Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in English and Creative Writing

at Manchester Metropolitan University United Kingdom

There are few aspects of business more fundamental than people: they’re a vital ingredient of any organisation. It’s down to the HR professionals to deal with a vast range of business-critical issues, shaping workplace policies like redundancy, maternity leave and rewards, and supporting strategic decisions on areas like recruitment.

The best HR professionals have an in-depth understanding of how organisations operate and what the business objectives are – helping them advise employees and partner with the business.

We’ll help you explore the latest thinking in the subject, starting with first principles of managing people, analysing information and understanding behaviour. From there, you’ll expand into topics like managing across cultures and leading change. And, in your final year, you’ll also be able to pick your own subject as a research topic.

By the time you graduate, you won’t just have extensive knowledge of the role, you’ll also have a deeper understanding of the business and legislative landscape. In other words, you’ll leave ready to start your career in the world of HR.

Study Abroad

Instead of a placement, you'll have the opportunity to spend up to a year overseas, studying with one of our partner institutions across Europe, or beyond. Go abroad in the third year of your degree, and you’ll not only learn about other cultures, improve your language skills and discover knowledge of another country’s cultures and traditions can take you far in a range of careers. And, by going abroad you’ll also demonstrate the kind of independent spirit and adaptability that many employers want.

Whether it’s a successful start-up or a blue-chip company, every organization across the globe needs people with strong business skills.

Studying business with law presents you with a world of opportunities. With an understanding of the legal structures that any business has to navigate, you’ll be a valuable addition to many large organizations. With strong business knowledge and skills, you’ll also be ready for a range of management roles in the legal sector.

You’ll learn fundamental skills like team-working, strategy and commercial awareness, get the benefit of excellent industry links and build the entrepreneurial skills that make great leaders, and great careers.

Placement options
Our BA (Hons) Business Management with Law degree offers the chance to spend a year getting a taste of professional life. It not only gives you the opportunity to develop your core skills and learn about how business really operates in your industry, but also shows employers that you’re ready to get to work.

The Business School Placement Team is ready to help. They offer a wide range of services, including employer presentations, advice and placement fairs. But it’s also up to you – the more proactive you are about applying for placement opportunities, the better.

Whatever the purpose and whoever the user, web design marries the technical with the creative. The pioneers and leaders in this industry over the past 20 years have been both talented developers and left-field thinkers – a combination of creativity and code that has helped shape the modern digital experience.

As a Web & User Experience Design student, you will be part of a vibrant, multi-disciplinary creative community at our School of Digital Arts (SODA). With an innovative curriculum that ignores the narrow limits of any one discipline, you’ll have ample opportunity for collaborating with fellow SODA students – whether they’re studying games, photography, animation or sound design (to name a few). It’s an approach designed to mirror the real working practices within the creative industries, but it also lets you find the cross-over areas and creative directions that interest you most. And, just as you’ll learn industry practices, you’ll also use industry tools – developing your skills in an environment that has been designed, built and equipped with the latest technologies.

More than a purpose-built creative school, we also boast a globally renowned creative setting. Manchester is home to the second-largest media and creative sector in the UK, with a huge range of production companies, digital agencies and media businesses, from national broadcasters to innovative start-ups. As such, it’s not only an ideal city for your education in web and UX, but a perfect place to take your first steps as a professional. Here, you can learn from some of those at the forefront of the discipline, build your network and secure your career in the media, games or digital tech industries.

Placement options

SODA Placement Year
As part of your studies with SODA, you will have the chance to take a year working on placement within the industry. During your year, you will spend at least 36 weeks working within an organisation in the industry, developing workplace skills, practical understanding and genuine industry experience.

As a social worker, you’ll often be in complex and challenging situations but you’ll help to improve lives and bring about social change through working in partnership with individuals, families and communities.

Working within health and social care teams, and with partner agencies, from the police to housing services, you will help to promote human rights and social justice. It can be difficult to appreciate the difference social workers make until you’ve experienced social work practice in action – and that’s why you’ll complete placements in your second and third years.

Our BA (Hons) Social Work course is approved by Social Work England*. This means, when you graduate, you can apply for professional registration with Social Work England to practice as a registered social worker.

Some of the topics you’ll explore include how to communicate with service users and carers, theories to inform practice and the factors that influence our journeys from pre-birth through to death.

Social work can be difficult and challenging at times and, as well as developing your academic knowledge, we aim to develop your resilience and help you learn ways to manage the situations you’re faced with.

Exercise can be an incredibly powerful tool – whether to drive elite athletic performance or to fight obesity, cancer, depression and a range of other conditions. Our BSc (Hons) Health and Exercise Science program can help you master that tool, with a unique blend of human biology, physiology and psychology.

Studying a wide range of units, you’ll develop an in-depth understanding of the structure and function of the human body, exploring how it responds to various forms of exercise at different points across the lifecycle.

You’ll get a good grounding in the key scientific principles, before developing higher-level knowledge focused on responses to the physical, psychological and environmental stressors that affect sports, exercise and health. Then, in your final year, you’ll focus on the specialist area that interests you most with a major research project.

Placement options

• You can opt to spend your third year getting a taste of professional life in a sports or health organisation with the four-year placement route.

This course combines the study of art history, focusing on developments since the nineteenth century, with the essential practical skills and critical perspectives needed by the contemporary curator. And Manchester School of Art school provides a distinctive, vibrant environment in which to consider art’s historical development and its relationship to society.

The course shares much of its teaching with BA (Hons) Fine Art and Art History, and students from the two courses collaborate on projects and exhibition-making. It is taught by a multidisciplinary team of practicing artists, art historians, curators and theorists.

The University's exhibition spaces, cultural programs and collections are used in the course’s teaching, providing opportunities to acquire valuable, professionally relevant experience and skills. The course also enjoys links to the city and region's galleries and arts organizations.

Physical geography offers the chance to understand, investigate and model the physical interactions and processes that influence our environment and landscape. Study physical geography at Manchester Met and you’ll examine modern environmental phenomena and the long-term evolution of the landscape. You’ll explore Earth’s dynamic nature – not just looking at how it changes, but also how much it has changed over time – and you’ll investigate human impacts upon it, particularly in terms of past and future climate change.

While you can learn a lot on campus, there’s no substitute for seeing the physical landscape for yourself. As part of our program, we regularly engage in fieldwork, from day-long trips to residential trips across the UK and overseas. Being in Manchester also means you’ll have plenty to explore on the doorstep, with four national parks within a couple of hours’ drive. You can even spend a year developing your professional skills working on a placement, or broadening your horizons by studying abroad with the four-year route.

Placement options

All of our geography degrees have been designed to be flexible. You can opt for the four-year placement degree route and spend Year 3 on a professional placement with a degree-related organisation.

Alternatively, if you opt for the four-year study overseas route, you will spend your third year in Europe, North America or Australia, subject to national and international travel restrictions.

Decision making, big data, management… there’s more to accounting and finance than numbers. By studying our accounting and finance degree, you’ll explore every aspect of the area and learn to support businesses across different sectors.

Whether you want to work in a top accountancy firm or start a career in research, we’ll help you develop the expertise you need. You’ll take some of the professional exams too, so you’re one step closer to professional or chartered status when you graduate.

The BA (Hons) Fashion program has an excellent reputation for producing fashion graduates who are employed for their creativity, originality, versatility, and professional skills.

The program focuses on contemporary fashion design and encourages students to be creative and experimental while challenging the conventions of fashion and textile design practices.

Students follow an arts-based studio practice model through which they develop concepts and ideas using in-depth research processes and experimentation, learning how to design and make original fashion outcomes with a focus on contemporary craftsmanship. Students learn essential skills for designing and making, including the opportunity to develop a textile specialism such as knit, print or embroidery.

Students are encouraged to develop a personal design philosophy, leading to a final collection and design portfolio in their final year, with consideration of sustainable design practice. There is also opportunity to collaborate with industry partners through live briefs, and to work with other art and design students both within the university and with international partners in the award-winning cross-disciplinary Unit X.

Take on new and emerging markets in an international context. On this course, we'll help you to develop vital skills in international business management.

As well as ethical and global management, you’ll also refine your expertise by exploring the political economy and how it can affect global trade.

You can tailor the course to concentrate on areas that you find most interesting by selecting an option unit from a range of business specialisms.

We’ll also help you understand working practices from different territories and build the skills you need to effectively manage people from different cultures and backgrounds.

Optional internship year

When you have successfully completed your taught units, you will have the opportunity to undertake a 36-48 week internship. You will be supported by our Placement Office, who have extensive contacts with the industry and over 25 years of experience of helping students to find placements.

The Placement Office advertise a variety of opportunities, support and advise on the application and recruitment process and continue to support you whilst you are away from the University.