Fine Art with Foundation
University of Plymouth
UCAS Code: W105 | Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
University of Plymouth
UCAS Code: W105 | Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Entry requirements
32-48 points from a minimum of 2 A Levels
Access to HE Diploma
Pass a name Access to Higher Education Diploma (Preferably Art and Design).
Considered in combination
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
32-48 points from any subjects
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
From any subject
Considered in combination
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
From any subject
32-48 UCAS points from a minimum of 2 Advanced Highers
32-48 UCAS tariff points
T Level
Any subject considered
UCAS Tariff
From a minimum of 2 A Levels
Considered in combination
About this course
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.
The course is designed to encourage visual exploration and creative discovery within an engaging and vibrant studio setting. 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.
- **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, photography, audio, immersive and augmented technologies, and digital fabrication processes like 3D printing.
- **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. You will work in dedicated studio spaces and specialist workshops through a mix of practical exercises, one-to-one and group tutorials, critiques, seminars and interactive lectures, artist talks, fieldwork, and field trip opportunities.
- **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. You will be making and showing work in the studio and out in the city through relationships with Plymouth's exciting artist communities.
- **Interdisciplinary**. The University of Plymouth is a broad-based university, internationally recognised for its research into marine science, climate change, biomedical and health sciences and across the arts and humanities. Studio practice modules and the common challenges and dissertation modules offer you opportunities to work collaboratively with researchers and practitioners across the University and out into the city and region.
- **Collaboration**. You will collaborate with partners through placements in organisations like KARST, The Box, the Arts Institute, the Marine Institute and the Sustainable Earth Institute, and you will exhibit work both on- and off-site throughout your degree.
- **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
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 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
University of Plymouth
School of Art, Design and Architecture
What students say
We've crunched the numbers to see if the overall teaching satisfaction score 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)
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
£21k
£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.
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.
£16k
£21k
£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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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?
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