BA (Hons) English Literature and Creative Writing

"Due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, examinations may be replaced by an alternative form of assessment during the academic year 2021/2022. Please refer to the Programme Specification on these pages for further details."

Why choose this course?

We give you:

• An exciting and creative environment where you are taught by published writers
• The opportunity to hone your craft through supportive feedback from tutors and peers
• Modules that enhance your critical insight and enable you to put principle into practice
• A platform for publishing your work and a springboard for your future life as a published author
• An inspiring programme of visiting writers, workshops, readings, and masterclasses

What's the course about?

Do you have a story to tell, or have you always wanted to be a writer? Perhaps you want to learn how to be a critical reader or gain a greater understanding of the craft of writing.

Studying English Literature and Creative Writing with us will help you find your voice, whether as a poet, playwright, novelist, or scholar of literature.

This joint course combines the study of literature with the practice of creative writing. Studying literature will give you a greater understanding of how literary texts work, while this improved critical insight will help you put principles into practice in your own creative writing.

We offer a stimulating and supportive place in which to explore your ideas, hone your craft and understand literary texts. Our creative writing modules are taught by lecturers who are themselves award-winning practitioners and who bridge the gap between creative and academic approaches to literature. They include our poetry lecturer Wayne Holloway-Smith, winner of the Poetry Society’s Geoffrey Dearmer Prize and Seamus Heaney Prize nominee.

Over the three years, you can choose specialist creative writing modules in poetry, creative non-fiction, drama, short story writing, and prose fiction. Those specialisms are reflected in our English Literature modules, which range from children’s and young adult literature to film adaptations and work written in English from all over the world.

By the time you graduate, you will have a polished piece of work that has the potential for publication. Recent successes for our students include short stories published in Bandit and AnotherLenz magazines and poetry published in Rising and the international magazine Poetry London.

In your first year, an underpinning core module, Becoming a Writer, will introduce you to genres and forms and examine the universalities of dialogue, plot, and language. A second core module, Identity and Contemporary Writing, introduces you to some of the most exciting new writing as a model for your own work, while an optional module enables you to specialise in writing for the screen.

Work placement/study abroad option : Between your second and final year, you’ll have the option to study abroad or do a work placement for up to a year. Not only will this give you an amazing experience to talk about but will also give your CV a boost. If you’d rather go straight to your final year, that’s absolutely fine too.

The practicalities of getting published or working in literary publishing are explored in a creative writing module in your second year taught by a former editor of Granta, the renowned magazine of new writing. For your final year, your particular creative interest can be channeled into a long piece of writing, which can be poetry, prose, or drama.

Your main campus is de Havilland

You’ll share this campus with students from business, law, sport, education, and humanities subjects. The student housing is close to our Sports Village which includes a gym, swimming pool, and climbing wall. You can get breakfast, lunch, or dinner in our on-campus restaurant or bar (in the newly built Enterprise Hub) on days you don’t feel like cooking. You can also use the common room to play pool, video games or just to hang out with friends. Our Learning Resources Centres are open 24/7, which means you can study whenever suits you best. Want to pop over to the other campus? You can take the free shuttle bus or walk there in just 15 minutes.

This course includes the options of:

• Work placement
• Study abroad

At the University of Hertfordshire, we see your potential, we hear your ambitions and we support your futures. From the moment we meet, we will set you on a path to achieving your goals. We will drive you forward, we will actively guide you every step of the way. You may not be confident or you may have questions – but we believe in you and we will help you find the answers. You may have a goal that you want to achieve – we can help focus you. You may want an experience – we can get you some. Here at Herts, there are many pathways to success, so let us empower your future, and take you all the way. This is your platform, your opportunity to succeed – so what are you waiting for?

Prepare to succeed

Show employers what you’re made of. We’re big on placements – and for good reason. Research tells us that over 70% of employers prefer students with work experience. That’s because placements aren’t just an excellent way to put what you’ve learnt into practice, they also show employers what you’re like as a person – with all those attributes like ambition, teamwork and a can-do attitude. To make sure our students get that work experience advantage, we’ve developed strong links with businesses and organisations here and internationally. These have allowed us to build valuable placement opportunities, from short-term experience to full-year paid placements, into many of our courses. What’s more, you won’t have to pay fees during the year you’re on placement.

Passport to success

Many students at Hertfordshire have the chance to study or work overseas – for a semester, a summer or even a whole year. Studying or working abroad is a great way to immerse yourself in a new culture, broaden your horizons and create many unforgettable memories. We have partnerships with many universities across the world, including in the USA, Canada, Latin America, Africa, China, Korea, Japan, Australia, and across Europe. The cost of living in many countries is lower than in the UK and you’ll still be eligible for any grants or loans you’d get if you were studying here. Most students also pay no tuition fees during the year away and may be eligible for one of our scholarships to help with living and travelling costs.

Learn from the best

We like to think our teaching is a little different. Not only are our academics experts in their respective fields, but everything they teach is shaped by businesses and industry, giving you the subject-specific and transferable skills for an exciting career. Alongside your core subject, you’ll also be able to pick up other qualifications to help you stand out to employers. From mentoring to Microsoft qualifications, City & Guilds awards to getting your pilot’s licence, there’s a tonne of ways to build an impressive CV.

Key Facts

• TEF Gold : Our teaching is among the best in the UK.
• 170 : Study abroad at one of over 170 universities in 40 countries around the world.
• National Rankings : 4th Economics 7th Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management 10th Engineering: Electronic and Electrical.
• Number 1 for Games : TIGA Games Industry Award 2019.
• 96.5% of students in employment or further study within 6 months.
• Award-winning : Employment mock assessment centre simulation (Institute of Student Employers).
• Career enhancing experience : Our students have undertaken placements at companies including KPMG, Tesla Motors (UK), Microsoft and GSK.

Learning and teaching

Whatever your background, wherever you are from, we believe that higher education can be a transformational experience.

We develop graduates who are capable, creative and enterprising. Through engaging with employers and professional bodies who contribute to the development of our curriculum and our status as one of only 20 University Enterprise Zones, we transform the lives of our students.

We offer the flexibility, opportunity and community students need to succeed. We achieve this by:

combining traditional teaching methods with digital resources including our online student network, StudyNet teaching courses that are designed with the input of business and professional bodies giving students the chance to learn about employability through listening to the experience of our alumni organising networking events where staff, students and graduates can meet offering a vibrant multicultural campus by increasing the proportion of international students on campus giving students the option of studying at one of our partner universities overseas supporting students in their learning and living offering students valuable work experience in research, business or industry before their final academic year.

Vision

Our vision is to transform lives. This means whatever your background, wherever you are from, we will drive your potential, powering you to succeed.

We are committed to having a positive transformational impact on every member of our university community, and to share our successes with the community around us.

Our strategy

We support a diverse range of students, staff, businesses, researchers and members of the community. What they all share is the desire to make the most of the opportunities in front of them. Our strategy will enable us to power their potential and achieve their goals.

Students, businesses and the local community are all motivated by the same thing. Finding ways to make the most of the opportunities in front of them, by tapping into their individual or collective potential. Powering Potential is embedded in our philosophy. This means – to transform lives, we not only find potential, but we also harness it and drive it.

Key strategic themes

Students, businesses and the local community are all motivated by the same thing. Finding ways to make the most of the opportunities in front of them, by tapping into their individual or collective potential. Powering Potential is embedded in our philosophy. This means – to transform lives, we not only find potential, but we also harness it and drive it.

Offering opportunity

We offer every student the opportunity to succeed, with varied and well-signposted routes into university and clear pathways through study. We support students to achieve to the best of their ability and will support them in preparing for global opportunities after graduation. We will use our links in business, our research expertise, and our global outlook, to transform lives.

Building community

We are a diverse and welcoming community with a global reach and a common purpose, to transform lives, which we will work together to achieve. Through communities of learning, exploration and knowledge, we celebrate diversity and share our passions. We want all our students and staff to find their communities here. We are engaged as a Civic University in our region, supporting schools, colleges and students. We will share our knowledge, culture, research and resources with businesses, the professions and the wider community.

Embracing flexibility

We will respond flexibly to the challenges and opportunities ahead. Flexible modes of study will support our students to succeed and allow them to engage with a greater range of opportunities in education, extra-curricular activities and work experience. We want our students to follow their interests and passions to transform their lives and to be empowered by a choice of pathways that take them to the next stage and open doors to the future.

Our values

We provide opportunities to attract, retain and develop individuals. We are building a diverse and inclusive community and we respond with flexibility to the challenges of the changing world. Our values underpin everything we do. We are friendly, ambitious, collegiate, enterprising and student-focussed.