Journalism theory and practice: news-gathering, reporting, writing and editing for television, radio, print and online, in a changing media landscape.
Journalism is part of the combined campus subject programme at Ulster, Coleraine. It is the only university degree programme in the subject in Northern Ireland and offers you the opportunity to study the theory and practice of journalism in context with determining factors such as law, economics, politics and technology. It provides you with a range of relevant practical and professional skills.
As a major subject programme (four modules per full-time year), Journalism at Ulster is combined with another, minor subject in the Arts (two modules per full-time year) to make up a full degree programme. There is a range of subjects to choose from as your minor: Education, English and History.
Taking English as a Minor will allow you to develop a critically-informed knowledge of English literature in its historical range and depth. Through the study of literature across different genres, you will hone the ability to analyse text and form critical arguments, both in spoken and written form. A Minor in English comprises of two from the total of six modules you complete per year (three each semester). These draw on extensive staff expertise and internationally-recognised research. In addition to compulsory modules, you can pursue your own interests through a range of optional modules including 'Restoration & 18th-century Literature’ in second year, or 'Words in Freedom: Modernist Revolution in Literature’ in third year, among others. A Minor in English ensures you are well-equipped for the wide variety of careers that require advanced communicative skills, including publishing, journalism and the media, public relations, the creative arts, marketing and retail, arts administration, and many sectors of the civil service.
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In this section
In Year 1, you will take modules that give you a good basic grounding in the academic study of the media and in practical journalism skills that you will need to underpin your more advanced modules in Years Two and Three. At this level you will take modules that introduce you to critical issues in journalism (history, sociology, economics and technology), journalism law and regulation, and journalism practice (newsgathering, report writing, sub-editing, newspaper design and production and broadcast journalism techniques).
Your commitment in time and effort will be intensive and demanding, much more so than those subjects that have no practice component. As well as on-campus activities, you will also learn about reporting from the local court and council offices. At the end of your second year, you will be encouraged to seek a placement with a local newspaper or other news based outlet.
The programme uses a range of teaching methods including lectures, small group seminars and practical workshops. These are delivered and supervised by experienced teaching staff, including former journalists with BBC and The Sunday Times.
You will have access to a wide range of learning resources, including professional standard newspaper production and design software such as Adobe InDesign, and digital sound and video software. You will also work in a simulated newsroom environment.
The programme assesses your work using a variety of different assessment methods including traditional academic essays, critical book reviews, examinations, class-tests and practical journalism assignments in reporting and writing.
Full-time students studying English as a Minor are expected to complete two modules per year (one in each semester). Most modules offer lectures and a seminar. Independent reading and study will also be guided by module co-ordinators. We endeavour to make lecture and seminar times convenient for those who have to travel far or who have part-time jobs.
Diploma in Professional Practice DPP
Diploma in International Academic Studies DIAS
Diploma in Professional Practice International DPPI
Attendance
Full-time mode: three years.
Attendance200 hours per module per semester as follows:
36 contact hours per module per semester.
164 independent study hours per module per semester.
FAQ:
How many hours per week will I attend as journalism student at Ulster?
All full-time degree programmes in the Faculty of Arts require a minimum three hours contact time (e.g. lectures and seminars) per module. However, programmes with a practice component, such as Journalism, will demand, by their very nature, additional contact hours for attendance on practical workshops and may require occasional assignments off campus, e.g. to local court or council. In addition to attendance at teaching sessions, the programme will require up to 20 hours per module per semester of independent learning and study (e.g. library research and coursework preparation). In that light, the attendance requirement in part-time mode depends on how many modules taken per semester (one or two).
Assessment will be by way of a mixture of formal examination, essay, class test, coursework, individual/group projects and assessment of practice projects, dependent on the nature and rationale of the module concerned.
Dr Colm Murphy has extensive research experience in Journalism and the Digital Economy and his teaching centres on legal and digital issues in journalism. Colm is an award winning journalist and editor and works with The Sunday Times. He has also produced a number of investigative documentaries. He is also a director of the industry recognised accreditation body, the National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Ms Maggie Swarbrick is Course Director of Ulster's prestigious MA Journalism programme and also teaches at undergraduate level, specialising in radio and television reporting. Maggie is a former trainer and journalist at BBC and is an examiner with the NCTJ.
Mr Milne Rowntree is Subject Director for the BA Hons Journalism programme. Milne is a former print and online journalist and teaches in the areas of media law and public affairs, as well as newspaper and online reporting. He is also an examiner with the NCTJ.
The University employs over 1,000 suitably qualified and experienced academic staff - 59% have PhDs in their subject field and many have professional body recognition.
Courses are taught by staff who are Professors (25%), Readers, Senior Lecturers (20%) or Lecturers (55%).
We require most academic staff to be qualified to teach in higher education: 82% hold either Postgraduate Certificates in Higher Education Practice or higher. Most academic staff (81%) are accredited fellows of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) by Advanced HE - the university sector professional body for teaching and learning. Many academic and technical staff hold other professional body designations related to their subject or scholarly practice.
The profiles of many academic staff can be found on the University’s departmental websites and give a detailed insight into the range of staffing and expertise. The precise staffing for a course will depend on the department(s) involved and the availability and management of staff. This is subject to change annually and is confirmed in the timetable issued at the start of the course.
Occasionally, teaching may be supplemented by suitably qualified part-time staff (usually qualified researchers) and specialist guest lecturers. In these cases, all staff are inducted, mostly through our staff development programme ‘First Steps to Teaching’. In some cases, usually for provision in one of our out-centres, Recognised University Teachers are involved, supported by the University in suitable professional development for teaching.
Figures correct for academic year 2021-2022.
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Here is a guide to the subjects studied on this course.
Courses are continually reviewed to take advantage of new teaching approaches and developments in research, industry and the professions. Please be aware that modules may change for your year of entry. The exact modules available and their order may vary depending on course updates, staff availability, timetabling and student demand. Please contact the course team for the most up to date module list.
In this section
Year: 1
Status: C
This module offers students a basic introductory guide to literary criticism and interpretation, focusing upon the ways in which the formal structures of poetry, fiction and drama contribute to a diversity of effects and levels of meaning.
Year: 1
Status: C
The module offers an introduction to the theory and practice of reading and criticism. It aims to enable students to work with a variety of approaches to texts, and to develop an informed awareness of the possibilities available to them as readers and critics.
Year: 1
Status: C
Media, Culture, Politics is an introduction to media studies that aims to demonstrate the importance and seriousness of the discipline, and to show how it can speak to the most pressing political issues of our time, namely disparities of wealth and power, as well as the question of environmental sustainability. To do this the module draws attention to the role of media and popular culture in reproducing social inequality, and it considers the ecological consequences of a contemporary culture that is dependent upon fossil fuels and driven by capital accumulation.
The objective of the module then is to encourage students to think critically about media production and consumption, and to other ways and forms of making and exchanging culture. To achieve this Media, Culture, Politics introduces students to a selection of thinkers who have contributed to the field. It then invites them to consider the ideas and concepts encountered on the module, and apply or adapt them to their own media practice, cultural experience and democratic participation.
Year: 1
Status: C
The module introduces students to the structures of central and local government, including local government finance, and to the economy and economic development in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland. It will help to develop student skills and an understanding of the world on which they report. They will be encouraged to look critically and analytically at a wide range of related journalistic material.
Year: 1
Status: C
The module is an introduction to the essential skills of newsgathering and news writing.
Students will learn how to spot a news story and to develop it for publication. The module will introduce students to the working life of journalists through guest lectures.
Year: 1
Status: C
This module develops students' skills in newsgathering and reporting and introduces desktop publishing software for multi-platform production. Students will produce a portfolio of journalistic work. They will be encouraged to look critically and analytically at a wide range of journalism and to critically evaluate those items.
Year: 2
Status: C
This module offers a practical introduction to the range of legal and regulatory topics relevant to media professionals. At its core are defamation, privacy, contempt and copyright - the main areas of law pertinent to media production across all platforms. The module will examine how these impact on the output of the media. It will look at the various codes governing how the media operates and the ethical decisions that media professionals must make in complying with them. The module will demonstrate how to comply with this legislation and relevant codes while still generating engaging material. It will feature class discussions to test the learner's ability to apply this knowledge in decision-making pertinent to the work of media professionals.
Year: 2
Status: C
This module introduces students to a range of job roles from across the media and creative industries to help them plan and apply for a short placement. The module helps students develop their understanding of defined job roles and build a range of resources to help them interface with the media industry more professionally.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
The module introduces students to the literature of the English Renaissance. Canonical and non-canonical poetry, prose and drama will be studied within a framework of instruction on the sweeping changes brought to England by sectarian tension, increased literacy, changing politics and cultural innovation.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
This module is designed to introduce students to the history of the development of early fiction in English, from the early adventure narratives of the Elizabethan era to the emergence of the novel as a leading literary genre in the mid-eighteenth century. It acquaints students with a range of thematic and formal sub-genres of fiction, ranging from tales of adventure to the philosophical romance, from religious allegory to the oriental tale, and from the picaresque to the epistolary.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
This module offers a broad survey of love poetry from its earliest foundations in ancient verse, through classical writing and philosophy, the great flowerings of the courtly and renaissance periods, to modernist and contemporary practice. Students will become aware of the historical significance of this sub-genre, familiar with its conceptual foundations and perennial features, as well as gaining an appreciation of its changing nature within different cultural contexts.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
This practice-based module aims to advance the writing and editing knowledge and skills of students through lectures and workshops focusing on diverse genres of writing. Students are introduced to methods and techniques in the writing and editing processes. Instruction is given in the collaborative teamwork of writers and editors, with students adopting both roles during the course of the module. Formative assessment ensures that all students get a chance to edit and improve their own work (and some of each other's work) before final submission.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
The module introduces students to the history of the development of modern western drama. After accounting for the ancient traditions of Greek and Renaissance drama there is a focus on the radical aesthetic and thematic developments brought by European giants such as Ibsen and Chekhov. The module then addresses the great period of American tragedy as typified by the work of Williams and Miller before engaging with post-war drama by non-male and non-white writers such as Delaney, Fornes and Hansberry.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
Religion and sexuality are contested and related areas in American culture, not least because of the Puritan origins of the American self. This module explores the relationship between word and flesh in American writing from the colonial period to the present day. Studying poetry, fiction and non-fiction prose, students will consider the ways in which this Puritan heritage has been reproduced, challenged and changed, particularly in writings by women, African-Americans, and Native-Americans.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
This module studies writers of the Beat Generation, including Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Gary Snyder. It also introduces the forerunners of the Beat generation (Thoreau, Emerson, Rimbaud), as well as its legacies at the end of the 20th Century (e.g. Burroughs' influence on punk), and after the millennium, for example in Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road (2006). The module uses interdisciplinary elements such as biographical studies, reference to film and music, and indications of the Beats' political and spiritual dimensions.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
This module enables students to engage with a wide range of writing by women from the 1790s to the end of the nineteenth century. By examining both poetry and prose, this module will uncover self-determined literary representation of female experience throughout the modern period, allowing students to engage with the central issues of gender and identity which affect women's writing.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
The module introduces students to writers from Ulster, to representations of, and imaginative responses to, the north of Ireland, and to the central debates surrounding these representations and responses.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
The module examine both European and non-European texts, many from genres beyond the literary mainstream (including science fiction, high fantasy and crime fiction). Representations in fiction of key themes and issues that arose in the post-war period in Europe, the Americas, and the Commonwealth countries will be examined, as well as questions of national and global identity as these influence novels from around the world.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
This module celebrates Samuel Beckett the man and artist, whose innovations in theme and form pushed the boundaries of literature, redefined the medium of theatre, and caused him to be considered as one of the most influential writers of the Twentieth Century. The module explores Beckett's works in the chronology of the composition; students will be introduced to their historical, cultural and philosophical influences and will be able to trace the development and impact of Beckett's oeuvre.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
Adaptation and Historical Fiction looks closely at the relationship between literature, history, film and television. The module explores how and why history provides material for fiction and explores the process of adaptation across different media. Texts include popular and experimental adaptations and re-imaginings of writers and historical periods from Shakespeare to Austen and beyond.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
This module surveys writing associated with Gothic and Romantic discourses, focusing in particular on the rise of the gothic novel at the end of the C18th, gothic imagery in Romantic writing, late-Victorian versions of the gothic, the concept of decadence both before and during the fin-de-siecle, and the rise of psychoanalytical models at the end of the C19th.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
This module provides students with an opportunity to undertake a semester or full year of the second year of their degree in study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland. It is not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of English whilst generating educational and cultural networks, and fulfilling the requirements of their second year programme.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
This module provides students with an opportunity to undertake a semester or full year of the second year of their degree in study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland. It is not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of English whilst generating educational and cultural networks, and fulfilling the requirements of their second year programme.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
This module provides students with an opportunity to undertake a semester or full year of the second year of their degree in study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland. It is not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of English whilst generating educational and cultural networks, and fulfilling the requirements of their second year programme.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
This module provides students with an opportunity to undertake a semester or full year of the second year of their degree in study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland. It is not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of English whilst generating educational and cultural networks, and fulfilling the requirements of their second year programme.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
This module provides students with an opportunity to undertake a semester or full year of the second year of their degree in study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland. It is not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of English whilst generating educational and cultural networks, and fulfilling the requirements of their second year programme.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
This module provides students with an opportunity to undertake a semester or full year of the second year of their degree in study outside the UK and Republic of Ireland. It is not open to non-study abroad students. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of English whilst generating educational and cultural networks, and fulfilling the requirements of their second year programme.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
Exploring English develops subject-based skills in the study of literature along with vocational skills for employment. The module encourages students to apply critical and innovative thinking to literary texts from before 1800 and to reflect on and develop their personal skills and attributes.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
This module will trace the development of detective fiction from the C19th to the present day, across a variety of forms and subgenres, and from a variety of different theoretical perspectives.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
This module explains what sets feminist writing apart from other literary movements of the time. It traces the evolution of feminist writing from the cusp of the second-wave up to the contemporary millennial feminist writings in evidence today. This module explores what we mean by the terms 'feminist' 'feminism' and 'feminist writings' - asking whether these literary classifications restrict or aid our understandings of contemporary North American literature.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
This module provides an opportunity to undertake an extended period of study outside the Erasmus Plus area such as the Americas, Australia or China. Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the academic discipline of Media whilst generating educational and cultural networks.
Status: O
Year: 2
This module is optional
This module develops students' skills in multi-platform newsgathering and reporting and introduces online, mobile and social media production. Students will produce a portfolio of journalistic work, including a work based learning project, and a reflection on the news production processes involved. They will be encouraged to look critically and analytically at a wide range of journalism and to critically evaluate those items.
Status: O
Year: 3
This module is optional
This module provides an opportunity to undertake an additional academic year of study which is spent outside the UK. Those who successfully complete it get an extra qualification - the Diploma in Academic Studies (DIAS). Students will develop an enhanced understanding of the media and engage with it first-hand in international contexts. The opportunity to generate educational and cultural networks will be available to the student.
Year: 4
Status: C
This module allows the student to put into practice the skills acquired in the previous
journalism practice and theory modules. It will allow them to develop and refine their skills in journalism practice with a particular focus on producing a significant piece of investigative journalism and putting into an agreed format for public output. The resultant piece can be used as part of a portfolio for seeking employment and/or applying for further study. The module will be a mix of lectures, problem-based learning, production workshops and independent practice.
Year: 4
Status: C
This module enables the student to plan, research and write a Journalism dissertation of 4,000-6,000 words on an agreed topic selected by the student, with guidance, and produced under the supervision of a member of staff, with whom the student will meet regularly to discuss progress and receive feedback.
Year: 4
Status: C
One of journalism's main roles is to investigate what is really going on in society. This module provides the theoretical background, tools and the framework for producing an investigative project. The various research tools that can be used - freedom of information, statistical research, opinion polls, journalistic experiments, source tracking, public and public records - will be taught. Students then conduct their own investigation either collaboratively or solely. They will reflect on the learning to make a proposal for a larger Major Journalism Project completed in the following semester.
Year: 4
Status: C
This module considers journalism's role around the globe raising questions about ethics, objectivity, ownership and bias, social impact, economic and political influence. Students will learn to formulate their subject interest into answerable research questions. The module will enable them to produce well-designed and appropriately analysed research projects and give direction to the Journalism Dissertation in the next semester. This module will guide students as they pursue answers to those questions using appropriate methods.
Status: O
Year: 4
This module is optional
The module is designed to introduce students to the history of English literature of the nineteenth century. It will trace, through the study of a selection of celebrated and representative works of the period's poetry and prose, the rise and development of Romanticism and its continuation - and gradual transformation - in the writings of the Victorian era.
Status: O
Year: 4
This module is optional
The module offers a broad survey of significant works of English literature written during the twentieth century. It will describe, through the analysis of a selected works by celebrated and representative writers of the period, some of the major cultural developments and thematic preoccupations of modern literature in English, in particular the attitudes and aesthetics associated with late-Romanticism, modernism, twentieth-century realism, post-modern and multicultural writing.
Status: O
Year: 4
This module is optional
The urge to be modern was a defining characteristic of a group of creative artists christened, by Gertrude Stein, the 'Lost Generation'. Born towards the end of the 1800s and reaching maturity around the time of the First World War, these groundbreaking writers modernized English literature (and themselves) through the 1910s and 1920s. Looking at both poetry and fiction, we will explore the breaking of sexual taboos, the impact of psychoanalysis, the trauma of the Great War, the rise of the New Woman, and avant-garde aesthetics (including free verse, streams of consciousness and unreliable narrators). In all cases we will seek to appreciate how these dynamic authors challenged stale cultural norms left over from the previous century.
Status: O
Year: 4
This module is optional
This module is designed to introduce students to the thematic and formal diversity of early and mid-Victorian fiction, as illustrated through the works of the leading novelists of the period. The key themes studied will include, among others, the social problems of mid-nineteenth-century Britain, 'the woman question', the role of religion in society, and the operation of the literary market; in aesthetic terms, the novels on the module will exemplify a range of formats and story-telling conventions, from the psychological novel to the sensation novel, from realism to symbolism, and from comedy of manners to naturalism.
Status: O
Year: 4
This module is optional
Students on this module learn about the functions, and apply some of the methods, of professionals in the publishing process (by undertaking tasks associated with writers, literary agents, editors, etc.). They workshop their own and each other's writing, and edit texts to publication standard and requirements. At this level a relatively sophisticated degree of self-assessment is required regarding their accumulated insights into writing and publishing.
Status: O
Year: 4
This module is optional
This module examines American literature of the nineteenth century in its social, historical and cultural contexts.
Status: O
Year: 4
This module is optional
The module examines twentieth-century American literature and its engagement with the key social and political events of the country during that period. The post-World War 1 resurgence of America in the jazz age and the subsequent financial depression will be studied. The post-war rise of America as a global superpower and the impact of this perception on its writers will also be explored. The psyche of a country living the American Dream will be explored, mainly through its impact on minorities and on immigrant aspirations and experiences.
Status: O
Year: 4
This module is optional
A survey of ideas about the human body, mind and soul in texts ranging chronologically from Joseph Addison and Richard Steele's Spectator (1711) to Jane Austen's Mansfield Park (1814). It investigates the links between literature and medicine, psychology and philosophy, and will be of interest to students who want to explore how literature engages with issues such as belief, education, pain, pleasure, sexuality and disease.
Status: O
Year: 4
This module is optional
The module introduces students to the history of Ulster-Scots literature from the middle of the eighteenth to the beginning of the twenty-first century. It will trace the relationship of Ulster writing to Scottish and Irish cultural, literary, political, philosophical and linguistic influences in this period. The module will investigate the development, revivals and transformations of Ulster-Scots literature through an examination of its most representative and important authors.
Status: O
Year: 4
This module is optional
This module will enable students to engage with a variety of writing, in different genres, by women writers of the modern and the postmodern period, and will develop their understanding of the ways in which new political, social and sexual freedoms impacted upon women in the last century and beyond.
Status: O
Year: 4
This module is optional
This module celebrates three of the most influential (Irish) writers of the Twentieth Century, W B Yeats, James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. Through an examination of poetry, drama and prose we will consider the development of each writer's work, explore their relationship to Ireland and Europe and examine some of the most significant and innovative writing of the twentieth century.
Status: O
Year: 4
This module is optional
The module is designed to introduce students to the thematic and formal diversity of late Victorian and Edwardian fiction, as illustrated through the works of the leading novelists of the period. The key themes studied will include, among others, the late Victorian crisis of values, the changing position of women in society, the implications of the growth of the British Empire, and the increasing interest in psychology; in aesthetic terms, the novels on the module will exemplify a range of formats and story-telling conventions, from the scientific romance to the Bildungsroman, from realism to symbolism, and from fantasy to naturalism.
Status: O
Year: 4
This module is optional
This module immerses students in the aesthetically and thematically plural worlds of Shakespearean drama and poetry. Many plays and poems are addressed; issues raised will include canonicity, genre, public and private performance, theatre as propaganda and/or resistance, women's roles, sexual license, censorship, animals and the environment, authorial celebrity, collaboration, anonymity, textual authority, nuances of dialogue and the historicising of drama and poetry.
Status: O
Year: 4
This module is optional
This module invites students to explore a diverse range of literary texts and other media through which the history and legacy of the Atlantic slave trade has been represented.
We recognise a range of qualifications for admission to our courses. In addition to the specific entry conditions for this course you must also meet the University’s General Entrance Requirements.
In this section
Grades BCC.
Applicants may satisfy the requirement for the final A level grade (C) by substituting a combination of alternative qualifications to the same standard as defined by the University.
*** To note that only qualifications defined as “Applied General” will be accepted for entry onto any undergraduate course at Ulster University.***
BTEC Awards
QCF Pearson BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma/ OCR Cambridge Technical Level 3 Extended Diploma (2012 Suite)
Award profile of Distinction Distinction Merit
RQF Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma/ OCR Cambridge Technical Level 3 Extended Diploma (2016 Suite)
Award profile of Distinction Merit Merit
QCF Pearson BTEC Level 3 Diploma/ OCR Cambridge Technical Level 3 Diploma(2012 Suite)
Award profile of Distinction Merit plus A Level Grade B
RQF Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Diploma/ OCR Cambridge Technical Level 3 Diploma (2016 Suite)
Award profile of Distinction Merit plus A Level Grade C
QCF Pearson BTEC Level 3 Subsidiary Diploma / OCR Cambridge Technical Level 3 Introductory Diploma (2012 Suite)
Award profile of Merit plus A Level Grades BC
RQF Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Certificate/ OCR Cambridge Technical Level 3 Extended Certificate (2016 Suite)
Award profile of Merit plus A Level Grades BC
Diploma, National Diploma and Subsidiary Diploma applicants may satisfy the requirement for an element of the offer grade profiles (equating to the final A-level grade stated in the standard 3A level offer profile - Grade C) by substituting a combination of alternative qualifications to the same standard as defined by the University.
104 UCAS tariff points to include a minimum of five subjects (four of which must be at higher level) to include English at H6 if studied at Higher level or O4 if studied at Ordinary Level.
BCCCC
Applicants may satisfy the requirement for an element of the offer grade profiles (equating to the final A-level grade stated in the standard 3A level offer profile - Grade C) by substituting a combination of alternative qualifications to the same standard as defined by the University.
CDD
Applicants may satisfy the requirement for an element of the offer grade profiles (equating to the final A-level grade stated in the standard 3A level offer profile - Grade C) by substituting a combination of alternative qualifications to the same standard as defined by the University.
Overall International Baccalaureate profile minimum of
24 points to include 12 at higher level.
Overall mark of 60% (120 credit Access Course) (NI Access course)
Overall profile of 12 credits at distinction, 30 credits at merit and 3 at pass (60 credit Access course) (GB Access course)
For full-time study, you must satisfy the General Entrance Requirements for admission to a first degree course and hold a GCSE pass at Grade C/4 or above English Language.
Level 2 Certificate in Essential Skills - Communication will be accepted as equivalent to GCSE English.
English language requirements for international applicants
The minimum requirement for this course is Academic IELTS 6.0 with no band score less than 5.5. Trinity ISE: Pass at level III also meets this requirement for Tier 4 visa purposes.
Ulster recognises a number of other English language tests and comparable IELTS equivalent scores.
HND - Overall Merit with distinctions in 30 Level 5 credits for entry to Year 1.
HNC – Overall Merit with distinctions in 60 Level 4 credits for entry to Year 1.
You may also meet the course entry requirements with combinations of different qualifications to the same standard as recognised by the University (provided subject requirements as noted above are met).
Foundation Degree - An overall mark of 45% in Level 5 modules for Year 1 entry.
APEL (Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning)
The University will consider applications on the basis of experiential learning for those who do not hold the normal entry qualifications.
Transfer from degree level study at other institutions
Those applicants seeking entry with advanced standing, (eg. Transfer from another institution or year 2 entry) will be considered on an individual basis.
Due to the structure of the course it is not possible to transfer directly into second year from other Foundation Degree courses.
In this section
Graduates from this course are now working for:
With this degree you could become:
The degree in Journalism at Ulster gives you a wide range of potential career options in the expanding field. Many graduates will go on to join a local newspaper, magazine or digital news service as trainees. Others will use their skills in information gathering, research, verification, media production software etc to go into related fields like public relations, recruitment, research or marketing communications. Others will go on to do a masters like the connected MA Journalism at Ulster University which provides both a masters degree and professional accreditation by the industry's National Council for the Training of Journalists.
For information on postgraduate research opportunities see: www.arts.ulster.ac.uk/rgs
Students completing a course with English as a minor are well equipped to undertake postgraduate work in relevant areas of study. A degree containing a significant element of English equips you for the wide variety of careers that require advanced communicative skills, both written and oral, including publishing, creative arts, marketing and retail, arts administration and many sectors of the civil service.
There is formal work placement and optional study abroad within the course structure.
Students may consider taking part in the Erasmus Exchange programme, to European universities, usually for one semester in second year.
Students may take part in the exchange programme with universities in the USA. This would be a year long exchange and attracts an additional university academic award on graduation.
Exchanges with universities in other countries may also be possible, arranged through the International Office at the university.
2024/25 Fees
Fees for entry in 2024/25 have not yet been set. See our tuition fees page for the current fees for 2023/24 entry.
Brum Henderson Award for best journalism project. Dr Henderson was a founder of UTV.
No additional mandatory costs.
It is important to remember that costs associated with accommodation, travel (including car parking charges) and normal living will need to be covered in addition to tuition fees.
Where a course has additional mandatory expenses (in addition to tuition fees) we make every effort to highlight them above. We aim to provide students with the learning materials needed to support their studies. Our libraries are a valuable resource with an extensive collection of books and journals, as well as first-class facilities and IT equipment. Computer suites and free Wi-Fi are also available on each of the campuses.
There are additional fees for graduation ceremonies, examination resits and library fines.
Students choosing a period of paid work placement or study abroad as a part of their course should be aware that there may be additional travel and living costs, as well as tuition fees.
See the tuition fees on our student guide for most up to date costs.
We know that choosing to study at university is a big decision, and you may not always be able to find the information you need online.
Please contact Ulster University with any queries or questions you might have about:
For any queries regarding getting help with your application, please select Admissions in the drop down below.
For queries related to course content, including modules and placements, please select Course specific information.
We look forward to hearing from you.
