BA (Hons) Journalism & Communications

UCA’s Integrated Foundation Year is designed to give you the skills you’ll need to start your degree in the best possible way – with confidence, solid knowledge of creative practice, study skills and more.

You’ll explore a range of creative techniques and develop your portfolio, with your chosen subject in mind. We’ll work with you throughout the year to ensure you’re on the right track and give you the tools to achieve your highest potential on your degree.

Find out more about the Integrated Foundation Year

For our students coming from a non-UK educational background, UCA has launched an Integrated International Foundation Year.

This year of preparatory study is designed to give you the skills you’ll need to start your degree in the best possible way – with confidence, solid knowledge of creative practice, study skills and the English speaking and writing skills you’ll need to succeed.

You’ll explore a range of creative techniques and develop your portfolio, with your chosen subject in mind. We’ll work with you throughout the year to ensure you’re on the right track and give you the tools to achieve your highest potential on your degree.

Find out more about the Integrated International Foundation Year

Launch
During Launch week you’ll undertake activities that bring together students from across the course – these can include ice breaking events, talks, trips, “find a story” exercises and also helping new students integrate via a buddy scheme.

Reporting Your World
Your passion within journalism – whether it’s sport, music, politics, fashion or something else – can be unleashed in this unit, where you’ll be able to build on your enthusiasm and turn it into something where you have real expertise, contacts and authority. 

Working in the Creative Industries
For graduates to be successful in the workplace you need to possess suitable knowledge and skills, resilience and a positive attitude towards the world of work. This unit focuses on developing your employability and enterprise skills and equips you with competencies needed for your future career.

Reporting Power
How does power work on a local, national or international level? In this unit you’ll discover how it constrains and liberates and how it affects every aspect of how we live our lives. Reporters can support people by helping to crack and demystify councils, rules and processes - it’s a reporter’s major strength. As a journalist it’s vital you’re familiar with the parameters of power, and how to build that knowledge into the work you produce.

This unit also prepares you for the National Council for the Training of Journalists’ (NCTJ) Public Administration exam and the Broadcast Journalism Training Council’s requirements in this area.

Reporting Legally
From copyright, data protection, sources, contempt of court and defamation, there are a range of legal constraints on journalists. You’ll learn about these constraints via high profile court cases that have shaped the way stories are reported, and you’ll learn about how the law has evolved to cover changes in technology, such as the growth of social media.

This unit is based on the legal system of England and Wales and looks at how IPSO and Ofcom add an extra layer of regulation.

The News Reporter’s Toolkit
Get a feel for the working life of a journalist in this unit – from seeing how a newsroom operates, getting to know differing roles, and learning some of the more complex terminologies used – so whether it’s nibs or widows, packages or POV’s, you’ll be in the know when you start your career.

Documentary
You’ll work in groups in production roles to make a documentary or short film, using your skills to investigate your chosen subject and then film on location or deploy other techniques to tell your story. In your team, you’ll develop factual work through development and realisation of a treatment or concept and shape your film for a specific audience.

ATOM activities
You’ll choose a series of small activities to complete that boost your learning. These can be from any subject area, broadening your horizons and encouraging inter-disciplinary learning and development.

PLE Digital Outcome
Your Personalised Learning Experience (PLE) Digital Outcome is a purposefully edited, self-directed record of your constructive, engagement with and presence on, digital media platforms across the year.

If you opt to complete a professional practice year, this will take place in year three. You will undertake a placement within the creative industries to further develop your skills and CV.

While on your Professional Practice Year, you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee for that year. This fee will be determined using government funding regulations. Based on current regulations, we expect this to be a maximum of 20% of the tuition fee rate that you are charged for your second year of study. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during this year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this as you approach your Professional Practice Year.

Please note: If you are an international applicant, you will need to enrol onto the course ‘with Professional Practice Year’. It will not be possible to transfer onto the Professional Practice Year after enrolment

Launch
During Launch week you’ll undertake activities that bring together students from across the course – these can include ice breaking events, talks, trips, “find a story” exercises and helping new students integrate via a buddy scheme.

Exploring Broadcast Journalism
Now you have the basics of producing and presenting stories, now is the chance to put them into practice, producing regular weekly programmes, working to deadlines, taking on a variety of roles and addressing different audiences. This is as close as you can get to working on live programmes, while still benefitting from lecturers and guest editors’ suggestions and advice.

Over the course of 14 weeks, you will work on 15 news production days, exploring new ways of telling stories with themes ranging from the local to the international.

Semi-Final Major Project
As a journalist your work responds to and shapes the world around it. This unit encourages you to interrogate a particular theme or topic, research it, gather material and analyse how it informs your ideas and practice. You will study both the history and the contemporary practice of journalism to better understand your place within in it.

This unit leads up to a final major project where you can fully explore an issue that matters to you.

Final Major Project
The Final Major Project gives you the opportunity examine a subject or theme in depth through a self-determined and challenging assignment. Your Final Major Project is the culmination of both the skills and experience you have developed in the practical units leading up to now and the theoretical ideas you pursued in the semi-final project. It should be a work of original journalism, investigating a subject that is both important to you and likely to be of interest to a wide audience.

This course is designed to offer you (if eligible) the opportunity to study part of your degree aboard at a UCA partner university, while still earning credits towards your UCA degree.

For more information please visit the Study Abroad section

The course is taught by practising journalists and editors with a wide range of skills and experience working for newspapers, magazines, websites, blogs, broadcast and television, having worked for titles such as:

• Time Out
• Harrods
• Selfridges
• The Independent
• Metro
• The Sunday Times
• The Guardian
• InStyle
• The Daily Express
• The Sunday Express
• Channel 4
• Topman
• Pop Magazine

Our students also undertake placements with:

• Independent magazines
• PR agencies
• Advertising agencies
• Model agencies
• High street brands
• Designer labels
• Individual stylists
• Creative directors
• Fashion designers.

In addition to this, we invites guest speakers from different levels of industry, across a many different disciplines and backgrounds. Recent speakers have included editors, authors, photographers, stylists, curators and publishers.

Graduates can expect to leave this course and continue their careers journey into a variety of different job roles, across multiple journalist and communications industry sectors.

These can include:

• Social media manager
• PR account executive
• News journalist
• Sports journalist
• Documentary maker
• Radio or television host
• Entertaiment journalist
• Digital media and communications manager
• Copywriter

You may also like to consider further study at postgraduate level.

BA (Hons) course
BA (Hons) course with Professional Practice Year

The standard entry requirements* for these courses are one of the following:

• 112 UCAS tariff points, see accepted qualifications
• Pass at Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (Level 3 or 4)
• Distinction, Merit, Merit at BTEC Extended Diploma / BTEC National Extended Diploma
• Merit at UAL Extended Diploma
• 112 UCAS tariff points from an accredited Access to Higher Education Diploma in appropriate subject
• 27-30 total points in the International Baccalaureate Diploma with at least 15 IB points at Higher level, see more information about IB entry requirements.

And four GCSE passes at grade 9-4/A*-C including English (or Functional Skills English/Key Skills Communication Level 2).

Other relevant and equivalent Level 3 UK and international qualifications are considered on an individual basis, and we encourage students from diverse educational backgrounds to apply.  

Portfolio requirements

These courses don’t require a portfolio. If you receive an offer, you’ll be invited to attend an Applicant Day where you can meet the course team and learn more about the course.

BA (Hons) course with Integrated Foundation Year
BA (Hons) course with Integrated Foundation Year and Professional Practice Year

The standard entry requirements* for these courses are one of the following:

• 32 UCAS tariff points, see accepted qualifications
• Pass at Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (Level 3 or 4)
• Pass, Pass, Pass at BTEC Extended Diploma / BTEC National Extended Diploma
• Pass at UAL Extended Diploma
• 32 UCAS tariff points from an accredited Access to Higher Education Diploma in appropriate subject
• 24 points from the International Baccalaureate, see more information about IB entry requirements.

And four GCSE passes at grade 9-4/A*-C including English (or Functional Skills English/Key Skills Communication Level 2).

Other relevant and equivalent Level 3 UK and international qualifications are considered on an individual basis, and we encourage students from diverse educational backgrounds to apply. 

Portfolio requirements

These courses don’t require a portfolio. If you receive an offer, you’ll be invited to attend an Applicant Day where you can meet the course team and learn more about the course.

*We occasionally make offers which are lower than the standard entry criteria, to students who have faced difficulties that have affected their performance and who were expected to achieve higher results. We consider the strength of our applicants’ portfolios, as well as their grades -  in these cases, a strong portfolio is especially important.

BA (Hons) course
BA (Hons) course with Professional Practice Year

The entry requirements for these courses will depend on the country your qualifications are from, please check the equivalent qualifications for your country:

• Non-UK equivalent qualifications

Any additional entry requirements listed in the UK requirements section, e.g., subject requirements, work experience or professional qualifications, also apply to international applicants applying with equivalent qualifications.

Portfolio requirements

These courses don't require a portfolio.

BA (Hons) course with Integrated International Foundation Year
BA (Hons) course with Integrated International Foundation Year and Professional Practice Year

For these courses you need to have completed 12 years of schooling (with good grades) and show strong evidence of your ability to successfully complete the programme and progress onto your chosen degree.

Any additional entry requirements listed in the UK requirements section, e.g., subject requirements, work experience or professional qualifications, also apply to international applicants applying with equivalent qualifications.

Portfolio requirements

These courses don't require a portfolio.

English language requirements

To study at UCA, you'll need to have a certain level of English language skill. And so, to make sure you meet the requirements of your course, we ask for evidence of your English language ability, please check the level of English language required:

• English language requirements