The BA Creative Arts and Humanities Degree

The Creative Arts and Humanities BA degree will enable you to develop both your creative and critical skills, focusing on the role of narrative across writing, moving image, and performance.

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Overview

UCL’s BA Creative Arts and Humanities is an interdisciplinary degree that will enable you to develop both your creative and critical skills, focusing on the role of narrative across three forms of creative practice:

  • Writing: narratives for paper, screen, and the digital sphere in fiction and non-fiction genres
  • Moving image: making narratives for screen, from narrative to experimental and documentary forms, developing projects from concept to filming, editing and post-production.
  • Performance: working with voice, body, and movement to communicate ideas and emotions through performance for stage, film and digital media

Working with academics as well as industry practitioners, you will develop your knowledge and critical understanding of these modes of creative practice in historical, contemporary and future-facing contexts. You will also develop your own creative skills and explore what creativity means in different contexts and how it can be harnessed for meaningful impact in society.

The degree will encourage you to ground your creative expression in practical engagement, with audiences, with communities, and with different organisations or employers. You will learn the skills of collaboration, learning how to create with and for others, and develop a range of skills that can be applied across a range of roles and sectors.

Based at our new campus in Stratford, UCL East, you will be part of a community of students studying interdisciplinary degrees in both arts and science subjects that are focused on creating, designing and making, with a strong emphasis on active engagement with the world to effect change.

Benefits

 

  • You will develop advanced level skills in storytelling and other forms of communication across three different modes of creative practice: writing, performance and moving image. You will develop an understanding of how these modes work with and influence one another, and be able to develop your own powerful creative works
  • You will benefit from world-class research across the arts and humanities at UCL, ranked 7th in the world for these disciplines (THE World University Rankings 2025 by subject), as well as from creative practitioners working in different fields.
  • You will be able to specialise depending on your area of interest to develop high-level skills in writing, performance or moving image, to prepare you to become a practitioner yourself or take your creative and critical skills into a wide range of sectors.
  • You will learn how to think critically and act collaboratively, focussing on how to use creativity to solve problems, generate fresh perspectives or influence change.
  • You will be part of a vibrant community of researchers, creators and makers at our new campus, UCL East, and have access to the rich variety of London’s creative and cultural organisations.

Curriculum (structure)

The degree is made up of 120 credits of study each year. It is structured to enable you to engage with three modes of creative practice (writing, performance and moving image), both critically and practically. At the same time, you will study modules that focus on the role that these forms of practice play in generating interdisciplinary solutions to real world problems, and on the application of these skills in contexts outside the university.

Please note that the list of modules given here is indicative. This information is published a long time in advance of enrolment and module content, assessment pattern and availability is subject to change.

Modules

You will take each of the following modules each year. All modules are worth 15 credits unless otherwise stated. 

Year 1 (Level 4)

You will then choose one 15 credit elective module from UCL that will complement your choices. You will make this choice in discussion with your Personal Tutor. Choices include, but are not limited to:

Year 2 (Level 5)

You will take the following compulsory module:

You are required to select two of the following optional ‘critical’ modules:

You are required to select two of the following optional ‘practice-based’ modules:

To complete your module section, you will be required to take two optional modules. Elective modules are typically selected from departments offering related disciplines in the Faculties of Arts and Humanities or Social and Historical Sciences. Please note that these modules may be taught at the Bloomsbury campus rather than the UCL EAST campus and so you will be required to fund your travel to the other campus.

Note that choice of modules in your second year will affect the options available to you in your final year because of the requirement to have completed relevant Level 5 modules to be able to enrol on Level 6 modules (for example, you may not be able to take Level 6 Performance modules if you have not selected Level 5 Performance modules). Students are supported by their personal tutor to make choices that work for their future ambitions. Your choices include, but are not limited to:

Year 3 (Level 6)

You are required to take the following compulsory modules:

You are required to select one of the following combined interdisciplinary practical and critical modules at Level 6:

In consultation with your Personal Tutor, and subject to timetabling constraints, you can select more of the modules listed above or choose Elective modules from the list shown below (max 30 credits). Elective modules are typically selected from departments offering related subjects in the Faculties of Arts and Humanities or Social and Historical Sciences. Please note that these modules may be taught at the Bloomsbury campus rather than the UCL EAST campus and so you will be required to fund your travel to the other campus. Your choices include: