Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Audio and Music Technology with Placement

at Anglia Ruskin University - Cambridge Campus United Kingdom

Push your art practice and creativity beyond existing boundaries, towards ethical, practical, and inclusive approaches addressing global health and wellbeing challenges, and make a positive contribution to society, healthcare, and planet through ethical and systemic creative interventions.

In a world that needs people to stay well, recover faster, manage long-term conditions, and experience a better quality of life, art professionals have never played such a central role - tackling physical, mental and social wellbeing as well as increasing human productivity, strengthening local relationships, and building strong communities through art-based interventions and creative non-clinical approaches that are connected, shared, and intelligent.

Study MA Art, Health, and Wellbeing at ARU, and develop the theoretical, practical, and leadership skills, understanding and knowledge that are critical to creating dynamic and inclusive forms of participatory research and practice, community engagement and resilience building, and creative urban culture. You’ll gain a broad understanding of ethical and future health from the perspective of art and will tackle mental, physical, emotional, and social wellbeing issues in a global context by rethinking existing places, environments, and communities including reducing individual loneliness and isolation, increasing prosocial behaviours, reducing aggression and discrimination, and improving social consciousness.

You’ll work closely with students from across the Cambridge School of Art, including the postgraduate students from Human-Centred Design and Interior Design Innovation on an industry-led collaborative project and deliver public-facing events. As an Art, Health, and Wellbeing student in Cambridge, you’ll be able to work in a start-up environment and a relaxed culture in which creativity and creative problem solving are valued and build strong relationships and freely exchange thoughts and ideas. Most importantly, you’ll receive support and guidance from our experienced staff who, as well as running their own studio practice, have worked with companies such as the NHS, Prepared International, Nebama Mind, World Health Organisation, and World Humanitarian Forum. The creative freedom offered by the course results in a variety of degree outputs based on art futuring, ideas and methods for creativity as an expanded ethical and professional practice, from social prescribing and increasing human connectivity, to overcoming fear, pain, anxiety, depression and stress.

Talks from visiting lecturers and live briefs from industry are built into our course. They focus on areas including participatory research and practice, digital health, social design and sustainability, interactive storytelling and digital technologies, care systems and future health. We'll encourage you to build your profile by entering national and international competitions, as well as taking part in our own competitions such as the Sustainability Art Prize. You'll have the chance to develop a business plan and pitch for start-up funding through our annual competition, The Big Pitch, and you can get involved in our research conferences and creative events.

As a BA (Hons) Film Production student at ARU, you will be supported by award-winning, lecturers whose work has been screened on all the major UK television networks, as well as at multiple international film festivals. They have won Emmys, HUGOs and BAFTAs and continue to practice.

With their encouragement, you'll produce a rage of programmes and films which may ultimately be as prize and film festival worthy as recent student work. Our second year documentary, Tertiary Sound was officially selected for the BFI London Film Festival and in competitions like the Royal Television Society (East) Student Awards, our students have a growing tradition of success. In 2019, ARU Film Production students scooped up Best Drama, Best Editing, Best Production Design, Best Camera, Best Sound and Best Writing at the RTS (East) student awards, cementing the course’s reputation as a national centre of excellence

You’ll have access to a series of guest lectures and workshops led by industry professionals where you’ll learn more about industry practices, receive invaluable advice and have an opportunity to network with visiting film and programme makers.

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.

Exciting and intriguing spaces offer experiences that make us want to return again and again.

Discover how you can embed stories into your designs – stories that help others to develop social connections and make your designed spaces important to the community.

By studying BA (Hons) Interior Design at ARU, you’ll explore the relationships between design, experience and narrative.

With our small studio groups, your tutors will really get to know you and your work, and help you become a resilient interior designer with a distinctive creative voice.

Design can reveal a lot about the people who use a space, and the community they inhabit. On our BA (Hons) Interior Design degree you’ll learn to create effective design proposals, while considering how to develop spaces that connect stories with people.

Throughout the course, you’ll be encouraged to propose design questions, such as: How can public spaces cater for multiple activities and users? How much space do we need to live in? How do major brands reinvent themselves to respond to new markets?

We think your ideas and design skills are important. You’ll develop these by working in small teams at different stages of your degree, sometimes alongside students from other creative courses.

There’s also the opportunity to get inspired on European field trips, and to study abroad for a semester – with funding available to help cover the cost.

With small studio groups, you’ll engage in a consistent conversation with your tutors too. It’s one of the reasons our Design & Crafts courses ranked 8th in the UK for 'Satisfied with Course' and 3rd for 'Satisfied with Teaching' (The Guardian University Guide 2020).

With an eye on your future career, you’ll receive ongoing support to find placements and work experience and you can also take an optional placement year.

You can see your designs become reality in live projects and foster professional relationships through Design Bench, a series of industry networking meetings.

Accredited by TIGA, our Computer Games Art degree will allow you to develop art skills relevant to the fast-moving computer games industry. You’ll gain 3D computer games skills including modelling, texturing and animation, enabling you to create characters, environments and more.

During your studies, you’ll discover how you can use your visual research, creative experimentation and technical development to forge a career as a computer games artist. You’ll learn how to plan your designs by creating concept art before bringing them to life using interactive software such as Unity 3D.

ARU is the place to be for studying Computer Games Art. The East of England has 135 active games companies, with Cambridge home to developers including Jagex, Frontier Developments and Ninja Theory, who are currently building a new base on Newmarket Road complete with a gaming pub.

Our Computer Games Art course scored 92% for ‘The Teaching on my Course’ in the National Student Survey 2019.

By studying Computer Games Art at ARU, you’ll get the chance to improve your prospects with live briefs and guest speakers from tech giants like Sony, Jagex and Frontier.

Our flexible modules allow you to explore different aspects of digital art, helping you specialise and future-proof your career. And with TIGA accreditation, this course gives you a badge of excellence to show future employers too.

We're also partners with the Global Science & Technology Forum, giving you access to cutting-edge research materials.

During your time at ARU, you’ll receive ongoing support to find placements and work experience relevant to your Computer Games Art and you can take an optional placement year. In recent times, ARM, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Frontier and Just Flight have all offered internships and work opportunities to ARU students.

How do our thoughts and feelings dictate our actions? And is there such a thing as the criminal mind?

These are fascinating questions, and psychology and criminology are equally fascinating fields. You might be interested in both, and wondering which area to specialise in. If that’s the case, our British Psychological Society (BPS) accredited Psychology with Criminology degree is made for you.

We start by looking at the main principles of psychology and criminology. Then, in Years 2 and 3, our optional modules give you the freedom to explore your own interests in more depth.

By studying BSc (Hons) Psychology with Criminology at ARU, you’ll learn from expert tutors who are actively engaged in research work. And you can take advantage of our specialist science facilities too, including laboratories for analysing hair and saliva samples, and measuring electrical activity in the brain.

You’ll learn about criminal profiling and how it offers insights into youth offending, gendered violence, genocide, rape, abuse and other types of crime. You’ll look at media representations of crime, and explore social and developmental psychology.

But we don’t just learn in the classroom. There are field trips to places such as the Old Bailey and Auschwitz. You’ll sit in on live trials in Cambridge Crown Court too, and observe the dynamics of the court room.

In the final year of your course, there’s the chance to learn about offending and offender rehabilitation from trainee forensic psychologists. You’ll also complete a major project within psychology – and define your future career path.

Psychology degrees at ARU:
This is just one of the undergraduate psychology degrees that we offer in Cambridge. You can also choose to study BSc (Hons) Psychology, or focus on the field of clinical psychology.

Explore the causes of crime, the effectiveness of punishment, and how crime and victimisation are represented in the media.

In doing so, you’ll challenge your existing opinions. You’ll also develop skills in evaluating contrasting evidence, critical thinking and crafting arguments by learning how sociologists, psychologists, political theorists and law experts approach crime and complex social problems.

Our BA (Hons) Criminology course places value on hands-on learning. We learn through case studies, the latest research and interactive sessions. There may be field trips to courts, prisons and sites such as Auschwitz.

We have a supportive community of staff and students at ARU. Throughout your BA (Hons) Criminology degree, you’ll benefit from one-to-one personal tutoring and dedicated Criminology social media groups.

Together, we’ll explore the causes of, responses to, and media representation of the most relevant crimes of today. These include violence against women and girls, crimes of the powerful, opportunistic crimes, war crimes, corruption and urban culture.

You’ll prepare for your future career from the first semester: building a portfolio and CV, attending volunteer and employment fairs, taking part in our annual Criminology conference, and hearing from key figures in criminal justice debates and the authors of important criminology texts.

What’s more, our links to local and national organisations give you the chance to gain work experience, and lay the groundwork for your final-year research project.

At ARU, we are helping to develop the next generation of business practitioners and thinkers.

We know that your future career is important and you want to build your CV. So we’ll encourage you to grab every opportunity for real-world experience: there’s even the chance to study abroad for a semester in Europe, Canada, the USA or Malaysia – with funding on offer to help cover the costs.

As a trusted partner of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, our Business with Human Resource Management BSc (Hons) degree course is CIPD accredited – this means that you’ll also be able to take advantage of an Associate CIPD membership during your time as a student with us at ARU.

This course will prepare you for working in a variety of HR roles, including recruitment and selection, employee relations or personnel, training and development and beyond – it’s up to you where your degree takes you.

The world of business never stands still - join us and see where your talents can take you.

As a Musical Theatre student at ARU, you’ll train with industry professionals, take part in showcases and productions from Year 1, and gain real-world experience.

On our BA (Hons) Musical Theatre degree you will gain skills unique to musical theatre training, specifically actor-musicianship, physical theatre, dance and choreography.

Your tutors will include established musical directors, artistic directors and choreographers – and you’ll learn in professional facilities including our Mumford Theatre.

With a buzzing creative scene, and opportunities to perform in renowned local venues, Cambridge is the perfect place to study Musical Theatre. You can even choose to study abroad for a semester, with funding on offer to help cover the cost.

In your first year as a Musical Theatre student we’ll work on a small-scale musical, before tackling a full-scale book musical as your second year begins.

Next comes an Industry Project on an intense four- to five-week schedule, led by a professional director and our resident Musical Director. This gives you a real-world, authentic experience of industry practice in musical theatre production. We’ll also support you to learn through work-based projects, internships or placements. You can even take an optional placement year.

Our Musical Theatre degree features four productions and two skills showcases. You’ll learn advanced audition techniques and produce your own showreel. Alongside this, you’ll gain confidence, emotional resilience, and the ability to work as part of a team.

Graduate ready for careers in musical theatre and a wide range of professions in the creative industries, the arts, and education.

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.