Course summary

Our degree courses with Foundation year offer the opportunity to prepare you for advanced study before you progress onto a full honours degree at the University of Westminster.

Whether you do not feel ready for degree-level study, don’t have the right qualifications, want to change your subject specialism or return to study after an absence from education, we aim to encourage a broad range of students to undertake our Foundation year in order to progress onto their full honours degree with us.

Our Foundation year in Art and Design is designed to provide you with an introduction to our range of subject areas, and to prepare you for the discipline of your choice. It will give you the opportunity to explore new ideas, opening up new perspectives on the key debates within the field. It begins in the first semester with the development of fundamental Art and Design skills, as well as practical exploration across all of the disciplines in our Art and Design Foundation programme. In the second semester, you are encouraged to specialise in your own discipline and are supported at this stage by tutors from your host course. You will also benefit from workshops in our high-end facilities, and from working with leading academics who will encourage you to become a confident and creative thinker. Your practical development is accompanied by modules in both semesters on foundational academic skills – skills that will be essential as you progress to your chosen full degree.

On successful completion of the Foundation year, you'll be able to move on to study for the Contemporary Media Practice BA Honours degree over a further three years study.

Our Contemporary Media Practice BA will challenge you to develop cutting-edge approaches to media arts with an emphasis on innovation and emerging creative technologies.

It will give you the opportunity to work across media disciplines to prepare you for a dynamic and ever-changing media arts landscape. Our graduates have a wide range of career options in the creative industries, such as content production across interactive media, immersive technologies, CGI and VFX, videogame design, film, experience design and emerging technologies including Artificial Intelligence and the Metaverse.

The course delivers disciplinary skills in a range of media practices including filmmaking, photography, interaction design, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), video and art installation, motion graphics, animation, projection mapping, creative coding, 3D scanning and printing, 3D modelling and design, sound art, audio production and web design.

Our unique course combines traditional art school approaches to creative practice – where students develop skills in critical thinking, innovation and contextual awareness – with industry-level professionalism. This approach will enable you to develop engaging practical projects and to participate in contemporary cultural debates through your awareness of the political, ethical and aesthetic implications of your work.

Core modules give you the skills to work across media boundaries, and at the frontiers of emerging media. These provide a breadth and depth of media production skills together with transferrable skills in project management, collaborative practice and entrepreneurship. Combined, these will give you the ability to adapt to the creative opportunities of the contemporary media landscape.

The course is part of the University of Westminster's School of Arts, based at our Harrow Campus – a cutting-edge creative hub, and one of the leading media, arts and design educational facilities in Europe.