Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Youth Work and Community Development

at Leeds Beckett University - City Campus United Kingdom

Study a practical course aimed at creative and dynamic individuals with a passion for modern digital technology.

As part of this course you’ll:

• Focus on the creative application of technology
• Use industry-standard software packages in our professional studios
• Learn how to produce effective designs, websites, apps, short films and animations while working as part of a production team
• Build a substantial portfolio of work
• Have the chance to develop relationships with future employers at our showcase event, where you will display your final-year project and network with industry professionals

This course has been developed with local and national employers in the creative industries. You’ll benefit from the hands-on experience of staff who actively pursue research in this area, many of whom divide their time between academic work and commercial sector activities. You’ll have access to professional, industry-standard facilities. Our hardware and software systems are updated each year ensuring you use the same software as you will find in industry.

Throughout the course, you’ll practise presenting your work in front of a panel of tutors and industry professionals. Your final year project will be displayed at a tradeshow event where you can make contact with future employers. Previous students have found work with Disney Interactive Studios, Sky TV and many digital agencies.

This vocational course will enable you to develop your own creative screenwriting practice and an extensive portfolio of work in preparation for a career as a screenwriter.

You will be based in the Northern Film School and will work alongside production courses and be taught via lectures, seminars, tutorials, talks, discussions and screenings. You will be supported as you work on self-directed projects and writing exercises. You will be encouraged to explore your own creative potential and test your ideas across a range of platforms including film and television, and you will develop an understanding and appreciation of the impact of new technologies on the industry.

You will be introduced to a wide range of ideas from industry which will inform and inspire your development as a writer as you gain a thorough grounding in key concepts and concerns of screenwriting for a range of screen media. This course will emphasise the creation of new ideas through provocation, stimulation and inspiration. You will be paired with a mentor for your final project which will replicate professional practice by encouraging you to develop a script in response to a client's needs.

Create exciting, innovative and cutting-edge theatre and performance.

As part of your course you’ll:

• Learn from a team of experienced and professional theatre and performance makers to produce exciting work for stage, galleries and festivals
• Gain real-world professional experience through public showings and work-based learning placements
• Explore theories of theatre and performance from researchers at the top of their field
• Become confident with the processes of making, performing and analysing theatre and performance, which will help you find employment within the creative industries

You’ll be engaged in practical events in the city in theatres, galleries and more unusual sites. Our performing arts students and staff have also performed their work together at Latitude, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Light Night here in Leeds.

Expert teaching:-
Learn from a team of experienced and professional theatre and performance makers to produce exciting work for stage, galleries and festivals.

As part of this course, you’ll:

• Acquire in-depth knowledge and develop skills that are associated with, competent risk management strategies and techniques
• Learn and develop innovative methods for dealing with legislative challenges when managing health and safety issues
• Be equipped with the expertise and confidence to manage an organisation’s health and safety activities

Accredited by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), this course conforms to the IOSH professional syllabus. On successful completion, you can apply for Graduate Membership of IOSH, and after fulfilling the Initial Professional Development you can apply for Chartered Membership.

As part of this course you’ll:

• Gain the skills to become a professional occupational therapist, able to deliver and evaluate occupational therapy in a range of settings
• Understand the relationship between occupation and health, models of occupation, occupational science and occupational justice
• Learn how to carry out occupational therapy assessments and interventions
• Work with people from across the lifespan and with a range of physical, mental and social difficulties such as dementia, stroke, homelessness or unemployment

You will specialise in either contemporary literature or creative writing. Taught in workshops held on weekday evenings, you will be able to fit your studies around your existing commitments.

Contemporary Literature
Specialise in researching contemporary literature. You will be introduced to a range of recent literary texts in English and develop an advanced, critical understanding of recent debates on the contemporary creative process.

You will be encouraged by expert tutors to develop your skills in close reading, creating and delivering presentations and formal discussions. Modules will explore how contemporary literary studies is a creative process, and will enable you to specialise in topics at the cutting edge of the discipline.   

Your independent project will enable you to experience the process of defining your own area of investigation and conducting in-depth research and writing.

Creative Writing
Study creative writing at an advanced level. From the outset, you will focus on developing particular expertise in the writing process, and the texts and theories you study will enhance your writing practice.

As part of your course you’ll:

• Develop concepts and narratives through drawing, sequential illustration and animation, digital practices, three-dimensional forms, performance and creative writing
• Underpin these practices with an emphasis on drawing and image-making
• Challenge the conventions of the discipline of illustration
• Define and locate your own practice within the professional context of illustration
• Investigate established unfamiliar and emerging processes, to inform your own individual methodologies

You’ll learn from experienced lecturers who practice and research in diverse industry fields with the knowledge and skills to support multidisciplinary explorations.

You’ll develop your ability to communicate and contribute to a team project by working with students studying different disciplines. This will simulate the working environment and enable you to practise collaborating on projects and briefs, a skill you’ll need in the workplace whether you choose to join an agency, studio or work as freelance. 

Develop the entrepreneurial flair to kick-start, manage and grow your own business or help an existing enterprise to expand.

As part of your course you’ll:

• Gain a broad understanding of how businesses operate
• Learn the behaviours, techniques and principles to succeed in today's economic climate
• Develop your individual promise by studying modules that will help shape you into a budding and innovative entrepreneur

If you take a paid work placement in your third year, you’ll develop and enhance your employability skills.

As well as having the option to gain experience on a placement, you’ll take part in workshops and work on a consultancy project within a start-up business.

Our guest lecture series will help give you access to the enterprise expertise present in Leeds, the northern powerhouse of the region's businesses and economy. Past speakers include the CEO of the London Stock Exchange, the Chief Executive of the British Bankers Association and the Chief Economist of Yorkshire Bank.

Acquire the knowledge and skills needed for a career as an environmental health practitioner by analysing the five main intervention areas: housing, food safety, occupational health and safety, environmental protection and public health. You will develop your understanding of environmental stress factors and their effect on human health and safety, together with the legal and technical frameworks for controlling these risks.

The opportunity to interact with students from other vocational courses will broaden your perspective of environmental health issues, and you will have access to our state-of-the-art acoustics laboratory and our dedicated food inspection facilities to put your expertise into practice. You will also have the chance to engage in simulated sessions, including mock kitchen inspections and staged courtroom trials to see how the law operates in environmental health cases. These scenarios could help you work towards professional registration as an environmental health practitioner.

Engage with all forms of mass communication – the internet, social media, television, radio, popular music and cinema – on this dynamic course that critically explores cultural trends and media industries.

As part of your course you’ll:

• Get hands-on to create photographic essays, blogs and podcasts
• Design a talk programme for a radio station
• Invent and pitch a lifestyle TV concept
• Design and create an online game and form an anti-racism campaign group
• Work with professionals from social media, marketing, TV and magazine production
• Graduate with a recognised degree and employable skills across all current and potential future media platforms

The Northern heart of culture and the arts
You’ll be offered unique opportunities to gain work experience with the media, cultural and creative industries in Leeds, such as museums, art galleries, theatres, film production companies and recording studios that surround the city centre campus. You may also get involved in many regional events; for example, the Harrogate Film Festival, the Ilkley Literature Festival or the Leeds West Indian Carnival.

Industry links
Take advantage of the special relationships we’ve developed with employers and cultural industries throughout the city and across the region. Students have completed placements in the editorial team at Hallmark Studios and with Peepal Tree Press – an internationally-renowned publisher based in the city.