Fine Art (including Foundation Year)
University of Chester
UCAS Code: W104 | Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Entry requirements
72 UCAS points from GCE A Levels and should include an Art or Media related subject.
Access Diploma - Pass overall
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
Including 4 in HL Art or Media-related subject
Leaving Certificate - Higher Level (Ireland) (first awarded in 2017)
Including H3 in Art or a Media-related subject
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
Scottish Higher
Including Art or Media-related subject
UCAS Tariff
For the Art & Design degrees with a Foundation Year, A Levels/BTEC should normally include an Art or Media related subject
About this course
Become an informed practitioner in charge of your artistic journey, research and thinking. Expand and develop your visual creativity within a contemporary practice-based context, underpinned by theoretical and contextual components.
This practice-based course allows you to explore and experience Fine Art within a contemporary context and includes possibilities in painting and drawing, sculpture, time-based and lens-based media, textiles, printmaking and interdisciplinary studio contexts.
You will gain practical, workshop and conceptual skills that are applied to studio projects in your first and second year, and develop an autonomous practice in your final year. Approximately 75% of your time in Year 3 will be occupied with studio modules, alongside a choice of theory modules to suit all learning styles.
Workshops are well-resourced and include: specialist foundry, fabrication and construction workshops, printmaking studio, textiles studio, drawing and painting studios as well as facilities for video, photographic and computer-based activity. Opportunities for placements and elements of professional practice provide the course with a ‘reallife’ edge, affording you to consider the nature of the Fine Artist you could become. Recent field trips have included New York, London, Berlin, Florence and Paris.
Foundation Year courses have been designed for students who do not have the necessary academic qualifications needed to enter directly into the first year of a degree but who have the ability and commitment to do so. Once the Foundation Year has been completed successfully, you can then go on to complete your degree.
Modules
For the latest example of curriculum availability on this degree programme please refer to the University of Chester's Website.
Assessment methods
Formative and summative assessment of coursework is applied to studio work, supporting work, sketchbooks, reflective journals, and visual and material experiments. Theory is assessed through written essays, a dissertation and assessment of oral presentations.
Tuition fees
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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.
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
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
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.
Top job areas of graduates
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.
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.
£16k
£19k
£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.
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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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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?
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