Visual Communication Portfolio, Postgraduate Taught - GradDip - 2022/23 entry

Your course begins with a diagnostic tutorial during which we will assess the support you need to develop your creative portfolio, knowledge and skills. This will result in a personalised plan to help you achieve your goals. The Academic Skills modules will allow you to improve those all-important skills needed for successful masters level study, such as understanding and communicating theories and arguments relevant to your practice. Through the Academic Skills modules, we aim to provide specialist support for students with English as a second language.

On successful completion of the course, you are guaranteed access to one of the following MA courses in the School of Visual Communication.

MA Visual Communication Exit Awards

• MA Visual Communication - Illustration
• MA Visual Communication - Photography
• MA Visual Communication - Film & Animation
• MA Visual Communication - Graphic Communication

You may also be eligible to join one of the other MAs in the wider Faculty of Arts, Design and Media, depending on the suitability of your portfolio and abilities.

While the main purpose of this course is to prepare you for Masters level study, the following transferable skills are embedded throughout the curriculum to help you become more employable:

• Time management
• Project management
• Effective communication through a variety of methods, including presentations
• Group working
• Problem solving
• Digital literacy

We recognise that students will have different prior experiences and competences and may not need to complete the full course in order to achieve the standards required for entry to Masters. Depending on your prior experience, the Universitys Recognition of Prior Learning scheme may enable you to make a case to undertake just those aspects of the course which meet your development needs.

As part of the application process, we require a digital portfolio demonstrating critical thinking, technical abilities and creative process relevant to the subject area.

Bachelor Degree from a recognised university with a minimum grade of 60% / Good / 2.5 / C+

Even though you may have met the stated requirements, if your first language is not English, we may ask you to take an additional English Language Test when you arrive.

Based on the results of the test, you may be required to attend regular English classes to improve your level of competence. English classes are provided free of charge and are available to all non-UK students who wish to attain greater fluency in English.

Enhancing Employability Skills

This course enables you to develop your practice within the field of visual communication. You will do so through a range of relective learning methods that will enhance advanced subject knowledge, developing your creative and innovative thinking, critical awareness and analytical practice. You will gain a comprehensive understanding of techniques applicable to your own research and advanced scholarship.

You will establish a deep and clear understanding of how meaning is constructed with visual communication, across a range of media. You will acquire the skill and knowledge to produce meaningful and creative visual work within your own specialism.

The course will encourage you to challenge yourself, exceed your boundaries and produce work that is original, and significant. You will develop as a creative individual equipped not only for a career in your specialism, but with transferable skills which will benefit a whole range of professional contexts. Through research theory and practice, you will develop new knowledge that will pave the way for imaginative visual communication research.