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Fine Art

Entry requirements


A level

B,B,B-B,C,C

To include a B in A-level Art or a related subject, plus a satisfactory portfolio.

The University welcomes undergraduate applications from students studying the Access to Higher Education Diploma, provided that relevant subject content and learning outcomes are met. We are not able to accept Access to Higher Education Diplomas as a general qualification for every undergraduate degree course.

International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme

28-30

Plus a satisfactory portfolio.

Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)

DDM-DMM

Plus a satisfactory portfolio.

UCAS Tariff

104-120

To include a B in A-level Art or a related subject, plus a satisfactory portfolio.

Aberystwyth University welcomes the Welsh Baccalaureate as a valuable qualification in its own right and considers completion of the Welsh Baccalaureate Advanced Skills Challenge Certificate to be equivalent to an A level grade.

You may also need to…

Present a portfolio

About this course


Course option

3years

Full-time | 2024

Subject

Fine art

The teaching of Art at Aberystwyth has a distinguished history that goes back to 1917 when it was one of only a handful of British Universities to be concerned with the Art and Crafts Movement. The listed building which houses the School of Art has been adapted to meet the needs of today’s Fine Art education while retaining many of its original features. It is an elegant symbol of the School’s aim to link the traditional and the contemporary.

The School of Art can offer you excellent facilities for the study of painting, the graphic arts, and photography, with studio facilities for painting, printmaking in intaglio, lithography, screen and relief printing, typography, black and white and colour photography, computer graphics, and most forms of reprographics.

As a student at Aberystwyth, you will have access to a superb range of visual arts, including an extensive collection of original artworks. The School of Art is an accredited Museum that runs its own galleries and houses a collection of some 20,000 prints, photographs, drawings and watercolours, ceramics and decorative art dating from the fifteenth century to the present day. The Ceramics Gallery in the University Arts Centre also houses an important collection of twentieth-century studio pottery.

As a close department, we pride ourselves on our close association with the University's Arts Centre, which is one of the largest in the UK and a major venue for exhibitions by contemporary artists and designers. Our lecturers include practising artists, historians and theorists, who are highly regarded in their respective fields. Fine Art at Aberystwyth University will allow you to develop new or broaden and deepen your skills in painting, printmaking, drawing, photography, book illustration, experimental film, installation and site-specific performance.

Students in our department can exploit our exciting opportunities such as studying abroad under the Erasmus + programme (studying in any of our European partnered Universities in countries such as Turkey, Norway and Germany). We also offer students to take part in several field trips and the destinations in the past have included: Madrid, Paris, Rome Moscow, Lisbon to name a few.

Our employability statistics speak for themselves, in the 2017 DLHE results, 100% of UK/EU undergraduates from the School of Art who graduated in 2016 were in professional-level jobs or graduate-level further study six months after graduating (DLHE, 2017).

Upon successful completion of this course, you will emerge with real-world capabilities and possess the core employability skills enabling you to pursue careers as Art Historians; Arts journalists and research; Art directors; Easel painting and works on paper conservators; education; academia. A number of our graduates have found employment with:

+ The Tate;

+ Victoria and Albert Museum;

+ Royal Academy of Arts;

+ The Saachi Gallery;

+ The BBC;

+ The Royal Collection Trust;

+ Design and Arts Council.

Tuition fees

Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:

Channel Islands
£9,000
per year
England
£9,000
per year
EU
£16,520
per year
International
£16,520
per year
Northern Ireland
£9,000
per year
Republic of Ireland
£9,000
per year
Scotland
£9,000
per year
Wales
£9,000
per year

Extra funding

Aberystwyth University offers a valuable package of scholarships and bursaries to support students. Our long-established Entrance Examination competition means you could get up to £2,000 a year towards your living and study costs. You can combine that with any or all of our other awards, to make your financial package more valuable. Our awards include Sport and Music Scholarships, Bursaries for Care Leavers/Young Carers/Estranged Students and a range of department specific awards. Please visit our website for full details.

The Uni


Course location:

Main Site (Aberystwyth)

Department:

School of Art

Read full university profile

What students say


We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.

81%
Fine art

How do students rate their degree experience?

The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.

Art

Teaching and learning

97%
Staff make the subject interesting
88%
Staff are good at explaining things
92%
Ideas and concepts are explored in-depth
92%
Opportunities to apply what I've learned

Assessment and feedback

Feedback on work has been timely
Feedback on work has been helpful
Staff are contactable when needed
Good advice available when making study choices

Resources and organisation

74%
Library resources
84%
IT resources
80%
Course specific equipment and facilities
72%
Course is well organised and has run smoothly

Student voice

Staff value students' opinions
Feel part of a community on my course

Who studies this subject and how do they get on?

81%
UK students
19%
International students
13%
Male students
87%
Female students
82%
2:1 or above
10%
First year drop out rate

Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)

A*
B
B

After graduation


The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.

Art

What are graduates doing after six months?

This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.

£16,000
low
Average annual salary
98%
high
Employed or in further education
45%
med
Employed in a role where degree was essential or beneficial

Top job areas of graduates

22%
Artistic, literary and media occupations
19%
Sales assistants and retail cashiers
13%
Teaching and educational professionals

Quite a few students of fine art have already retired and are taking the degree for the excellent reason that they love art, and they're willing to pay to study it. You should bear this in mind if the stats you see feature particularly low employment rates. If you need to earn a living once you've finished your fine art degree, be aware that freelancing and self-employment is common - about one in six fine arts graduates were working for themselves. Also common are what is termed 'portfolio careers' — having several part-time jobs or commissions at once - and many courses actually help you prepare for freelancing. One in ten of last year’s fine arts graduates had more than one job six months after graduation — over twice the average for graduates from 2015. Graduates from these subjects are often found in arts jobs, as artists, designers, photographers and similar jobs, or as arts and entertainment officers or teachers — although it's perfectly possible to get jobs outside the arts if you wish, with jobs in events management, marketing and community work amongst the most popular options.

What about your long term prospects?

Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.

Art

The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.

£12k

£12k

£16k

£16k

£19k

£19k

Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.

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This is what the university has told Ucas about the criteria they expect applicants to satisfy; some may be compulsory, others may be preferable.

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This is the percentage of applicants to this course who received an offer last year, through Ucas.

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This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.

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Course location and department:

This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.

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Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF):

We've received this information from the Department for Education, via Ucas. This is how the university as a whole has been rated for its quality of teaching: gold silver or bronze. Note, not all universities have taken part in the TEF.

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This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).

This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.

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This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), for undergraduate students only.

You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.

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Post-six month graduation stats:

This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.

It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.

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Graduate field commentary:

The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show

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The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?

Have a question about this info? Learn more here