to develop an all-round understanding of the written works that have shaped our world.

You’ll develop several skills that are valued by employers, including literacy, communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, research, and working independently and as part of a team.

Our wide range of optional modules offer you the opportunity to learn about the publishing industry, develop your creative writing skills, and gain work experience. You could also improve your CV by studying abroad for a semester or learning a new language with our Anglia Language Programme.

Create a diverse portfolio of work that will prepare you for the modern collaborative creative industries, whether you want to make soundtracks for films and games, manage sound for podcasts and live broadcasts, or perform as a DJ.

Our BA (Hons) Music and Sound Production degree will allow you access to industry-standard equipment for recording, mixing, editing and production, giving you valuable practice in working as a professional producer or sound engineer.

As well as advancing your understanding of digital audio theory, MIDI, and sound synthesis, you’ll move beyond move beyond the native mixers, processors and plugins in commercial DAWs towards higher-quality external processors, such as digital signal processing-based plugins and analogue outboard.

As a student at ARU in Cambridge, many of your modules will be shared with our other music courses, giving you the chance to collaborate with different students and develop all-important skills for your professional life, such as teamworking and time management. You’ll also have opportunities to work with students on our film and computer game degrees, creating soundtracks for their projects.

Our optional modules allow you to shape the course for your chosen career. For example, Music Business will develop and broaden your entrepreneurial skills for the modern music industry, with teaching by professionals who have extensive industry experience, and visiting speakers contributing specialist knowledge. Electronics for Music will introduce you to the analysis and design of electronic circuits, small-signal and power amplifiers, and the problems of noise, interference and distortion, helping you evaluate, select, design and test audio electronic equipment for use in your creative projects.

Our Software Engineering degree has been designed with employers in mind, so you’ll be equipped with all the skills you need as a graduate.

You’ll get the chance to stay ahead of the game as you apply new models, techniques and tools for implementing custom designed systems while delivering high standard software products for various platforms.

As a student at ARU, you'll develop essential programming skills that are key to industry and learn to apply your new coding skills to a variety of programming languages. You'll also learn how to implement sophisticated, secure data systems and develop important skills in data handling techniques that are required by many employers.

There are plenty of opportunities for practical work as you carry out individual and team tasks in the software development lifecycle, from analysis and design to implementation, testing and maintenance of a software system.

Our BSc (Hons) Software Engineering degree offers an optional placement year, where you can build up experience working in the industry, and make contacts to benefit your studies and enhance your long-term career prospects.

You’ll develop your skills in information design, visual identities, packaging and promotion, cross-platform advertising and design for the web. You’ll work in our dedicated Graphic Design Mac suites and base room, bouncing ideas off other student designers and getting guidance and support from the course team, all of whom have worked in the design industry for clients including Tesco, Lotus Cars, Manchester United, Saatchi & Saatchi, The NUS, and the UK Film Council.

You’ll also work closely with a number of graphic design studios, including?Cambridge University Press, CPL,?The District, and Onespacemedia, who will set your live briefs as well as providing lectures and one-to-one feedback, ending with a final review that can often lead to work placements, internships and long-term professional relationships.

You’ll also go on field trips, enter design competitions including Penguin Random House Student Design Awards, YCN?or?D&AD? and can choose to join our annual visit to Amsterdam. There’s even the chance to study abroad for a semester, with funding on offer to help cover the costs.

With its vibrant studio culture, our Graphic Design degree will encourage you to push boundaries and challenge existing thinking by developing innovative design solutions as well as a keen understanding of professional practice. You’ll experiment with print-based design as well as digital commercial practices including site-specific, interactive, motion graphics, mobile media, app design (UX/UI), web and multimedia work.

Our Design & Crafts courses are ranked 8th in the UK for 'Satisfied with Course' and 3rd for 'Satisfied with Teaching' in The Guardian University Guide 2020 reflecting how our students value their experience at Cambridge School of Art.

Use our superb crime scene rooms to learn the skills of a crime scene examiner, as well as industry-standard technology such as 360-degree camera and technology systems. The crime scene rooms feature video and audio CCTV so you can be assessed and receive valuable feedback.

We’ll help you to understand the practical aspects of crime, and how they affect everyday investigations. You’ll look at different types of crime – from burglary through to murder – and find out how these are investigated by the Police, and how other agencies such as fire and rescue contribute to investigations.

As a BSc (Hons) Crime and Investigative Studies student at ARU, you’ll learn not only how to process a crime scene but also how to investigate a crime from scratch. We’ll consider all the processes involved through modules including Forensic Scene Examination.

Our three-year degree course is accredited by the Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences (CSFS) and explores traditional investigative methods used by the Police, as well as newer approaches such as evidence-based policing. You will also learn how to present professional reports in both a policing environment and within a court of law.

As well as benefitting from our tutors’ knowledge, you’ll attend guest lectures from visiting professionals and get an understanding of the workplace through visits to places such as the Crown Court, and other field trips.

As a BA (Hons) Criminology and Policing student at ARU, we’ll help you work towards your career goals from day one.

Through our relationship with regional police forces and practitioners, you’ll have opportunities to engage with professionals from the criminal justice sector through guest lectures (including those organised by our Policing Institute for the Eastern Region, workshop events, study trips and research projects.

You may also have opportunities to work closely with local police forces. A recent student project, sponsored by Cambridge Constabulary, carried out research on police officer demographics and recruitment.

You’ll learn from staff with real-world experience: a significant part of your teaching in some modules will be delivered by policing and criminal justice practitioners such as former and active Crime Scene Investigators. Our criminology lecturers are active researchers with experience of working on real-life crimes with the police. You can also choose to an optional placement year.

We’ll support you to get involved in justice causes and campaigns, charities and voluntary work that contributes to civic duty so you can gain relevant experience in the criminal justice system. You’ll also boost your CV as you become proficient in critical analysis, research and communication.

Throughout your BA (Hons) Sociology degree, you’ll learn from sociologists who specialise in social policy and theory and undertake research into a wide range of sociological issues including 'race' and ethnicity, urban sociology, delinquency and disorder, the sociology of sport, notions of belonging, governance, moral regulation, social constructions of alcohol, gender-based violence, social justice, and social relations in marginalised communities.

You’ll also prepare for your future career, with the opportunity to conduct your own community or workplace research, gaining valuable practical experience and insight into different approaches to social issues. You’ll consider how you can apply this understanding by researching, pitching and evaluating an idea that could potentially make a positive contribution to society. You can also take an optional placement year; this might be in a governmental organisation, NGO, charity or social enterprise – wherever your own interests lead you.

As a Computer Science student at ARU, you'll spend lots of time in our computing labs. These include a Cisco lab with routing and switching equipment, and our virtual Netlab which offers 24/7 remote access to Cisco equipment.

You’ll also have access to Microsoft Imagine Premium’s professional developer and designer tools, VMware IT Academy’s virtualisation software and tools, plus mobile devices for testing and developing mobile applications.

It’s not just about technical skills, though. You’ll benefit from being based in Cambridge – home to the largest cluster of technology firms in Europe – with lots of opportunities to gain work experience. You'll also benefit from guest lectures and seminars from industry experts such as Citrix, ARM, Atom, Jagex and Sony.

As you study, you’ll learn to work effectively as part of a team and become a creative problem-solver who's aware of social, moral and ethical issues relating to the impact of computers on our lives.

We’ve developed our BSc (Hons) Computer Science degree in partnership with employers and professional bodies. By choosing particular modules, you can apply for Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) status after you graduate.

Our BSc (Hons) course focuses on equipping you with software engineering skills with a slight edge given to programming languages, so if it’s the ability to bend software to your will that excites you, this is the course for you. If you're interested, however, in software engineering skills with a slight edge given to networking principles, the BEng (Hons) will give you the tools to enable you to configure complex network systems.

Our MA Graphic Design and Typography is unique in its focus on building your graphic design practice and exploring and developing your role as visual designer and creative.

The course addresses issues including integration and diversity, behavioural change, community cohesion, and environmental challenges.

Whatever your background, you will advance your visual practice in areas that are important for design, such as concept development, communication and typographic design and textuality. You will combine this with extending your knowledge on the complexities of socio-environmental problems; insight into institutional and government structures; creative project development and management; design methods; and collaboration processes. This means you will gain the confidence to progress your career as graphic designer and have an active creative role in social and environmental change-making processes.

As a postgraduate student at ARU, you’ll have access to a dedicated base studio, along with specialist facilities such as film, photography and printmaking studios. You will receive training in creative software such as Adobe Cloud – and can access training in all our other art and creative industries facilities, too. 

Studying in our dedicated studios at Cambridge School of Art and at project locations, much of your work will be practice-based. You will take part in live projects, working with an external partner and students from related Masters degrees, as well as proposing and undertaking your own self-directed projects.

Throughout the course, you will collaborate and discuss your graphic design work with staff, external partners, visiting professionals and fellow students, giving you an invaluable opportunity to see how others respond to it. All our teaching team are practising designers, design researchers and artists, so you will hear about the latest news and issues in the industry, as well as getting access to sound careers advice.

Focusing a range of periods and themes including British and global histories, race and politics, gender, sexuality and the body, and also how we recreate history, you’ll take part in hands-on historical research to make sense of how past events have shaped our world today.

Cambridge is the perfect place to study history. Thanks to our close links with local organisations, you’ll find yourself handling historical objects, leafing through archival material, and working with museum professionals, as well as engaging with digital sources and archives.

There’s also the chance to study abroad for a semester, take part in European field trips, and go on work placements as you prepare for a career in many different fields including business, management, local government, heritage, museums and more.

As a history student at ARU, you'll form an understanding of why people and societies think and behave as they do – and how these actions can echo down the centuries. This historical insight will sharpen your ability to analyse and tackle complex problems, such as how social divisions arise and dictators come to power. You’ll also form an awareness of the limitations of our knowledge and the dangers of simplistic explanations.

These are important skills, with the World Economic Forum listing complex problem solving and critical thinking as two of the top 10 skills we need to thrive in today’s workforce.

In Years 2 and 3, our optional modules allow you to explore the areas of history that interest you most, with topics including the First World War, modern British politics, sport, the Russian Revolution and histories of everyday life. There is even a class on the history of James Bond! Meanwhile, your Undergraduate Major Project lets you complete a substantial piece of research work so that you become a historian in your own right.

You’ll be supported by staff, recognised as leaders in their field, whose expertise ranges from British imperialism and Victorian studies, to modern politics, gender history and the history of sense and emotions. It’s no surprise that our BA (Hons) History degree came 4th in the UK for ‘Satisfied with Teaching’ in The Guardian University Guide 2019 – and received an overall satisfaction score of more than 94% in the National Student Survey 2020.