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Design for Sustainable Futures

Entry requirements


A level

B,B,C-B,B,B

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

DMM

Scottish Higher

C,C,C,C,C,D

Scottish Highers – five passes at Grade C or above

T Level

M

UCAS Tariff

112-120

You may also need to…

Present a portfolio

About this course


Course option

3years

Full-time | 2024

Subject

Design

Sustainability should be at the heart of everything we do as designers and is certainly at the heart of this course.

Research suggests that you, as designers and problem-solvers of the future, make choices every day based on ethical awareness and environmental sustainability: the clothes you wear, the food you buy, the transport you use, the courses you study and the careers you intend to follow.

The decisions you make now, as the generation with the greatest potential to have a meaningful impact, will influence all our futures for years to come.

Sustainability is often an over-used term that saturates the media, corporate and political culture resulting in a sense of overwhelming powerlessness for the individual; what can you possibly do, how can you be expected to make a difference?

Answer, we need your ideas; the world needs your ideas, big ideas, small ideas, better ideas, now more than ever before. Often the very best solutions to a problem are the simplest, the most straightforward and the easiest to put into action.

On this course we want to help you to develop and apply your thinking, creativity, ambition and imagination so that all our futures will be bright.

BA (Hons) Design for Sustainable Futures is about understanding how design happens, and how it can be used responsibly to create a more sustainable future. This course challenges you to look at societal issues and problems that require change; to investigate what you can do that will encourage positive change; to develop and design proposals for change and to reflect what the world might look like after this change.

Alongside gaining the knowledge and skills needed for design and innovation, you’ll study different ways in which sustainability can be defined, understood and realised as well as the social, economic, cultural and political context of sustainability. You’ll develop a way of thinking about design and problem solving that leads to a rewarding career in the creative industries. Your specialism will be in using your creativity, ambition and imagination to propose the innovative concepts that will lead to positive changes in the future, changes that might be big or small but definitely changes that will make the future more sustainable.

BA (Hons) Design for Sustainable Futures makes full use of all of AUB’s purpose-made design studios, digital & traditional workshops and the Innovation Studio. Alongside academics with a wide variety of design experience, technical staff are available to enable students to access and use all of AUB’s industry-leading resources.

Well-equipped design studios are provided for guided and self-directed study. Our workshops are a thriving shared space where prototypes and experiments can come to life. Digital technologies like VR, AR, rapid prototyping and digitisation can be experienced alongside traditional workshop tools, drawing spaces and shared studios.

After developing a way of thinking that will help you to understand the importance of creative thinking to the design process, you’ll explore aspects of sustainable and responsible design through a series of real-world, problem-based briefs. #

Upon graduation you will be prepared to change the world with your creativity, ambition and imagination.

Modules

Year 1: Fundamental Ideas, Past, Present & Future, Design Practice in Context, Collaboration & Problem-solving
Year 2: Design, Industry & Sustainability, Creative Teams & Portfolios, Ambitions in Sustainability
Year 3: Design Context: A Passion for Sustainability, Leading the Way: Professional Project Feasibility, Sustainable Futures: Professional Project Realisation

Assessment methods

Coursework and practical work

Tuition fees

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

Channel Islands
£9,250
per year
England
£9,250
per year
EU
£17,950
per year
International
£17,950
per year
Northern Ireland
£9,250
per year
Scotland
£9,250
per year
Wales
£9,250
per year

The Uni


Course location:

Main Site - Arts University Bournemouth

Department:

Architecture and Design

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.

73%
Design

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.

Design studies

Teaching and learning

83%
Staff make the subject interesting
84%
Staff are good at explaining things
83%
Ideas and concepts are explored in-depth
82%
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

82%
Library resources
91%
IT resources
86%
Course specific equipment and facilities
62%
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?

87%
UK students
13%
International students
26%
Male students
74%
Female students
73%
2:1 or above
8%
First year drop out rate

Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)

B
B
A

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.

Design studies

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.

£18,564
med
Average annual salary
98%
high
Employed or in further education
47%
low
Employed in a role where degree was essential or beneficial

Top job areas of graduates

63%
Design occupations
7%
Sales assistants and retail cashiers
4%
Artistic, literary and media occupations

What about your long term prospects?

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

Design studies

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

£16k

£16k

£22k

£22k

£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 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