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Communications and English BA (Hons)

Start date

  • Level(s) of Study: Undergraduate
  • Typical Offer: 104 - 112 UCAS tariff points
  • UCAS Code(s): LQ33
  • Start Date(s): September 2024
  • Duration: Three years full-time, four – seven years part-time
  • Study Mode(s): Part-time
  • Campus: Clifton Campus
Information for 2024

Introduction:

Communicating via talk, text and media is key to understanding the contemporary world and our place within it. Explore ways in which literary, media and other texts have shaped and continue to shape the fundamental contours of our world.

In the 21st century, as professional work becomes ever more specialised and shaped by the demands of the digital world, there will be a corresponding need for the next generation of graduates to become highly skilled communicators with a capacity to speak and write effectively, eloquently, with cultural sensitivity and technological sophistication – across a range of different media.

The Communications and English degree will address these issues explicitly by developing your knowledge and understanding of the way in which literary, media and other texts have shaped and continue to shape the fundamental contours of our world.  You will study English literature in its pasts, presents and futures, explore the globality of English literary texts, as well as develop an understanding of the psychological. sociological, and political dimensions of contemporary communications processes and practices.

With these in focus, the course will offer an interdisciplinary approach to English and Communications in order to analyse and explain the complex interrelations between social, political, institutional and technological dimensions of speech, text and media, with a specific emphasis upon the way that an understanding of these is key to unlocking the employability potential of undergraduates in the Humanities for future, high skilled, professional roles.

  • You will get the best preparation for your future career through work-like experiences that are embedded throughout the length of the course.
  • The course is fully interdisciplinary – both subjects work together to produce a unified course and a coherent student experience. Interdisciplinary options available in both the second and the final year.
  • You will have the opportunity to create your own pathway through the course, with a study abroad and extended placement modules available in the second year.
  • The course will allow you to develop the knowledge and critical skills that are valued by employers and are required to become an expert practitioner across a range of future professions.

What you’ll study

Each year you’ll study a number of core modules from the lists below and you’ll have the opportunity to select from a range of optional modules to give yourself a more specialised pathway, depending on your interests.

In the second half of Year Two you can take your learning into your own hands and choose an extended work placement, learn at one of our many partner institutions worldwide, or continue to study here with a wide range of interesting optional modules to choose from.

Work-like experience

Work-like experience is much more than a placement. Throughout your degree you are given multiple opportunities to develop your career goals and build the skills, competencies and experience that employers demand, ensuring that your degree will provide a springboard for your future. You will take part in a minimum of 240 hours of work-like experience during your course, with the option to take an extended 10-week work placement in your second year. This rich and diverse experience will ensure that you graduate with the confidence to thrive in your chosen career after graduation.

What does work-like experience mean?

Work-like experience provides a rich and diverse opportunity to engage in a wide range of activities which will build your skills and hone your confidence to prepare you for a professional career after graduation. These opportunities could include live employer briefs, vocational training, professional development, volunteering, and community projects with one of our partners as well as time spent on placement with an employer. These opportunities could be local, national or even international, depending upon your interests and aspirations. You will expand and enhance your creative and communications skills through practical projects, producing podcasts and videos, organising campaigns, curating social media content and visual media working alongside your peers, tutors and external partners.

Interdisciplinary modules

Our students are curious, creative and forward-thinking, so in your second and third years of study you can join your colleagues from across Humanities to take a module which is not traditionally associated with your subject, but is related to some of the big issues in the world today. For instance, interdisciplinary humanities modules on sustainability or artificial intelligence take your subject knowledge in surprising and innovative directions. See below for the current list of these modules.

Transformation modules

Each year you will take a core collaborative module. These modules are linked and will build on each other to ease you into University life, support you with mentoring and personal tutoring, begin your professional development, and expand your horizons with collaborative projects and assessments both within your subjects and wider afield. They include work-like experiences, and will build towards a Developing with NTU employability award.

Core modules

Understanding the Communications Revolution

Explore the dynamics of digital culture which underpin the ‘communications revolution’. You’ll examine a range of media technologies and creative industries centred on the internet explosion, which together have arguably transformed the nature of life in the 21st century. And you’ll be asked to consider some of the key questions – about ownership, power and control - which accompany these changes.

Psychology of Communication

This module is designed to demonstrate the centrality of communications, not just to the functioning of society, but also for the very constitution of who we are as individuals. Based within, but by no means contained by, the field of Social Psychology, it looks at how people communicate with one another both verbally and non-verbally. It also considers the role of both conscious and sub-conscious processes. Other key topic areas include the arts of conversation and persuasion, the psychology of leadership, group dynamics and intergroup relations.

Literary Pasts, Presents and Futures

This module places literatures from different eras (from Middle English to the present day) in dialogue, inviting students to consider how texts ‘speak’ to one another across the ages. It builds a critical understanding of literary heritage in which students reflect on fundamental issues in the study of English, such as the nature of literary ‘tradition’, the formation of the literary canon, intertextuality, textual innovation and reader positionality. The module reveals literary histories to be of enduring relevance to the contemporary moment and invites students to consider what the future might hold for studies in the subject.

Ways of Reading

This module introduces students to different ways in which it is possible to read and interpret texts and asks many questions: what is a ‘text’? How do they ‘talk’ to each other? Who decides what is great literature? We explore a range of reading from different eras and forms, and practise reading through a variety of ‘lenses’ including gender, race, trauma, and the environment. This will encourage you to read texts from a particular perspective, and question what assumptions we make as we read, the relationship between the text and the world, and what it means to be human.

Transformation: Agency and Self

In this module you will build the foundations for a successful University life through developing understanding and knowledge of your sustainable self. Exploring mental health (in)justice through academic research and project work, this module will demonstrate that knowledge of self, leads to a greater sense of community, key to overall wellbeing and academic success.

The main assessment will be the pitch of an initiative/resource/activity that will encourage and sustain wellbeing across the Joint Honours cohort to internal clients, NTSU, NTU Sport, or the Arts and Humanities Wellbeing team and a professional development reflection. The assessment is a personal reflection alongside the completion of the Developing with NTU award.

Optional modules typically include - choose one

Journalism and Promotional Cultures

This is your introduction to the field of professional media communications. You’ll look at debates about ‘fake’ news, the operations of propaganda and controversies around celebrity culture. This will provide you with a combination of theoretical insights and practical skills relevant to the fields of journalism and public relations, which you will use to write a feature article and to develop a PR campaign.

Global Narratives in English

English Literature is a global phenomenon. Authors write and publish in English across many continents and contexts, offering a rich array of cultural insights and voices. The emergence of literature written in English across the world bears a difficult history, however, and invites us to reflect carefully on the political dynamics that have shaped its journey. This module discusses texts from a range of global locations to equip students not only with an appreciation of the diversity of English literature as a global phenomenon but with an astute awareness of its political underpinnings, as well as its constantly evolving potentials.

Core modules

Explorations in Identity and Selfhood

This module looks at a range of psychological and sociological theories of identity and selfhood.  Starting with our common sense understandings and a focus on 'personality', it moves out towards more radical theories and arguments, which see identities as more contingent and de-centred.

Rebel Literatures

Inspired by Nottingham’s status as a UNESCO City of Literature renowned for its ‘rebel writers’, this second-year core module explores how a spirit of rebellion has animated literary creativity over the past 150 years. From the fights for educational rights advanced by the New Woman authors of the late C19th to the voices of early C21st activist poets, this module invites you to consider the bold arguments advanced by authors at the forefront of cultural change. It includes the exciting opportunity to explore unique materials from the rich archives of radical literature held across Nottingham.

Transformation: Agency and World

What purpose do the humanities serve in today's society? How can the humanities help in the process of "healing and securing our planet" and "freeing the human race from poverty" as stated in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development of the United Nations?

This module focuses on the UN Sustainable Development Goals and encourages you to develop your awareness of how your own field of study as well as cross- and inter-disciplinary actions can result in real, quantifiable change. Alongside a personal reflective portfolio, you will share your knowledge and understanding developed through the module to produce a news reel of how a contemporary sustainability goal relates to your discipline.

In this module you will either undertake an 80 hour placement, supported by the Arts and Humanities employability team, or will engage in an 80 hour project, responding to a supplied employer brief  and producing a solution to the brief given.

Optional pathways

Pathway 1: Extended work-like experience

Get the experience you need for after you graduate, and really understand how the things you study translate into the world of work with a work placement. Your highly experienced Employability Team will help you find a placement to suit your career goals from our huge network of companies, charities, institutions, and beyond.

Pathway 2: An international exchange

Travel the world, meet new friends, and have experiences you will remember for the rest of your life.

Our flexible curriculum has been designed to allow some amazing opportunities for you. Your second year of study is divided into two semesters, giving you the opportunity to take part in an international exchange. You could study with one of international exchange partners in Australia, Europe, USA, Canada, Thailand and many, many more.

Our dedicated team will support you in finding and arranging a suitable exchange. And don't worry about the cost, they will help you apply for any grants or loans you may need, as no one should miss out on the chance to broaden their horizons.

Pathway 3: Taught modules

Interdisciplinary optional modules typically include:

Intercultural Communication at Work

Gain the knowledge, skills and strategies to build your intercultural communication competence. Analyse and reflect on the impact of culture(s) on your values, assumptions, perceptions, expectations, and behaviours. Build successful verbal and non-verbal communication strategies in different intercultural settings.

People and Planet: pasts, presents, and futures

In this module you will develop an understanding of the human impact on the environment from the 15th Century to the present as a form of slow but sustained violence enacted against the planet. It will also explore how such long-term change can interact with social justice in the present day.

Rhetoric and Public Communication

You will develop the theoretical knowledge and practical skills required to become an effective communicator in both face-to-face and online contexts. It will provide you with a thorough grounding in the theory and techniques of classical rhetoric, as well as the latest social-psychological theories of rhetoric and their application. You will also be introduced to theories of political communication, propaganda and the psychology of leadership

English optional modules typically include:

Imagining the Sustainable World

We live in an era of significant challenges to the wellbeing of the planet and its inhabitants – from climate change, water pollution and energy shortages, to poverty, gender inequality and conflict. In this moment of crisis, this module will examine how writing from a range of eras and genres might offer insights, warnings, possibilities, sources of hope, and solutions to contemporary problems.

Women's Writing and the Literary Marketplace

On this module you will read short stories, novels, and poetry by British women writers of the 1920s and 1930s, a period of significant historical changes affecting the lives of women. You will develop an understanding of historical contexts relevant to this literature, including changes relating to education and professions for women; romance, marriage and motherhood; the home and domesticity; queer sexuality and the single woman; class inequality, and interwar anti-fascist and anti-racist movements. You will also gain valuable research skills using a digital database of interwar magazines which provide insight into the wider literary marketplace of this period.

Shakespeare and Co.

Shakespeare was born in 1564 and so his life was coincident with the rise of the brand new, state of the art, professional theatre. On this module we'll explore these cutting-edge plays in a context of rapid social change and religious and political uncertainty.  We’ll introduce you to playwrights of the period, their dramatic techniques, reception, critical and theatrical history and we'll also consider modern spin-offs of their plays – film versions and modern retellings.  Topics covered will include colonialism, religious difference, sex and gender, nation and ethnicity, selfhood.

Black Writing in Britain

Bernardine Evaristo was the first Black British writer to win the Booker Prize, in 2019, more than seventy years after Sam Selvon and George Lamming moved to Britain in what is known as the Windrush migration, in 1948. This module reads novels, poetry and short stories from 1948 to the present day, to consider how to define Black Writing in Britain, and assess its relationship with the publishing industry. Students undertake committed, contextualised close reading of experimental literary texts and prioritise what they detect as important trends, patterns, concerns, and events, as we ask ‘what is Black Writing in Britain?’.

Contemporary Working-Class Writing

What characterises ‘working-class writing’? How has the working class in Britain been represented in literature since 1950? Is there still a class structure in Britain? Texts on this module consider a variety of forms (novels, plays, short stories, poetry and non-fiction) to develop an understanding of the intersections between social class and gender, sexuality, ethnicity and place. We gain insights into modern and contemporary social and cultural history and heritage as we explore aspects of the following: concepts of ‘Britishness’, culture clash and class structures, social (im)mobility, poverty, family, immigration, economic depression, strikes, regional writing and radical print culture.

Communications optional modules typically include:

Journalism and PR: Critiques and Practice

This module explores the new ways of working and new modes of creativity in today's economy. Ranging across the fields of advertising, PR and journalism, you’ll interrogate the economic, psychological and sociological coordinates of the new forms of communication and media technology used in those industries, and you’ll examine the new types of creativity which have arisen as a result.

Media, Communication and Culture in East Asia

This module provides an insight into contemporary media development and cultural change in East Asia, placing this in the context of broader historical, economic and cultural debates. It will examine a wide range of media forms including print media, broadcasting, film and new media technologies, assessing their cultural impact in East Asian societies. It will explore contemporary issues of media development and policy and it will relate these to longer historical contexts.

Gender and Sexuality

Gender’ and ‘sexuality’ are familiar terms; however, they are also highly complex and contested. This module examines the ways these concepts have been theorised from a range of academic perspectives - including psychoanalysis, cultural history and feminist theory. It also orientates around three central questions: i) what is the substance of gender? ii) how do we become gendered? and iii) why do masculinity and femininity take the forms that they do and how do they change over time?

Core module

Major project

For your major project in your final year of your studies, you can choose to undertake a project in either one of your two Joint Honours subjects.

English Major Project

For your English Major Project, you have the choice of undertaking either a Dissertation, or a Creative Project, or a Staff-Student Research Project.
If you opt to undertake a Dissertation, you will be able to research a literary topic in depth guided by an academic with expertise in your chosen area of research. The Creative Project will allow you produce an individual piece or portfolio of creative writing in relation to a literary theme encountered on the course. The Staff-Student Research Project Pathway will assign you to a member of staff's research project, providing you with research aims and questions. You will work with the staff member to produce original research on the topic, culminating in a written project detailing findings and analysis.

Communications Major Project

The Communications Major Project will provide you with a unique opportunity to choose a topic relevant to the field of Communications in which you have a special interest, and to explore it in depth over a sustained period of time. You can either produce a traditional, written dissertation, in which you will interrogate your chosen area of study and develop an argument of your own; or you can produce a media artefact (such as a screenplay, a podcast or a video), along with an accompanying critical analysis, in which you might explore your topic more creatively. Whichever format you choose, you will be supported throughout both by regular workshops, and by your own dissertation supervisor.

Humanities Research Project

The Humanities Research Project provides you with the opportunity to work with the combined knowledge and skills you have gained in each of your subjects and further develop them to create a substantial and independent piece of research. The Research Project can be fulfilled through either the writing of a dissertation or through a project in an alternative practice-based format (e.g. publication, film, (video)game, performance, report, podcast, creative writing, exhibition, web-based etc.) accompanied by a shorter essay.

Transformation: Agency and Social Change

In this module, you will engage in a 'live partnership' with a cultural festival that is designed to deliver social change through the Arts and Humanities: the Counterpoints-run initiative, Refugee Week. Over the course of the module, you will gain insight into the sociocultural challenges faced by refugees in the C21st, and will explore the work of Counterpoints Arts as an organisation that seeks to address those challenges via cultural activity. Drawing on these insights, you will work in interdisciplinary teams in order to create a Refugee Week campaign that champions positive social change in attitudes or behaviours towards refugees. Ultimately, the module invites you to consider how your disciplinary knowledge of the Humanities enables you to become a responsible global citizen, and to assume responsibility for championing positive social change, whatever your chosen career.  The main assessment for this module is the creation of a ‘campaign tool’ (blogpost, podcast, social media post series, educational pack or other, that will be presented as part of a team ‘campaign’ at the end-of-module ‘festival’. You will also complete the Developing with NTU Award.

Interdisciplinary optional modules typically include:

Artificial Intelligence: Human Factors

This module will introduce you to problems and issues associated with technological change and digitization, with a specific emphasis on the likely future impact of artificial intelligence on the wider human dimension, both individual and collective. Providing you with the expertise required to become managers and policy-makers in the AI future, the module will take an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on the insights of philosophers, literary figures, historians, and social theorists.

Humanities in Action

What is the value of 'Humanities'? Answer this question from multiple perspectives - knowledge and intellectual value, economic value, humanities and "hard" and "soft" skills, social value, the value to the individual - and find it's place in society.

English optional modules typically include:

Contemporary Literature, Culture and Theory

Focusing on fiction and poetry published in the twenty-first century, this module will help you to develop an advanced understanding of some of the topics that define our contemporary period.  We look at celebrated and less well-known writers, alongside wider cultural developments and key directions in contemporary criticism and theory. Reflecting on some of today’s most pressing social and cultural issues, as well your ideas about the world and your place in it, you will study approaches to national, transnational, and global identities, environmental change, technology and digital culture, and war.

Writing Justice: Changing Worlds

This module focuses on decolonial texts (fiction, poetry and film) and explores the relationship between acts of representation and the politics of anti-colonialism and decoloniality. It introduces students to the historical, political and cultural contexts of marginalised literary traditions that seek radical equality and justice and challenge the dominance of coloniality. A central objective is to familiarise students with decolonial and postcolonial theory and to develop the ability to work across theoretical and literary texts in innovative and decolonial ways.

Poetry and the Planet

Examining the role that poetry plays in understanding our changing environment, this module considers how contemporary writers think through the relationship between the human and the more-than-human world. Students will discuss topics including climate change, environmental justice, species extinction and indigenous knowledge in order to understand how the arts and humanities can help us to engage with the challenges we are now facing on earth. Incorporating writing workshops and a field trip, students will have the opportunity to respond creatively and critically using a range of print-based and digital media.

Gothic Rebels and Reactionaries

Gothic is known as the literature of the supernatural, the imaginary, and the darker aspects of being. However, it is also a literature that is deeply engaged with social and cultural issues, and frequently ahead of its time in terms of language, style and form. This module explores the gothic impulse in literature from the Romantic to the late Victorian era (1764-1897), considering how writers engage with cultural issues of the time, and the creative ways in which we, as readers, engage with their work in turn, through collaborative research including digital communities, and critical and creative responses in writing.

Early Modern Poetry and Prose: Nation, Self, Other

This period is one of great social change and literary invention - it saw Britain change its national religion and experience its only civil war. Against this background you shall find writers preoccupied with more enduring human concerns: gender and sexuality, religious conflict, humanity's relationship with nature, colonialism, and class. We consider how social change leads to writers attempting forms of writing not seen before in English literature and engage with contemporary thinking about literature’s importance in relation to national identity. Contemporary concepts of self and other are key to navigating writing from this fascinating time.

Nuclear Literature: Culture in the Atomic Age

In August 1945, atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the world entered the nuclear age, profoundly changing culture and society. On this module we explore what it means to live in a nuclear age by reading a wide range of nuclear literature, including novels, short stories and poetry, and works of feature journalism, post-apocalyptic fiction and science fiction. What, this literature asks, does it mean to be human in a technological age? How do we imagine potential ends of the world? How do we live sustainably on the planet?

Communications optional modules typically include:

Persuasion, Promotion, Propaganda

We live in an age of systemic propaganda where the manipulation of others is normalised and sometimes even praised. Indeed, we live in time when almost all of us are propagandists through our attempts to manufacture a public images online that may or may not conform to the reality of who we really are. Through case studies from politics, business and non-profits, this module examines efforts to persuade mass audiences to think, feel and act in ways deemed desirable to the source of the communication. We will critically explore fundraising communications by charities, electioneering by politicians and political parties, and efforts by private citizens and organisations to generate attention for themselves or for the causes and interests that they represent.

Natural Futures? Global Environmental Catastrophes and the Fate of Life on Earth

This module will help you understand our contemporary environmental emergency by grasping its roots in the past, comprehending the shape it takes today, and envisioning a range of possible future scenarios for a new flourishing of life on Planet Earth. As well as exploring theoretical, political and activist perspectives on environmental catastrophe, this module will support you in becoming an imaginative agent of change in the fight to shape better global futures.

DJ Cultures: History, Theory and Technique

From obscure roots, the art of DJing has in recent decades exploded into the limelight as a major form of popular culture. No prior experience of DJing is required to take this module, which combines a basic ‘taster’ introduction to DJ technology and the practical techniques of DJ performance with a theoretical consideration of various styles of DJing, their histories, their related musical experiences and their wider cultural significance and influence.

Self in Crisis: Power, Prejudice and Otherness

This module brings together debates which contend that, in various ways, contemporary selfhood is in a profound state of crisis. One part explores the idea that the very concept of the self – which, for so long, has sat at the very heart of the humanities - is itself problematic. Another considers the troubling of contemporary selfhood in more existential terms; that is, in terms of people’s actual lives and experiences. Here, special emphasis is placed on the status of mental illness and the roles of psychiatry and psychotherapy.

Advertising, Journalism and the PR Project

This module explores contemporary communication industries through the concept of ‘convergence’. This idea refers to the way in which individuals working in areas such as advertising, PR and journalism increasingly have to take on a variety of roles which cut across the traditional boundaries of each sector, and need to learn to use a variety of working practices and technologies as a result. The module culminates in you developing a PR project..

What's New: the Future of Media Communications

This module looks at innovations and challenges that face media communications professionals as they look to the future. Using practical assessments such as blog writing, producing a radio advertisement and making an audio slideshow, students will advance their media skills in preparation for future employment as digital, multi-media producers. You will examine the issues, ideas and debates which contemporary journalism and marketing have to engage with, such as the funding and accessibility of news on the internet, the nature and trends of popular content, new styles and forms of presentation and the blurring of fantasy and reality in digital communications.

Further information on what you'll study

Jenni Ramone

Dr Jenni Ramone, Associate Professor, explains what she loves about English at NTU

"We’re a community here, and I feel that’s what makes English at NTU so special. It’s not a relationship that ends with graduation. A former student of mine got in touch recently because he’d read a book that reminded him of a module he’d taken with me. He left the University four years ago, but this book really inspired him — it took him right back to his time here, and I was so happy that he’d taken the time to approach me for more recommendations. That kind of thing that happens all the time, and it’s what makes us a place to call home." Read more...

Celebrating Literature

Study in a UNESCO City of Literature. NTU is a lead partner of Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature, and has established a variety of extracurricular opportunities and a host of partners in the creative industries.
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How you’re taught

How will I learn?

Teaching takes a variety of forms and during your degree you will experience many different types of learning activities. Some of our modules are delivered entirely online, allowing you the flexibility to study at a time that is convenient to you. Other modules use interactive lectures and workshops that are supplemented by smaller group sessions, including:

  • seminars
  • tutorials
  • problem-solving workshops
  • training workshops
  • hands-on practice
  • group projects and presentations
  • guest speakers
  • field work

You will also be able to take part in lots of extra-curricular activities outside your course, including debating, research seminars, student challenges, Sustainability and careers training, sports, student societies and much, much more.

Contact hours

  • Year 1 lectures/seminars/workshops (24%), work-like experience (7%), independent study (69%)*
  • Year 2 lectures/seminars/workshops (24%), work-like experience (7%), independent study (69%)*
  • Year 3 lectures/seminars/workshops (20%), work-like experience (7%), independent study (73%)*

* Based on a taught module pathway. Statistics will vary depending on optional modules, work experience, and pathways chosen.

All Arts and Humanities students will complete a minimum of 240 hours of work like experience over the three years of the course

Further information

100% of NTU's research submitted to the 'Communication, Cultural & Media Studies, Library & Information Management' Unit of Assessment was rated world-leading or internationally excellent in terms of research impact - REF 2021.

Study abroad in Year Two

You’ll have the option to take part in an international exchange at a partner university in the second half of Year Two. This will enable you to gain impressive international experience, and broaden your perspective and career ambitions.

You’ll experience other cultures, travel the globe and open your eyes to a world of opportunities. Our exchange partnership with a number of international universities enables you to live and study in another country in your second year. Find out more about international exchange and study abroad.

Learn a new language

Alongside your study you also have the opportunity to learn another new language. The University Language Programme (ULP) is available to all students and gives you the option of learning a totally new language or improving the skills you already have. Learning a new language can enhance your communication skills, enrich your experience when travelling abroad and boost your career prospects. Find out more about the University Language Programme.

Supporting you

If you’re struggling with a topic or require additional support or guidance, you can arrange to see your tutors in small groups or one-to-one, to discuss essay plans or to seek some specific academic guidance.

It is the nature of the subjects offered in the School of Arts and Humanities, however, that much of your time will be spent engaged in independent study. We recognise that this marks a change of culture from school or college, and we have in place a system of study support to help you adapt to this.

Staff Profiles

Colin Alexander (Dr) - Senior Lecturer

School of Arts & Humanities

Dr. Colin Alexander is Senior Lecturer in Political Communications within the Communication and Society subject team at the School of Arts and Humanities

Anna Ball - Associate Professor

English, Communications and Philosophy

Anna Ball is Associate Professor of Postcolonial Feminisms, Literatures and Cultures. She specialises in postcolonial, gender, world literary and refugee studies, and focuses particularly on the Middle East as an…

Jenni Ramone - Associate Professor

School of Arts & Humanities

Dr Jenni Ramone is Associate Professor of Postcolonial and Global Literatures and a director of the Postcolonial and Global Studies Research Group: https://www.ntu.ac.uk/research/groups-and-centres/groups/postcolonial-and-global-studies-research-group Her research has focused on global literature,…

How you’re assessed

Assessments take place within each module and the type of assessment will be related to what the module covers, and what you are learning in it.

Our approach to assessments is very diverse and although you will still produce written assignments like reports and essays many of our modules ask you to produce a creative element. These include blogs or social media campaigns, exhibitions, posters and other visual assessments, podcasts and videos. These are designed to ensure that you are building a portfolio of evidence and creative and communications skills to give you a head start in finding your perfect job after graduation.

Whatever the type of assessment, we will ensure that it will develop your skills, confidence and CV to fulfil both your academic and longer term potential.

Further information

100% of NTU's research submitted to the 'Communication, Cultural & Media Studies, Library & Information Management' Unit of Assessment was rated world-leading or internationally excellent in terms of research impact - REF 2021.

  • Year 1 coursework (75%), written (17%), oral assessment (8%)
  • Year 2 coursework (77%), written (17%), oral assessment (6%)
  • Year 3 coursework (100%)

* Based on a taught module pathway. Statistics will vary depending on optional modules, work experience, and pathways chosen.

Careers and employability

Your career development

This is a major part of the curriculum, recognising the importance of University study as a route into graduate level careers. We don’t expect you to have a target career from the outset, but we will support you to develop your career aspirations, and provide multiple opportunities for you to work towards this, during your degree.

The structure of your degree, the assessments that you will undertake, and the opportunities we provide are designed to help you develop key transferable skills and competencies demanded by employers. We work very closely with a range of employers, and many employers helped shape our degrees. Our courses provide lots of opportunities for you to develop your own links with organisations and potential employers.

Joint honours humanities students develop a wide range of complementary skills. These include key skills of communication, project management, analysis, creativity, digital skills, collaboration and leadership, with a strong emphasis on sustainability and inclusivity. Through this course you’ll become more confident and self-motivated, be able to work independently and in teams, and develop excellent time management skills.

Our recent English and Communications Joint Honours graduates have gone onto careers in:

  • Local Government – teacher (Secondary English)
  • JRS – market researcher
  • Vision Twentyone – social research interviewer
  • Lightdragon Ltd / Food Network UK – content producer
  • jigsaw systems – product manager.

Other career areas could include: publishing, PR, marketing, advertising, journalism and recruitment.

Many graduates also choose to undertake further study on one of our Masters-level courses or MPhil and PhD research degrees.

Campus and facilities

Here are some of the free services, student discount and benefits you'll get studying at NTU

We've carefully considered what benefits and services you need for your studies, so when you join NTU you'll get free printing and materials credits, access to our free WiFi, a copy of Microsoft Office, and even borrow a laptop if yours is out of commission.

For life outside your lectures, you'll enjoy access to over 60 sports clubs and 130 student societies, discounted travel and bike hire, free language learning, award-winning student support and an entertainment programme which is second to none.

See all the benefits and free services you will enjoy as an NTU student.

Books and library resources

In our library you’ll have access to an extensive and diverse range of books including those on your reading list.

The library's online resources and NTU Online Workspace (NOW) also provides digital access to the core resources for your modules and a wide range of specialist collections, texts, and databases

Nottingham Trent University has its own Blackwell’s Bookshop which stocks relevant academic texts plus a wide range of bestselling novels.

IT Resources

Our IT resource rooms and PC clusters are distributed across the campus, with PCs providing access to: Microsoft Office, email, web browsing, networked file storage and high-speed online printing services (with a free printing allowance for each student). Resource rooms are available 24 hours a day.

Societies

Current students run societies in a range of Humanities and Arts subjects including History, Medieval, Film, Filmmaking, Philosophy, Politics and International Relations, and the Book society.

There are also a number of media channels which our students get involved in such as the NTU radio station FlyLive, our student magazine Platform, and TV station TrentTV.

Find out more about student societies at the Student Union website.

Entry requirements

  • Standard offer: 112 UCAS Tariff points from up to four qualifications
  • Contextual offer: 104 UCAS Tariff points from up to four qualifications.

Contextual offers

A lower offer may be made based on a range of factors, including your background (such as where you live and the school or college you attended), your experiences and individual circumstances (you may have been in care, for example). This is called a contextual offer and we get data from UCAS to make these decisions. NTU offers a student experience like no other and this approach helps us to find students who have the potential to succeed here but who may have faced barriers that make it more difficult to access university. Find out how we assess your application.

Other qualifications and experience

We may also consider credits achieved at other universities and your work/life experience through an assessment of prior learning. This may be for year one entry, or beyond the beginning of a course where applicable, for example, into year 2. Our Recognition of Prior Learning and Credit Transfer Policy outlines the process and options available for this route.

Meeting our entry requirements

Hundreds of qualifications in the UK have UCAS tariff points attached to specific grades, including A levels, BTECs, T Levels and many more. You can use your grades and points from up to four different qualifications to meet our criteria. Enter your predicted or achieved grades into our tariff calculator to find out how many points your qualifications are worth.

Getting in touch

If you need more help or information, get in touch through our enquiry form

You will need the equivalent to:

  • 112 UCAS tariff points from four A-levels or equivalent qualifications

International qualifications

We accept qualifications from all over the world – check yours here:

English language entry requirements

You can meet our language requirements by successfully completing our pre-sessional English course for an agreed length of time, or by submitting the required grade in one of our accepted English language tests, such as IELTS:

Undergraduate preparation courses (Foundation)

If you don’t yet meet our entry requirements, we offer Foundation courses through our partner Nottingham Trent International College (NTIC), based on our City Campus:

Advanced standing (starting your undergraduate degree in year 2 or 3)

You may be able to start your undergraduate course in year 2 or 3 based on what you have studied before. This decision would be made in accordance with our Recognition of Prior Learning and Credit Transfer Policy.

Would you like some advice on your study plans?

Our international teams are highly experienced in answering queries from students all over the world. We also have members of staff based in Vietnam, China, India and Nigeria and work with a worldwide network of education counsellors.

Fees and funding

Preparing for the financial side of student life is important, but there’s no need to feel anxious and confused about it. We hope that our fees and funding pages will answer all your questions.

Getting in touch

For more advice and guidance, you can contact our Student Financial Support Service on +44 (0)115 848 2494.

Additional Costs

Your course fees cover the cost of studies, and include loads of great benefits, such as the use of our library, support from our expert Employability team, and free use of the IT equipment across our campuses.

Library books

Most study modules will recommend one or more core text books, which most students choose to purchase. Book costs vary and further information is available in the University’s bookshop. Our libraries provide a good supply of essential text books, journals and materials (many of which you can access online) – meaning you may not need to purchase as many books as you might think! There may also be a supply of second-hand books available for purchase from previous year students.

Field trips

All essential field trip costs will be included in your course fees. There may be the opportunity to take part in optional field trips, which do incur additional costs.

Placements

If you're undertaking a placement year, you'll need to budget for accommodation and any travel costs you may incur whilst on placement. Many of our placement students do earn a salary whilst on placement which can help to cover these living costs.

Print and copy costs

The University allocates an annual printing and copying allowance of £20 depending on the course you are studying. For more details about costs for additional print and copying required over and above the annual allowance please see the Printing, photocopying and scanning information on the Library website.

Please see our fees page for more information.

Tuition fees are payable for each year that you are at the University. The level of tuition fees for the second and subsequent years of your undergraduate course may increase in line with inflation and as specified by the UK government.

Scholarships

We offer scholarships of up to 50% of your tuition fee. You can apply for your scholarship when you have an offer to study at NTU.

Living costs

Get advice on the cost of living as an international student in Nottingham and how to budget:

Paying fees

Find out about advanced payments, instalment plan options and how to make payments securely to the University:

Would you like some advice on your study plans?

Our international teams are highly experienced in answering queries from students all over the world. We also have members of staff based in Vietnam, China, India and Nigeria and work with a worldwide network of education counsellors.

How to apply

Ready to join us? Then apply as soon as you can.

Full-time courses

For the full-time route just click the Apply button at the top of the page and follow our step-by-step guide.

UCAS CODE: LQ33

NTU Code: N91

Part-time courses

If you're applying for the part-time route please apply online using the NTU Applicant Portal.

Make sure you check the entry requirements above carefully before you do.

Writing your application and personal statement

Be honest, thorough and persuasive in your application. Remember, we can only make a decision based on what you tell us. So include all of your qualifications and grades, including resits or predicted grades.

Your personal statement is a really important part of your application. It’s your chance to convince us why we should offer you a place! You've got 4,000 characters to impress us. Make sure you use them to show how your skills and qualities are relevant to the course(s) you’re applying for. For more hints and tips, take a look at our page on how to write a good personal statement.

Keeping up-to-date

After you've applied, we’ll be sending you important emails throughout the application process so check your emails regularly, including your junk mail folder.

You can get more information and advice about applying to NTU on our Your Application page. Good luck with your application!

Need help with your application?

For admissions related enquiries please contact us:

Tel: +44 (0)115 848 4200

Ask us a question

You can apply for this course through UCAS. If you are not applying to any other UK universities, you can apply directly to us on our NTU applicant portal.

Application advice

Apply early so that you have enough time to prepare – processing times for Student visas can vary, for example.  After you've applied, we'll be sending you important emails throughout the application process – so check your emails regularly, including your junk mail folder.

Writing your personal statement

Be honest, thorough, and persuasive – we can only make a decision about your application based on what you tell us:

Would you like some advice on your study plans?

Our international teams are highly experienced in answering queries from students all over the world. We also have members of staff based in Vietnam, China, India and Nigeria and work with a worldwide network of education counsellors.

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