BA (Hons) English

The English degree at Marjon University is an innovative and invigorating programme that takes a fresh look at literature and language, and introduces you to complex, powerful and engaging works.

In Year 1, your first module – Literature that Shook the World â€“ engages with literarture at the centre of contemporary clashes and conflict, Aidan Thoma's young adult novel Cemetery Boys (a Latnix trans, queer, paranormal love story), Sam Selvon's Lonely Londoners (a balladesque telling of the Black immigrant experience), and Landays (a traditional Afghan poetic form often used by women). The module will also ask you to reconsider potentially problematic books from your childhood and what it means to deface and destroy works of art. Through all these stories and more, you will be asked to consider literature's role in the world. 

The programme considers the classics and chronology of literature in English, even as it asks you to question why some books are considering classics and others are not. During it, you will explore boundary pushing forms of story, including adaptations, fanfiction, digital narratives, and flashfiction. In your third year, our dystopian fiction module – Discord, Disaster & Dreams â€“ looks both at George Orwells influential and controversial Nineteen Eighty-Four, and powerful, complex novels such as N.K. Jemisins The Fifth Season. 

On this BA, you develop your understanding of literature that encompasses both old and new, conventional and radical, the fringe and the mainstream. You develop a solid foundation from which to analyse and interpret literature, you write with precision and clarity, and debate with passion and conviction. This programme helps you grow intellectually and personally, cultivating knowledge as well as skills that you can take forward into further study or into employment.

An innovative and boundary-pushing course. On the Marjon English degree, you will explore children's and young adult literature, consider and question the classics, and investigate new story forms. You'll undertake project-based learning while developing your critical thinking and writing skills. Through the course, you will acquire insight into the inherent value of literature and its power in communicating and shaping human experience.

Entry requirements

Three A-levels at grades CCC to include one of English Language, English Literature or a Humanities subject

Or BTEC triple grades MMM or above

Or Access 23-45 D/M with min 6D

And GCSE English Language at grade 4 or grade C or above

Applicants with other qualifications and/or experience will be considered on an individual basis

All students applying to Plymouth Marjon University for an Undergraduate programme must have a minimum of GCSE English Language Grade C/4 or an equivalent qualification. The following qualifications are accepted by the University.

With this BA (Hons) English degree behind you, there are many options ahead! If you are interested in publishing, journalism, editing or copywriting, then an English degree would give you a head start on the competition. Equally, English is a great stepping-stone into education (either primary or secondary), and there is the option of further study at Master’s level if you decide that you are not ready to put your books down!

Our close connections with the BBC and the education sector mean that Marjon is well-positioned to support you if the avenues of teaching or journalism particularly appeal to you. Placements and projects through the programme see students engage with the subject in work environments of their choosing.  These include, but are not limited to, placements in primary and secondary schools, online teaching with refugee students overseas, online writing for a charity, proof reading, desktop publishing, arts event management, theatre review writing, and magazine publishing skills gained both through your academic studies and on placement transfer readily to many work environments and include high levels of proficiency in written and spoken communication, analytical techniques, and IT through experience of screenwriting, publishing and blogging software.

Many graduates from our programme are working as primary and secondary teachers of English, including as Heads of English in secondary schools, as arts events managers and media content writers. Others proceed to postgraduate study in related fields including to Marjon’s MA Literature for Children and Young Adults.