Master of Arts in Creativity, Making and Innovation Practice

at Birmingham City University - City Centre Campus United Kingdom

The MSc Advanced Computer Networks is the ideal course for those who intend to pursue/progress in the computer networks / network security industry. Whether you are looking to start a career in networking or to progress in your current career, we have designed this course with the most relevant and state of the art developments to give you practical technical experience in the domain of enterprise network design, penetration testing, network automation and more.

We have also taken an applied approach to incorporating research as part of the course, so for those interested in research careers and PhD studentships, this would be a strong stepping-stone. Throughout the course, you will have access to our advanced labs with racks of networking devices as well as our online NetLab system which gives you the ability to access real networking hardware from anywhere via internet. This gives you flexibility to work and practice around your own schedule.

We take pride in having close links with our industry partners and this course was designed to address the gap between academia and industry when it comes to required technical skills. While on the course, you will have access to a wealth of knowledge base and will have the opportunity to benefit from certification courses such as Cisco CCNA, CCNP, DevNet, JUNOS, PaloAlto PCNSA and many more which are all included as part of our academy courses.

Professional Placement option

The Professional Placement option will allow you to complete a credit bearing, 20 week Professional Placement as an integral part of your Master’s Degree. The purpose of the Professional Placement is to improve your employability skills which will, through the placement experience, allow you to evidence your professional skills, attitudes and behaviours at the point of entry to the postgraduate job market. Furthermore, by completing the Professional Placement, you will be able to develop and enhance your understanding of the professional work environment, relevant to your chosen field of study, and reflect critically on your own professional skills development within the workplace.

You will be responsible for finding and securing your own placement. The University, however, will draw on its extensive network of local, regional and national employers to support you in finding a suitable placement to complement your chosen area of study. You will also benefit from support sessions delivered by Careers+ as well as advice and guidance from your School.

Business Operations Management is a very popular management subject and leads to highly valued roles within the global job market due to the increasingly high value placed on it by industry.

It exists in every business no matter the size and industry, and it plays a key role directly affecting business performance and global economics. For example, as retail businesses transform their practices in the digital era with online shopping, the logistics industry is currently experiencing huge growth which is forecast to continue well into the future.

Professional Placement option

For our Global Business Operations degree, you will have the opportunity to take the Professional Placement version of the course, which is offered as an alternative to the standard version of the course.

This will allow you to complete a credit-bearing, 20-week Professional Placement as an integral part of your Master’s Degree. The purpose of the Professional Placement is to improve your employability and transferable skills. The placement experience will allow you to evidence your professional skills, attitudes and behaviours at the point of entry to the postgraduate job market.

English Language and Literature degrees instil graduates with a vast range of skills, which are highly sought after by employers.

The BA (Hons) English Language and Literature course will support you in developing interdisciplinary skills in both areas, as well as the wider field of humanities.

You will have a unique opportunity to strengthen your critical skills in informed reading and analysis, whilst deepening your appreciation for language and literature. You will develop your writing, close-reading and research skills, and learn to express your arguments coherently and persuasively.

Your language studies will be applied to everyday and professional settings, allowing you to strengthen your understanding of communicative processes, while your literature studies will provide an opportunity to examine literature from all of the major periods, movements and genres. Your degree will allow you to tailor your studies to your individual interests.

What's covered in this course?

English as a discipline continues to be relevant to the lives we lead and is central to a wide range of contemporary and social contexts. It is this fact on which the School has built its philosophy and approach to English as a subject with interdisciplinary reach beyond its own boundaries.

Understanding how language works in practice, engaging with multiple forms of communication, and examining how language and literature engage with societies and cultures in the past and present, are all vital aspects in understanding how the discipline connects with the wider world, enabling you to focus on the production, interpretation and negotiation of meaning and to understand the world from a variety of perspectives.

You will benefit from student-focused and research-informed teaching in a friendly and supportive learning environment. Our graduates are characterised by their extensive subject knowledge, critical thinking and intellectual curiosity, reflected in the skills and abilities that enables them to adapt to a wide range of career paths and employment opportunities.

The School contributes to the cultural life of Birmingham and the wider West Midlands by: working closely with partner colleges and schools; maintaining close links with cultural institutions such as the Birmingham and Midland Institute (BMI) and Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BMAG); and working with agencies such as Writing West Midlands. The aim is to provide opportunities for the community to engage with the discipline and the University.

A law degree is an important first step into a career in law, as well as an important foundation on the route to many other careers, and Birmingham City University is a long-established provider of legal education to the Birmingham legal community and beyond.

This course has been developed to enable anyone wishing to qualify as a solicitor or barrister to undertake this first, important academic stage of their career. To achieve this, the course has been designed to align with the subjects that you will need to study further in order to successfully undertake the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE), while also meeting the requirements of the Bar Standards Board for an undergraduate law degree.

What's covered in this course?

The study of law is both academic and practical, and therefore both of these are important elements in the LLB (Hons) degree at BCU. Theory and academic study are important on an LLB, but so too is the application of that knowledge, and so our LLB (Hons) degree offers plenty of opportunity for you to develop the practical lawyering skills, as well as the transferable skills enhancing your employability, that graduates will need when entering the workplace.

The different pathways on the LLB course will allow you to make decisions regarding the direction in which you want to take your studies, with named degrees in Law with American Legal Studies, Law with Business Law, and Law with Criminal Justice, as well as a broad range of optional modules ranging from more theoretical topics through to those aimed at the practical application of the law in real-world situations.

You will also have the opportunity to put those skills to practical use, both in the local community and beyond. Whether that is through our programme of placement opportunities with local providers such as Citizen’s Advice and various legal advice charities, through opportunities in the local legal community, or via BCU’s own Law Clinic, established to serve the local community from our City Centre campus, there are plenty of options available to you.

You can also apply your legal knowledge further afield, through our US internship programme which has been placing students with attorneys throughout the US for over 20 years. A professional placement year is also available, between years 2 and 3 of the degree, offering further opportunity for you to put your knowledge and skills to practical use, and thereby enhancing your CV further.

By focussing on the development of a range of transferable skills, the course employs numerous innovative assessment methods, going beyond the typical forms of written academic assessment.

You are also encouraged to engage in extra-curricular activities to support your learning, with student societies such as the highly successful Mooting Society. Furthermore, you will have the ability to engage with the wider Birmingham legal community through our connections with the Birmingham Law Society, the largest regional law society in the UK.

Designed for recent graduates and suitably qualified mature students, our taught Master of Music (MMus) Orchestral Conducting courses provide the technical training, collaborative opportunities and podium time necessary to help you prepare for a career as a professional conductor. Royal Birmingham Conservatoire is currently the most exciting destination for orchestral conductors, with an active concert schedule.

As a Principal Study Orchestral Conductor, you'll be offered individual tuition from our staff conductors, and also from the many distinguished guest conductors who work with our ensembles and orchestras on an occasional basis throughout the year.

You'll work across the whole spectrum of the Conservatoire’s music-making, from core contemporary repertoire and student composition projects, through the central romantic and classic masterpieces back to period performance techniques.

It's normal for conducting students to be proactive in presenting performances of projects that they've generated themselves. You'll receive support and professional advice in pursuing such projects, which should be viewed as an essential element of your studies. Both PgDip and MMus courses provide excellent opportunities to develop other skills relevant to a future career in the music profession.

Professional Placement option

The Professional Placement version of the course is optional and is offered as an alternative to the standard version of the course.

This will allow you to complete a credit-bearing, 20-week Professional Placement as an integral part of your Master’s Degree. The purpose of the Professional Placement is to improve your employability skills which will, through the placement experience, allow you to evidence your professional skills, attitudes and behaviours at the point of entry to the postgraduate job market. Furthermore, by completing the Professional Placement, you will be able to develop and enhance your understanding of the professional work environment, relevant to your chosen field of study, and reflect critically on your own professional skills development within the workplace.

Want to enter the exciting world of property? Discover our BSc (Hons) Real Estate course. This degree is for you if you are interested in the study of the built environment and in the acquisition, disposal, management and valuation of land and buildings.

This real estate course has been developed in the UK in accordance with the requirements of Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), the leading international professional body for surveying, our course meets the needs of potential employers in the public, private and third sectors. You will complete your undergraduate degree with the most current and relevant insights.

What's covered in this course?

You will gain a detailed understanding of real estate, alongside learning to make an expert analysis of the processes of its ownership, development, occupation, valuation and management. You’ll also examine economics and finance, property valuation and management, development, construction, urban planning and law, ensuring you are equipped with the attributes you’ll need for a successful career.

The course integrates technological, financial, legal and management issues, and you will connect the theories and practice of real estate to a range of real-life case studies, helping you understand the complex world of property.

 We will prepare you for a career in real estate, developing your collaborative skills and ensuring you are not only able to practise effectively within the global real estate industry, but that you are also sensitive to the needs of the diverse cultures that you come into contact with in your work.

Especially relevant for the would-be chartered surveyor, this course offers a detailed study of the built environment alongside an expert analysis of the acquisition, disposal, management and valuation of land and buildings.

Future Media is a postgraduate MA program that does what it says:

• Future is finding your future and exploiting future developments in the digital marketing and advertising industry.
• Media is acquiring your digital media skill-set amongst evolving trends and emerging technologies.

The MA Future Media program combines agency practice with industry insights and academic methods. It's been a proven pathway to success for our graduates since 2012 and is now a winning formula for the 2020s.

What's covered in this course?

Our courses ensure you gain real-world experience and knowledge so you can hit the ground running when you graduate. In your year on the program, you’ll be planning digital marketing and advertising campaigns with digital agencies, developing brand and product promotions with clients, making mobile, social and virtual content with leading industry professionals and building new user journeys with emerging technologies and state-of-the-art resources.

You’ll tackle challenging briefs in diverse teams with industry partners to build your proficiency: MA students tend to choose broad, strategic and creative roles. Either way, we’ll give you the tools you need to realise your ambitions.

Professional Placement option

The Professional Placement version of the course is optional and is offered as an alternative to the standard version of the course.

This will allow you to complete a credit-bearing, 20-week Professional Placement as an integral part of your Master’s Degree. The purpose of the Professional Placement is to improve your employability skills which will, through the placement experience, allow you to evidence your professional skills, attitudes and behaviours at the point of entry to the postgraduate job market. Furthermore, by completing the Professional Placement, you will be able to develop and enhance your understanding of the professional work environment, relevant to your chosen field of study, and reflect critically on your own professional skills development within the workplace.

The BSc (Honours) Accountancy degree at Birmingham City Business School will equip you with the skills and knowledge that you will need to become a professional accountant.

The course provides a valuable insight into the worlds of accountancy practice, commerce and industry, underpinned by principles of good governance and ethical decision-making.

Delivery of the course is flexible and includes a blend of lectures, workshops, field trips and online learning. The modules, which feed into the course, are broad, covers key current topics such as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and help you to appreciate accountancy from a range of perspectives. Ultimately, decision-making in accountancy, calls for one to exercise judgement and intuition and this course helps you to strengthen that judgement.

This will prepare you for a long-term financial career as an accountant, allowing you to progress in many financial and related roles as well as the accounting profession. We create graduates who possess a global outlook, with the conceptual and applied knowledge in the field of accounting that will enable them to make a positive impact on society.

Our BEng (Hons) / MEng Electronic Engineering course will teach you a broad range of skills, helping you to become a rounded electrical engineer.

Throughout your degree study, you’ll have access to our state-of-the-art technology and resources, plus you’ll have the opportunity to secure yourself an industry placement, giving you instrumental electrical engineering work experience.

What's covered in this course?

The Electronic Engineering BEng (Hons) / MEng will give you an understanding of the social, commercial, legal, ethical, economic and environmental factors associated with engineering, as well as comprehensive knowledge of the science and mathematics associated with the discipline.

You will also develop the key transferrable skills that modern employers require, such as problem-solving, project planning, presentation and communication. Our competitions, such as the annual Engineering Show, which includes the international micro-mouse competition, gives you the opportunity to participate in a range of competitions centered on autonomous and non-autonomous robotic vehicles.

Our engineering courses focus on project-based activities, giving you lots of opportunity to work in teams on projects from design to implementation. This will give you practical experience of applying engineering science to real-world problems, working in multidisciplinary teams to develop your interpersonal skills, and prepare you for a key aspect of modern engineering practice.

The LLM International Business Law meets the current demand for specialist knowledge and skills in a rapidly expanding field. The course provides you with the opportunity to explore the legal regulation of the world of international business, and you will acquire knowledge and understanding of the aspects of substantive and procedural law.

You will study all the key areas of International Business Law:

Core taught modules:

• International Corporate Law
• Transnational Commercial Law
• Corporate Criminality and Tax Evasion
• Advanced Legal Research Methods

Two optional modules from the list below:

• International Intellectual Property Law
• Conflict Resolution in Business
• Global Comparative Competition Law
• Corporate Compliance
• Comparative International Corporate Insolvency Law

LLM Masters Stage:

• Dissertation/Live Project/Placement