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Fine Art with Foundation

Entry requirements


32-48 points from a minimum of 2 A Levels

Access to HE Diploma

P:45

Pass a name Access to Higher Education Diploma (Preferably Art and Design).

Considered in combination

International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme

24

32-48 points from any subjects

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

PP

From any subject

Considered in combination

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

PPP

From any subject

32-48 UCAS points from a minimum of 2 Advanced Highers

32-48 UCAS tariff points

T Level

Pass (D or E)

Any subject considered

UCAS Tariff

32-48

From a minimum of 2 A Levels

Considered in combination

About this course


Course option

4years

Full-time including foundation year | 2024

Subjects

Fine art

Creative arts and design

The foundation pathway provides students with non-standard entry points to progress onto the BA (Hons) Fine Art programme. The foundation year allows you to develop skills across a range of media and introduces creative best practice in preparation for the first year of the undergraduate programme. During the foundation year you will have the opportunity to explore creative processes relevant to visual design, animation, illustration, print-making, fine art, and photography.

Upon successful completion of the foundation course, you will join the undergraduate BA (Hons) Fine Art programme equipped with the skills and knowledge needed to successfully complete an undergraduate degree.

- **Studio culture.** Our main teaching and learning space is the studio and we place emphasis on creating a friendly, supportive, vibrant, creative, critical and reflective studio environment.

- **Thinking through doing.** This is a practice-based programme, which means that critical enquiry is at the heart of making work. We encourage you to be exploratory and experimental, to think through making and to embrace uncertainty and not knowing.

- **Facilities.** You will have inductions in and access to a wide range of specialist workshop facilities to advance your artistic enquiry, including letterpress and printmaking, ceramics, woodworking, metal, video, audio, XR and 3D printing.

- ** Interdisciplinary.** Studio practice modules and the common challenges and dissertation modules offer you opportunities to work in interdisciplinary research areas across the arts, humanities and sciences.

- **Degree show.** Showcase your final project in a faculty-wide exhibition alongside students from our 12 art and design degrees. The Degree Show is your chance to introduce friends and family, your new creative network and art community, prospective employers and the general public to your work.

Modules

The modules shown for this course or programme are those being studied by current students, or expected new modules. Modules are subject to change depending on year of entry and up to date information can be found on our website:
Your foundation year will welcome you to an engaging, experiential learning environment with a focus on active exploration, experimentation and discovery across a wide range of material, methods and media. It will help develop your practical, technical and creative skills through studio and workshop based projects and provide training in key learning skills for further undergraduate study and build an awareness of practise, context and theory.

Your first year of the BA is about exploration of materials, processes and ideas. You’ll examine the diverse traditions of fine art up to the present day. There’s ample studio time to try out different techniques and technologies from painting to digital media. Building critical analysis skills through interaction with other students and teaching staff will boost your confidence, and you will be introduced to interdisciplinary art practices, working in response to the global challenges that we face today.

In your second year, drawing on your work from the first year, you’ll now have confidence to follow your instincts, choose your own media, use your inspirations and intentions to outline project aims and research strategies. You’ll further develop your critical skills by reflecting on your own work and that of others. In groups, you will curate a selection of work for a public exhibition and engage in a professional placement or interdisciplinary residency. You’ll also make work in response to common challenges – environment, health and equality. There is also an opportunity to take part in an international exchange programme.

In your final year, you will produce a comprehensive body of work, exploring its social and cultural context and the relationship between artist and audience. Deepen your knowledge of a specific area of artistic practice and its concepts through the common dissertation module, where you can develop critical and creative skills in an interdisciplinary setting. Continue to prepare for a career in art by developing a research portfolio and art publication for use when you graduate. Develop professional and transferable skills in collaborative arts administration and management through curation, design, marketing and installing your degree show.

The modules shown for this course or programme are those being studied by current students, or expected new modules. Modules are subject to change depending on year of entry.

Assessment methods

For up to date details, please refer to our website or contact the institution directly.

The Uni


Course location:

University of Plymouth

Department:

School of Art, Design and Architecture

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.

100%
Fine art

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.

Art

Teaching and learning

100%
Staff make the subject interesting
100%
Staff are good at explaining things
93%
Ideas and concepts are explored in-depth
93%
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

86%
Library resources
86%
IT resources
86%
Course specific equipment and facilities
79%
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?

98%
UK students
2%
International students
19%
Male students
81%
Female students
75%
2:1 or above
10%
First year drop out rate

Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)

B
D
B

Creative arts and design (non-specific)

Sorry, no information to show

This is usually because there were too few respondents in the data we receive to be able to provide results about the subject at this university.


Who studies this subject and how do they get on?

94%
UK students
6%
International students
47%
Male students
53%
Female students
75%
2:1 or above
11%
First year drop out rate

Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)

B
B
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.

Art

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.

£15,600
low
Average annual salary
97%
med
Employed or in further education
47%
med
Employed in a role where degree was essential or beneficial

Top job areas of graduates

22%
Sales assistants and retail cashiers
16%
Artistic, literary and media occupations
12%
Caring personal services

Quite a few students of fine art have already retired and are taking the degree for the excellent reason that they love art, and they're willing to pay to study it. You should bear this in mind if the stats you see feature particularly low employment rates. If you need to earn a living once you've finished your fine art degree, be aware that freelancing and self-employment is common - about one in six fine arts graduates were working for themselves. Also common are what is termed 'portfolio careers' — having several part-time jobs or commissions at once - and many courses actually help you prepare for freelancing. One in ten of last year’s fine arts graduates had more than one job six months after graduation — over twice the average for graduates from 2015. Graduates from these subjects are often found in arts jobs, as artists, designers, photographers and similar jobs, or as arts and entertainment officers or teachers — although it's perfectly possible to get jobs outside the arts if you wish, with jobs in events management, marketing and community work amongst the most popular options.

Creative arts and design (non-specific)

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.

£16,000
low
Average annual salary
93%
low
Employed or in further education

Top job areas of graduates

18%
Artistic, literary and media occupations
15%
Sales assistants and retail cashiers
12%
Design occupations

What about your long term prospects?

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

Art

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

£14k

£14k

£19k

£19k

£21k

£21k

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.

Creative arts and design (non-specific)

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

£14k

£14k

£19k

£19k

£21k

£21k

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.

Explore these similar courses...

Higher entry requirements
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Lower entry requirements
University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) | Inverness
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BA (Hons) 4 Years Full-time including foundation year 2024
UCAS Points: 21-24
Nearby University
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UCAS Points: -

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Teaching Excellence Framework (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