BA Art History with Modern Languages (Including Foundation Year and Year Abroad)

Our five-year BA Art History with Modern Languages (including foundation year), will be suitable for you if your academic qualifications do not yet meet our entrance requirements for the four-year version of this course and you want a programme that increases your subject knowledge as well as improves your academic skills in order to support your academic performance.

This five-year course includes a foundation year (Year Zero), followed by a further four years of study including a study abroad year. During your Year Zero, you study three academic subjects relevant to your chosen course as well as a compulsory academic skills module, with additional English language for non-English speakers.

You are an Essex student from day one, a member of our global community based at the most internationally diverse campus university in the UK.

After successful completion of Year Zero in our Essex Pathways Department, you progress to complete your course with our School of Philosophy and Art History.

Our course allows you study the history and theory of art combined with French (post-A Level), German, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese (post-A Level or ab initio), and includes the chance to spend a year abroad studying at one of our partner institutions, such as the Ecole du Louvre in Paris.

You receive a distinctive curriculum which covers the whole history of art, enabling you to choose from a variety of specialist options, while simultaneously becoming proficient in one or more languages. You engage with art works that range from Old Master paintings, through the Pre-Raphaelites and Surrealists, to the most up-to-date contemporary art and visual culture.

Modules explore a wide variety of media, including architecture, urbanism, photography and video, as well as painting, drawing, printmaking, performance art and sculpture. We have also embedded clear pathways to careers in curating and museumship throughout the course should you wish to take them, with modules in every year dedicated to the histories, theories and practices of museums, exhibitions and galleries. At the same time you can either begin the study of a language as complimentary to your course, or improve your current language skills.

One of the major reasons for choosing Essex is the quality of the education you will receive. We are ranked 6th among Art History departments in the UK for research excellence (REF 2014, mainstream universities, THE 2014). You will be taught by our expert staff in your very first year, a rarity in UK art history courses.

We are also 4th in the UK for research excellence (REF 2014, mainstream universities, THE 2014) for Social Sciences in which our Language and Linguistics department is based; a place where talented students become part of our respected academic community.

• We equip you with the necessary knowledge and skills to succeed at Essex and beyond.
• Our international students benefit from a single visa for all four years of study.
• Small class sizes allow you to work closely with your teachers and classmates.

Previous university/college study is required in addition to local high school qualifications for our Undergraduate Bachelor degree courses.

We accept a number of international qualifications, including the International Baccalaureate with the majority of our courses requiring a grade 30 or above or the SATR with the majority of our courses requiring a minimum of 1100 out of 1600 with 550 in each test.

Companies and organisations in the UK and abroad are struggling to find university graduates who are fluent in at least one other language, apart from English. Language skills are in scarce supply and can be used in almost any job.

Graduates from our BA Art History with Modern Languages are prepared for roles as curators, teachers, translators and journalists. Having strong language skills have enabled our graduates to work in diverse fields including banking, entertainment, media, education and tourism for UK and international companies.

Our recent graduates have gone onto work for a wide range of organisations including:

• Foreign and Commonwealth Office
• National Portrait Gallery
• Victoria and Albert Museum

We also work with the university's Student Development Team to help you find out about further work experience, internships, placements, and voluntary opportunities.

UCAS

Applications to UCAS are open for 2023-24 entry. Applications are made online via the UCAS Apply and UCAS Hub, where you will be charged a small fee for processing your application. Here you will be able to fill out your details, upload your personal statement, choose the universities you would like to apply for, and track your application status.

It’s important that you complete your application fully to give us all the information we need to make a decisions as quickly as possible. A few key things that we will need are:

• Details of all qualifications, including those you may have not finished yet and any predicted grades
• Your personal statement (we have some tips for this)
• A suitable reference – if this is not provided or does not meet our requirements this may be a condition of any offer made and will be required before your place can be confirmed.

The UCAS code for Essex is ESSEX E70. Our individual campus codes for our Loughton and Southend campuses are ‘L’ and ‘S’ respectively. There is no campus code for Colchester – please leave this blank in your application.