Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Media and Communication

at Anglia Ruskin University - Cambridge Campus United Kingdom

On our BA (Hons) Acting degree at ARU you will get involved in extensive live work on stage in both the studio and theatre. You’ll develop techniques for acting on screen and also for live environments. You will also gain experience with new technologies and alternative platforms for acting, enabling you to be a dynamic and responsive actor prepared for a career in the ever-evolving creative industries. This may include the use of green screens, immersive live and virtual environments, live streams to remote audiences and acting for online applications.

You’ll focus on the progression in your own skills and abilities, growing into a confident and versatile performer. In the first year we’ll focus on performances for an in-house audience, initial training in voice and movement skills and an introduction to acting for screen. In the second year you’ll work on large-scale ensemble public productions and experimentation with new technologies for performance. In the final year, Immersive Performance and a final Showcase will allow you to demonstrate your high-level skills in acting.

Your degree will see you choosing from a range of career-focused optional modules, completing a 100% practical Major Project, and graduating with a professionally produced showreel and portfolio.

As a BA (Hons) Acting student at ARU, you’ll develop your technical and production skills in our specialist facilities. Our technical staff will be on hand to offer help and support.

You’ll learn to tell stories which engage audiences, whether you want to write poetry, drama, short fiction, or make films and documentaries. You’ll explore and develop professional writing techniques related to film including screenwriting and film journalism.

You’ll get invaluable feedback on all of your creative writing work from professional writers, including our teaching staff and Royal Literary Fund fellows, as well as your fellow students. This will offer you the unique opportunity to consider a range of responses to your work, as well as sharpening your own critical skills.

Investigating filmmaking practices from all over the world, and learning the language of film from the perspective of a filmmaker, you’ll make your own short films in video, animation or 16mm format, with full training in camera operation, sound recording and editing from professional filmmakers. If you specialise in filmmaking, you’ll put your well-practised skills to the test in a project that, once complete, will be screened at the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse. The best may also be selected for showing at the Cambridge Film Festival. You’ll learn to write knowledgeably and critically about film, giving you even more opportunities to get involved in Cambridge’s exciting arts scene.

Our optional modules allow you to further explore your interests or specialise for a particular career. In Years 2 and 3, you can also learn a language on our Anglia Language Programme and what’s more, you can choose to study abroad as part of your course and expand your cultural horizons and apply for funding to cover the cost.

Our links with local and national organisations will help you make contacts and find work placements in the industry. Our recent students have found internships and placements with companies such as the BBC, Cambridge Festival of Ideas, Film & Video Umbrella, Cannes Film Festival, Cambridge Film Festival, Take One magazine, Watersprite Film Festival, CBBC, ITN Productions, London Studios, MTV, New York Film Academy, Pinewood Studios, StudioCanal UK (formerly Optimum Releasing) and Sight & Sound magazine. You can also take an optional placement year.

Biological Sciences with Sustainability is a multidisciplinary degree, where you will study aspects of all life on earth and develop solutions to ensure a sustainable future.

Life on earth is fascinating, astonishing, diverse and beautiful, and the course aims to provide you with a detailed knowledge of all living organisms, how they work and how they function together with the environment they live in.

However, all life is currently under threat, with man-made (anthropogenic) change affecting the earth and all its systems. Biological sciences offer us a number of tools which can be used to alleviate these effects, and preserve our natural environment, both for the benefit of plants and animals, and for current and future generations. This course will thus give you a solid grounding in aspects of sustainable development, centred on the biological sciences.

Our course gives you a range of opportunities to develop the attitudes, abilities and competencies needed to work in biological sciences and in sustainable development.

The course also encourages you to develop your creativity and propose solutions to the ‘grand challenges’ or ‘wicked problems’ we face, as a result of changes man has brought about. You’ll develop a wide range of practical skills, both in the laboratory and in the field, as well as gaining the ability to analyse complex data to understand what it means. Data analysis is a critical factor in being able to make decisions to plan for a sustainable future.

Employers from the biological sciences and sustainability sector have been directly involved in the design and development of our BSc (Hons) Biological Sciences with Sustainability course. By collaborating with sector partners, we can explore the skill sets that employers are most interested in and ensure they are embedded within the delivery of the course.

Tourism is changing. It’s evolving to reflect consumer demand and the needs of the world around us. You need up-to-the-minute knowledge to launch a career in this dynamic industry.

That’s where we can help. Our course content and teaching are forward-thinking, and will help you acquire real-world business skills.

Together, we’ll explore how the tourism industry is affected by disciplines such as sustainability and economics. Our modules cover project management, financial analysis, marketing, and much more.

Tourism is a global industry and we understand the importance of languages in the sector. As a Business with Tourism student at ARU, you can choose to study French, German, Spanish, Italian, Chinese or Japanese as part of your course.

As a student at ARU, you’ll get hands-on experience working with local organisations to run events. And you’ll get to travel too, with a range of European field trips and the opportunity to study abroad for a semester.

Don’t count on passive learning. You’ll be involved in practical activities such as calculating your own impact on the environment. And we have Cambridge as our classroom – a place where history and culture meet 21st-century innovation. Perfect preparation for your career in tourism.

Performing is at the core of our Drama degree at ARU.

With our BA (Hons) Drama degree, we’ll help you to grow into a confident, versatile and exciting drama practitioner with transferable skills to suit the field you want to work in.

With a strong focus on performance, you’ll get to work on public productions as well as smaller-scale projects, exploring practices from the 20th century onwards and devising your own productions.

We’ll encourage you to create innovative and daring performance practice as you develop expertise in group collaboration alongside your own solo performances. You’ll also get the chance to weight your studies to suit your interests, be that drama practice, specialising in backstage production or even theatre administration.

You’ll follow an experiential 'learning-through-doing' programme and your degree will see you choosing from a range of career-focused optional modules, completing a 100% practical Major Project, and graduating with a professionally produced showreel and portfolio.

As a student here, you’ll develop your technical and production skills in our specialist facilities. Our technical staff will be on hand to offer help and support.

You can also choose to study abroad for a semester, with funding available to help cover the cost

Closer to home, you can connect with Cambridge’s performance scene through our links to local networks such as Cambridge Arts Network and Cambridge Live. You’ll get the chance to perform in public venues around Cambridge as well as on campus, in the Mumford Theatre and Covent Garden Studio.

Experience being part of a professional troupe with our very own Community Theatre Company and take the chance to perform and collaborate with other creative industries students.

Our course will teach you the principles of forensic science, from crime scene to court room. Based in our £45m Science Centre in Cambridge, you’ll analyse and investigate a range of evidence in crime scene rooms and the forensic lab.

With a focus on chemical and biological analysis, you’ll find out what that evidence means. We look at ways to ‘read’ data, interpret the results and present your evidence in court.

You’ll get hands-on with specialist analytical equipment, under the guidance of expert tutors. And you’ll learn outside the classroom too, with visits to law courts and a local mortuary, and opportunities to work with local police forces and forensic labs.

Graduate with advanced skills in chemistry, biology and laboratory analysis – ready to start a career as a forensic scientist.As a forensic scientist you'll provide evidence for use in courts of law to support criminal and civil investigations.

Learn both film theory and film-making practice by studying a full-time BA (Hons) Film degree at ARU.

As a student at ARU, you’ll discover the history of global cinema from the avant-garde to Hollywood blockbusters. As well as learning the fundamental theories of film and how it reflects and affects society, you’ll explore the language of film from the perspective of a filmmaker and start to think critically about your creative work.

This will be key in the practical side of the course: making your own explorative short films in video, animation or 16mm format. You’ll be trained in all aspects of the craft, including camera operation, sound recording and editing.

As the course progresses, our optional modules allow you to further explore your interests or specialise for a particular career, with subjects such as screenwriting and film journalism.

Throughout your BA (Hons) Film degree, you’ll be supported by our team of expert lecturers and a close-knit community of students and graduates who stay in touch through our dedicated Facebook page.

Develop your writing in a supportive and creative environment, with tips from our team of professional writers on how to improve your technique and get published.

Join a course taken by many successful published authors and take your creative writing to a professional level.

Our Masters course in Creative Writing will give you the opportunity to improve your writing by practising and sharing it with a close group of fellow writers, including specialist lecturers who are published authors.

You’ll study the most acclaimed writers of the past 200 years and discover the techniques they used to make their work stand out. We’ll give you opportunities to practise your technique in areas such as characterisation, structure and pacing, and experiment with different forms of writing.

As a BA (Hons) Philosophy student at ARU, you'll understand both the history of philosophy, as well as cutting edge debates in contemporary philosophy, within areas such as the Philosophy of AI, Ethics and the Philosophy of Art.

Your studies will be supported by our expert philosophy lecturers, who offer one-to-one tutoring and personalised feedback. It’s this support that helped our course rank as top Philosophy degree in the UK (National Student Survey 2020), as well as top for ’Satisfied with Feedback’ (The Guardian University Guide 2021).

You’ll develop your problem solving, critical thinking and judgement skills by analysing major philosophers’ ideas and arguments, developing your own views through rigorous, systematic and creative thought, and learning to use philosophical methods in your everyday life.

These are important skills, with the World Economic Forum ranking complex problem solving and critical thinking among the top ten skills needed to succeed in today’s job market.

There’s the chance to engage in philosophical discussions and debates through the student-led Philosophy Society, and attend events such as our Royal Institute of Philosophy lecture series.

You could also boost your employability by learning a language with our Anglia Language Programme, or studying abroad for a semester.

Our Zoology BSc (Hons) course will see you joining the likes of Charles Darwin, Dian Fossey, Jane Goodall and David Attenborough in exploring and explaining the diversity of animals from all over the globe.

You’ll build an understanding and skill-set in anatomy and physiology, behaviour, genetics, ecology and evolution, and the importance of wildlife conservation.

As part of your studies, you’ll get the opportunity to learn hands-on zoology skills – with plenty of time in our labs in Cambridge, as well as on field trips around the UK and beyond. Develop the scientific training and practical skills you need for a career in wildlife conservation, environmental consultancy or in zoos.

Recognised by the Royal Society of Biology, our BSc (Hons) Zoology degree is a practical subject with plenty of opportunity to learn and practise new skills, both in the lab and out in the field.

Take part in cutting-edge research in our specialist labs, closely linked to Cambridge University, and study zoology in marine and terrestrial systems, in both laboratory and field settings.

There’s an opportunity to join paid field trips too. You could experience rutting red deer on the island of Rum, investigate world-class zoos in the Netherlands, study practical marine biology in Scotland, dive in the Red Sea or even spend time learning about ecology and conservation in Africa. We also offer an optional placement year as part of your Zoology degree.

Fast becoming a world centre for wildlife conservation, Cambridge is home to Fauna and Flora International, Birdlife International and the World Conservation Monitoring Centre. During your time with us, you’ll have opportunities to attend lectures and visit specialist museums and libraries in the University of Cambridge.

As a student here, you’ll learn from staff who are involved in field and captive studies internationally and in the UK, and have research links with a range of organisations including some of Britain's most respected zoos.