Master of Business Administration (MBA) with Placement

at Anglia Ruskin University - Cambridge Campus United Kingdom

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.

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.

As a Computer Science student at ARU, you’ll cover all aspects of technologies and user environments, along with the skills to create and manage IT solutions. This will include how to apply hardware and software technology to complex user requirements, and ensure their systems are secure. You’ll diagnose problems and respond to operational challenges. You can also build on this by choosing our placement option, allowing you to apply your knowledge in a real-life industry setting, helping you to gain key employability skills for after your degree.

By studying at ARU, you’ll gain practical experience in our advanced computing laboratories, setting up infrastructure and creating database applications, multimedia tools, browsers and server architecture.

Our Computer Science Masters degree course keeps you up-to-date with latest topics and developments in areas such as web applications and e-business engineering. Along the way you’ll acquire the research skills you need to prepare you for your dissertation.

The Masters Project offers a valuable opportunity to do in-depth research on a topic you are particularly interested in For those with business connections, this is a great opportunity to start working on a real-life project, either with a company or in order to prepare for a full time job straight after graduation. Here’s how James’s dissertation project helped him gain his first professional role as an IT development consultant

By the end of the course, you’ll have experience covering the full life cycle of a web application, specifically:

• Developing the front end and back end of a web app whilst securely storing the data in relational databases
• Using ontologies as an alternative to the databases to store information and query it
• Recognising the vulnerabilities and learning techniques to build secure systems
• Being confident in knowing the infrastructure required to deploy web applications successfully.

From here, you’ll be able to successfully apply your knowledge to the development of any other type of software application (being it mobile, cloud, standalone).
Cambridge is the perfect place to study your Computer Science Masters. Recently named the 'Best UK city to work in' you'll have lots of opportunities to gain relevant work experience locally and, after graduation, can expect an average salary of £35,000. (Glassdoor 2016).

At ARU, we’re 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. Taking real-world challenges as your starting point, you’ll get the chance to put your practical skills to the test and stand out to employers. We’ll encourage you to grab every opportunity for real-world experience – there’s even the chance to spend a year on placement.

In the Faculty of Business and Law, you’ll immerse yourself in a multicultural environment where technology blends with teaching to create a dynamic and innovative learning environment.

With a career in events management, a world of possibilities awaits you. You could go on to be a top events and marketing manager or event organiser, a skilled PR executive or maybe even a wedding planner – the choice is yours.

Broaden your expertise through the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques. In a world reliant on data to improve processes and monitor success, this course will help you gain transferable skills in AI to benefit your work place. It's been designed in response to the high demand for experts in big data analysis and modelling. Choose to take an optional 12-week work placement as part of your course and boost your employability.

The combined effect of the big volume of data availability on a global scale and a significant increase in processing power offered by technologies like cloud computing has made it possible to unlock the true potential of machine learning algorithms, extract features from data, and to expand the application domain of artificial intelligence.
The need to adapt and incorporate the ever-growing field of AI and it’s technologies into current business practices is putting increasing pressure on industries to invest in their legacy systems. Supported by Intel’s AI Academy through their online and data processing resources, the skills you will learn can be applied to AI-enabled business strategies and marketing, management of database records, e-business technologies, IT system development and design, and IT project management.

This course is designed to build on the skills of computer scientists, software engineers, IT professionals or established professionals in the areas of computing, mathematics and/or data analysis, to improve and create better systems in their industries, expanding knowledge of machine learning and enabling technologies.

Businesses also have the opportunity to present students on this course with their real life problems through attending as a guest lecturer. We also encourage you to attend local meetings and lectures organised by the IET and BCS, some of which are hosted by our University. This exposes you to engineers from local industries and introduces you to 'what's hot' in technology, an advantage to being based in the centre of Cambridge with its Science and Business Park.

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.

Our BA (Hons) Computer Games Design course will take you through the main areas of computer games development, from idea generation all the way to releasing a playable and polished game.

As you study you’ll develop specialist skills in game design, level design, user interface design, and user experience design. You’ll learn about different methods for user and task analysis that will help you develop intuitive and accessible interfaces.

You’ll also develop a deep understanding of the two most popular commercial game engines, Unity and Unreal – knowledge that is highly sought after in the creative industries.

And of course you’ll build a professional portfolio to showcase your skills to future employers and clients.

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.

On this course you’ll learn through practice, in our Early Childhood Resource and Research Room and through our optional placement and theoretical modules. Placements are optional and individually tailored to enable you to gain experience in a variety of different types of settings.

Whether you decide to go on placement or not, you’ll have access to additional volunteering and work experience as well as the choice to take part in further professional development training opportunities, enrichment trips, research groups and various early childhood and education events.

Throughout your studies you’ll be taught by experts in the field of early childhood, using a variety of teaching methods and interactive technology to promote learning, including group activities, class debates and discussion, lectures and seminar sessions, as well as independent learning and study expectations.

You’ll receive regular feedback and personal tutorial support throughout the course to develop both your academic and professional skills. You’ll also benefit from the research our lecturers are involved in through our Early Childhood Research Group.

Illustration is a broad visual narrative practice that has many applications in publishing and the wider creative industry. On our MA Illustration degree you will focus on illustration for social change, an innovative and growing area that addresses the complex social and environmental problems faced by society today.

Illustration skills such as visual storytelling, visual mediation, observation, creative thinking and of course image making are much sought-after, and more and more illustrators take part in change-making processes in organisations, institutes, and government.

Our Masters in Illustration is unique in its focus on building your illustration practice and exploring and developing your role in addressing issues including integration and diversity, behavioural change, community cohesion, and environmental challenges.

Whatever your background, you will develop your visual practice in important areas for illustrators, such as image creation; visual sequencing; concept development; and textuality. You’ll also extend your knowledge of the complexities of socio-environmental problems; institutional and government structures; creative project development and management; design methods; and collaboration processes.

As a graduate, you will have the confidence to start out in a career as an illustrator and play an active creative role in social and environmental change-making processes.

As a postgraduate student at ARU, you will have access to a dedicated base studio, as well as specialist facilities such as animation suites, film photography studios, and the print studio providing for a wide range of printing methods.

You will receive training in creative software such as Adobe Cloud – and you can access training in all our art and creative industries facilities, too. Studying in our dedicated studios at Cambridge School of Art and project locations, much of your work will be practice-based. You’ll 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.