Art History and Film

Our course provides you with the key visual, critical and professional skills necessary for a career in the art world and for a range of other employment opportunities.

As an arts student, you become part of an artistic community based within the School of Arts' Jarman building - a creative hub for students of art history, film, drama and media studies.

Our degree programme

In your first year, you are given a firm foundation in some of the aesthetic, interpretative and methodological approaches in art history and film studies. You also receive an introduction to work-related skills directly relevant to employment in the visual arts sector, such as visual arts writing and exhibition curation.

Throughout your second and third years, there are opportunities for you to develop and expand your engagement with the discipline through a range of specialist modules. These may include Renaissance and Baroque art, modernism, contemporary art, French painting, surrealism, photography and aesthetics.

Within the film element of your degree, you engage with cinema's rich scope and history, from silent classics and mainstream Hollywood to world cinema and the avant-garde. Our modules cover film theory, history and practice, and topics such as national cinema, animation, fantasy and pulp film.

Kent's School of Arts has a number of excellent resources to help you with your studies and the development of your skills. These include:

• Studio 3 Gallery - an exhibition space where you can develop professional curatorial and gallery management skills
• 'The Lupino' - a 62-seat cinema screening room offering state-of-the-art digital projection and sound.

To be considered for entry to Year 1 of a Kent undergraduate degree programme, Jordanian students typically need to have completed one of the following:

• A foundation course, either at a UK based college, or a college in Jordan. All applicants with a foundation qualification will be considered on an individual basis – please contact the International Recruitment team at [email protected] to check if your qualification is acceptable
• One year of a Bachelor degree at a recognised university with an average grade of Very good/76%/B or a GPA of 3.0/4.0
• Associate Degree/Al-Shamel Intermediate Diploma from a recognised Community College with a final grade of at least Good/75%

Recent graduates have gone into areas including:

• art dealing
• working in galleries
• arts administration
• teaching
• the film and television industry
• librarianship
• journalism and the media
• the museum sector
• the heritage industry
• community arts/project development.

Help finding a job

Kent's School of Arts has an excellent reputation and many links with institutions and individuals working in the field. This network is very useful to students when looking for work.

The University also has a friendly Careers and Employability Service which can give you advice on how to:

• apply for jobs
• write a good CV
• perform well in interviews.

Career-enhancing skills

As well as gaining skills and knowledge in your subject area, you acquire key transferable skills that are essential for all graduates.

These include the ability to:

• think critically 
• communicate your ideas and opinions 
• work independently.

You can also gain extra skills by signing up for our Kent Extra activities, such as learning a language or volunteering.