Journalism with Professional Practice Year
Entry requirements
A level
80 - 96 UCAS Tariff points
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
UCAS Tariff
About this course
The media industry is constantly changing, and you need to go into it with up-to-the-minute skills and expertise. At Bedfordshire, you gain cross-industry editorial and production skills - gained through working in radio studios, edit suites and our high-tech newsroom - so you're ready to hit the ground running when it comes to your career. With our multimedia approach and real-world platforms, this course covers all aspects of journalism: news gathering and reporting (including location work); feature writing and editing; and producing and presenting your work across radio, internet, film and print.
You’ll be based at our well-equipped media arts centre, which features industry-standard radio studios and edit suites as well as our newsroom, which has the latest Apple technology and access to the Press Association news-wire feed. We give you an essential understanding of the industry back story by teaching media law, ethics and regulation; the theory and current practice of journalism; and the global nature of modern journalism. We also offer insights into future developments.
**Professional Practice Year**
This course has the option to be taken over four years which includes a year placement in industry. Undertaking a year in industry has many benefits; you gain practical experience and build your CV. It's also a great opportunity to sample a profession and network with potential future employers. There is no tuition fee for the placement year enabling you to gain an extra year of experience for free.
**Why choose this course?**
- You’ll be taught by a team of industry and academic specialists
- We organise regular, experience-widening trips and masterclasses from industry guest speakers
- You can specialise, taking optional units in PR and marketing, radio, and magazine and online publishing
- There’s the opportunity for you to gain work experience and build links within journalism through an extra work placement year
- You can put your skills into practice, reporting for our news website or developing your own radio show for our on-site community radio station, Radio LaB
- It opens up additional career paths including research; editorial production (sub-editing and proofreading); new media production; and broadcast presenting
- Past graduates have taken up positions within the broadcast sector at Radio One, Kiss FM, Channel 5 and CBeebies
Tuition fees
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The Uni
Luton Campus
School of Culture and Communications
What students say
How do students rate their degree experience?
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Journalism
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Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
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Journalism
What are graduates doing after six months?
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Top job areas of graduates
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Media, journalism and communications
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
£20k
£23k
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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Post-six month graduation stats:
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Graduate field commentary:
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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?
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