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Creative Writing

Entry requirements


104 UCAS points from at least two A-levels or equivalent

Access to HE Diploma

M:30

Pass QAA Access to Higher Education course with at least 30 level 3 credits at Merit. We will normally require students have had a break from full-time education before undertaking the Access course.

International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme

24

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

DMM

T Level

M

UCAS Tariff

104

About this course


Course option

3years

Full-time | 2024

Subject

Creative writing

Find your voice and discover your own creative writing path through studying with us at DMU. By embedding stimulating themes throughout our distinctive course structure we give you the opportunity to develop skills across fiction, poetry, memoir, the graphic novel, screenwriting, non-fiction, audio and performance writing, concrete poetry and new media.

You’ll examine the relationship between word, image, and sound and, by the end of your course, you won’t just be writing – you’ll also be producing your own professional-standard publications. As a final confidence boost, we include final-year voice coaching to help you leave DMU as a self-assured public performer.

You can select a route through this degree in Drama, Education, English Language, English Literature, Film, History, Journalism or Media.

**Key features**
* We’ll help you to experiment and push beyond your comfort zone to produce podcasts, audio-visual pieces and multimedia digital work.

* Creative Writing at DMU is ranked number one in the UK for graduate prospects (Complete University Guide, 2023).

* Select a route through this degree in Drama, Education, English Language, English Literature, Film, History, Journalism or Media. These carefully chosen routes will complement and enrich your understanding of your main subject, alongside broadening your skillset to give you a wider range of career paths available upon graduation.

* Industry-focused skills are embedded throughout the curriculum and you will graduate as a confident writer with the tools to professionally promote, present and publish your work.

* We’ll encourage you to join regional writing networks, participate in spoken word events, and perform and publish your work through book fairs and festivals, including DMU's annual States of Independence book festival.

* You’ll learn from successful published writers and become part of a creative and passionate community of writers.

* Work beyond classroom boundaries in a variety of stimulating settings to promote creativity, including urban walk workshops, museum trips and ghost story workshops in a deconsecrated chapel.

**If you are interested in advanced entry into Year 3 of this course, please visit the DMU website for the course details:** https://www.dmu.ac.uk/study/pre-edu-2030/creative-writing-ba-degree/creative-writing-ba-degree.aspx

Modules

**First year**
Block 1: Exploring Creative Writing
Block 2: Writing Identity
Block 3: Writers Salon OR you can select to study one route from the list below:
Drama route – Shifting Stages
English Language route - Evolving Language
English Literature route – Introduction to Drama: Shakespeare
Film Studies route – Disney, Warner Bros and the Business of the Film Studio
Education route – Childhood, Social Justice and Education
History route – Global Cities
Journalism route – Understanding Journalism
Media route - Media, Culture and Society
Block 4: Shaping Ideas

**Second year**
Block 1: Writing Place
Block 2: Word, Image, Sound
Block 3: Story Craft OR continue with the route selected in the first year:
Drama route – Theatre Revolutions
English Language route - Sociolinguistics
English Literature route – Text Technologies
Film Studies route – Screen Archives - Preservation, Conservation and Usage
Education route – Preparing for Professional Practice and Cultural and Educational Transformations
History route – Humans and the Natural World
Journalism route – Beyond News: Peace Journalism and Opinion Writing
Media route – Public Relations and Strategic Communication
Year Long: Personal Projects

**Third year**
Block 1: Genre Specialism
Block 2: Writing and Publishing
Block 3: Uncreative Writing, Creative Misbehavior OR continue with the route selected in the first year:
Drama route – Performance, Identity and Activism
English Language route - Language and Identity
English Literature route – World Englishes: On the Page and Beyond
Film Studies route – British Cinema - Creativity, Independents and Interdependence
Education route – Adult Learners and Lifelong Learning OR Reflection on Practice: Teaching and Learning OR Gender and Education
History route – The World on Display
Journalism route – Music, Film and Entertainment Journalism
Media route – Gender and TV Fictions
Year Long: Dissertation

Assessment methods

We want to ensure you have the best learning experience possible and a supportive and nurturing learning community. That’s why we’re introducing a new block model for delivering the majority of our courses, known as Education 2030. This means a more simplified timetable where you will study one subject at a time instead of several at once. You will have more time to engage with your learning and get to know the teaching team and course mates. You will receive faster feedback through more regular assessment, and have a better study-life balance to enjoy other important aspects of university life.

**Structure**
This degree programme is carefully designed to develop your potential by ensuring you encounter the full range of forms open to the 21st century creative writer, whilst also allowing you the flexibility to focus, for assignments, on projects and genres that interest you most. We want you to learn that practicing a particular kind of writing can hone your craft in a different form.

In the first year, the focus is upon shorter work, and the importance of developing your editing and re-drafting skills; and your capacity to accept and evaluate feedback from others. This process will enable you to take a critical and reflective approach to your work (Both creative and reflective writing will be assessed). But you will also practice shaping and developing your own ideas, and practice reading as a writer to learn new craft skills.

As you progress through your studies the assignments lengthen, and the focus upon research intensifies as you are expected to situate your own writing alongside your reading of other writers in your field. This involves developing a more sustained writing practice informed by an understanding of the conventions of particular genres, and your management of readers’ expectations. You will also consider how your sense of the ways in which creative work is published and marketed will help you understand how your own practice might fit in – or resist – contemporary conventions.

In all years, the modules reinforce the knowledge that reading and analysing the work of other practitioners – your fellow students included - will help you understand and develop your own formal and technical abilities.

You will experience a range of assessment modes alongside creative writing pieces in the core genres, for example, creative CVs, publications projects, case studies, field trips, and hypertext and audio-visual work. The bulk of the assessment is centred on creative writing coursework and critical reflection – you will take a reflective, critical, and analytical approach to their work and to learn to read as practitioners. You will gain insight into your own creative methods by situating your work in relation to other writers, research materials, and critical writings.

**Contact hours**
You will be taught through a combination of workshops, lectures, tutorials, group work and self-directed study. In your first year you will normally attend around 10 hours of timetabled taught sessions (lectures and workshops) each week, and we expect you to undertake at least 28 further hours of independent study to complete project work and research.

Tuition fees

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

England
£9,250
per year
EU
£15,750
per year
International
£15,750
per year
Northern Ireland
£9,250
per year
Scotland
£9,250
per year
Wales
£9,250
per year

The Uni


Course location:

Leicester Campus

Department:

Arts, Design and Humanities

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.

70%
Creative writing

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.

Creative writing

Teaching and learning

76%
Staff make the subject interesting
92%
Staff are good at explaining things
70%
Ideas and concepts are explored in-depth
86%
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

73%
Library resources
86%
IT resources
69%
Course specific equipment and facilities
65%
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?

83%
UK students
17%
International students
31%
Male students
69%
Female students
94%
2:1 or above
15%
First year drop out rate

Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)

C
C
C

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.

Creative writing

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.

£18,000
med
Average annual salary
96%
high
Employed or in further education

Top job areas of graduates

19%
Sales, marketing and related associate professionals
15%
Other elementary services occupations
12%
Artistic, literary and media occupations

The jobs market for this subject - which includes creative writing and scriptwriting courses - is not currently one of the strongest, so unemployment rates are currently looking quite high overall, with salaries on the lower side. But nevertheless, most graduates get jobs quickly. Graduates often go into careers as authors and writers and are also found in other roles where the ability to write well is prized, such as journalism, translation, teaching and advertising and in web content. Be aware that freelancing and self-employment is common is common in the arts, as are what is termed 'portfolio careers', having several part-time jobs or commissions at once - although graduates from this subject were a little more likely than many other creative arts graduates to be in conventional full time permanent contracts, so that might be worth bearing in mind.

What about your long term prospects?

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

Creative writing

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

£17k

£17k

£21k

£21k

£24k

£24k

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 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?

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