The study of art, its theories and its contexts, reveals the workings of societies, nations, civilisations and the human mind throughout history. In this way, Art History can help us to understand and deal with the world we live in today. Some students use their studies in Art History to help them embark on careers in the visual arts, for instance in art galleries or museums, auction houses, picture research, publishing or television. However, many students go on to quite different careers, as the skills they have developed in written and spoken communication, visual recognition and analysis, and understanding human culture and behaviour, make them attractive to a very wide range of potential employers.

Art History degrees vary greatly, so will you need to research the various University and Art College courses carefully. The outline given below is taken from the University of Manchester and is one of the more comprehensive courses:

The research and teaching in Art History and Visual Studies covers a diverse range of topics, including art technologies (from the archaeological to new media); urbanism and garden design; links between visual and literary cultures; material culture and the decorative arts; museology, collecting and display; modern and contemporary practices from performance and installation art to film, video, and Internet practices; and critical theory from the earliest writings relevant to the arts down to those of recent times.

In your first year you will follow two main course units. "Frameworks for Art History" is designed to familiarise you with a range of materials from the ancient world to the present and also introduces you to key issues in the discipline of Art History. "Cities" is a lecture and fieldwork course leading up to a week of intensive study in a European city. Lectures are supported by weekly "Works in Focus" seminars. Finally, you must take one outside course unit from a wide-ranging selection of courses in other disciplines.

In your second year you can choose courses which cover a very broad range of subject matter from a wide range of historical periods. You also take the compulsory year-long "Perspectives in the History of Art" which allows you to examine key thinkers and debates which shape the Art History and Visual Studies as a discipline.

In the third year you take two optional course units each semester which allow you in-depth contact with a wide range of subjects (many of which are the specialist areas of the members of teaching staff). Optional course units are focused on an area of study defined by genre, artistic identity, medium or approach. They are taught in small groups and encourage participation and active learning.

Finally you will also write a dissertation of 10,000-12,000 words on a topic of your own choosing. The dissertation, supervised by a member of staff, gives you the chance to research a subject in depth and helps you to refine your research and study skills. It also gives you the skills necessary to organise a coherent argument over a long piece of writing.

The course outlined below is taken from the Royal Holloway College, which is part of the University of London. Royal Holloway is currently rated as the best Drama and Theatre Studies course in the country and the course outlined has more optional courses than would normally be the case in other universities.

All students entering the Department take the foundation course which lasts for their first year. This introduces you to appropriate methods of study and ensures that students who have not taken Theatre Studies A-level are fully integrated. Contemporary Theatremaking, invites you to engage with a company that devises its own performances - because theatre is something that you will constantly be making in the course of your degree. In Critical Theories, you look at landmark movements in modern thought, such as Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism(s), and deconstruction; no serious analysis of performance can take place until we are clear what questions we are asking of the material and why. The foundation course also develops ways of working with historical material and the complex relationship between texts and performance. You are introduced to basic principles of stage design and to workshop techniques that enable a group of actors to create a successful theatre performance.

In the second and third year, there is a single extensive list of options. All single honours students take part in a performance research project at the start of their second year, which gives them the experience of seeing a full production into being. In their final term, all single honours students engage in an independent group research project that culminates in a performance.

Courses are taught in the autumn and spring terms. In the summer you are encouraged to develop your own projects and to work with our postgraduates. Postgraduate playwrights, directors and movement specialists, often coming to us from unusual performance backgrounds, put on productions that offer valuable technical and performance experience to our undergraduates.

Graduates of Drama and Theatre Studies have made successful careers in a wide variety of occupations:

• Theatre, Film and Television - directing, producing, acting, writing, design, presenting, research and various areas of production
• Applied Theatre - theatre and education, theatre and development, theatre in prisons and probation
• Journalism and Publishing - print journalism, broadcast journalism and for newspapers and media-related publishing
• Teaching and Research - school, college and university (following postgraduate training or research degrees)
• Community Arts and Arts Administration - managing arts centres and theatres, museum design and exhibition administration
• Law and Business Management

The Department of Design and Technology at Loughborough is distinguished by the quality of its design teaching, the facilities it offers its students, its research output and by the students' record of award winning in prestigious competitions.

The University of Loughborough is currently the most popular destination for Langton students wishing to study Design and Technology courses.

The programmes provide a challenging education in industrial/product design and technology. They offer you the opportunity to develop a wide range of skills and knowledge that will enable you to be involved in the integrated design of products, making key decisions on functionality, appearance and manufacture. The programmes are not only suitable for those wishing to become industrial or product designers, they also provide a valuable education that can lead to a wide range of careers.

The Department offers two distinctive programmes: a BA in Industrial Design and Technology, and a BSc in Product Design and Technology. Both programmes develop capability in the design of innovative and desirable products, but the BA and BSc distinguish themselves through a bias towards either the user (BA) or underlying technology on which the product is based (BSc). The use of Computer Aided Design (CAD), computer visualisation, Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) and Rapid Prototyping (RP) is common to both programmes.

The BA in Industrial Design and Technology has been devised to meet the needs and ambitions of students who wish to focus on product appearance and user requirements whilst still taking responsibility for decisions on manufacturing and the application of some technology.

Whilst still engaging in the design of the total product, the BSc in Product Design and Technology provides an advanced understanding of mechanics, electronics and materials.

A distinctive feature of both the BA and BSc programmes is the requirement for students to produce fully working prototypes for their major project in the final year. This can include electronic/mechanical systems, innovative manufacturing techniques, or interface design. However, the outcome is always product-focused, being realised as a working prototype that demonstrates the underlying technology and functionality in addition to proposals for the product's appearance.

Both the BA and BSc programmes have the option for students to spend their third year on a placement in industry leading to the additional award of a Diploma in Professional Studies (DPS). The placement year increases the duration of study from three to four years and takes place on completion of the second year of study.

The Department is equipped with interconnecting workshops, studios, laboratories, display and communication areas, and computer facilities with access via the campus network to the Internet. There is a special CAD/CAM facility that also includes rapid prototyping and vacuum casting. Our programmes encourage students, working individually or in groups, to design and produce models and working prototypes using processes that can include the whole range of facilities.

A valuable aspect of all programmes is the final year client-based projects. These include the design of products for industry, hospitals or research departments. The Department's annual public exhibition of finalists' work (known as the Degree Show) is well known for the innovation, variety and the quality of the designs. It is held in early June and details are available on request or from the Departmental website. Work is also exhibited at the Design and Technology with ICT Exhibition at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC), Birmingham, in November, and at the New Designers Exhibition in London in July.

The Department particularly values its links with industry for providing 'real' design opportunities, placements and final year projects. Companies such as Boots, Dyson, Morphy Richards, Motorola, Nokia, PDD as well as many smaller companies have been involved.

All academic staff are required to be involved in research and this ensures you receive up to date teaching. The three research groups in the Department are Design Practice, Design Ergonomics and Design Education.

Degree courses in English vary a great deal, although most courses combine a survey of the subject, from the medieval period to the present day – Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton, Austen and the Brontes - with a range of innovatory approaches to specific topics.

Example of additional and mainly optional courses might include: women writers from the medieval period to the present day; Modernism; post-colonial writing; and literature in relation to visual art, to theatre, and to psychoanalysis.

Often the university courses include opportunities to study French, German, Hispanic and Scandinavian writing in translation.

By way of an example, the list of options below is currently offered at the University of Warwick:

Within the Department: Anglo-Irish Literature, Arthurian Literature and its Legacy, British and American Modernism, British Theatre since 1945, Chaucer, Composition and Creative Writing, Contemporary Fictions of History, Drama and Democracy, Early Modern Women's Writing 1590-1690, T. S. Eliot, The English Nineteenth century Novel, Feminist Approaches to Women's Writing, Fiction: Modern to Postmodern, German and English Romanticism, Gothic and Melodrama, Thomas Hardy, Issues in American Writing and Culture Before Reconstruction, Literary and Cultural Theory, Literature of World War II, New Literatures in English, Nineteenth Century North American Literature, North American Women Writers, Othello, The Practice of Biography, The Practice of Fiction, Restoration Drama, Romanticism to Fin de Siecle: French and English Comparative Literature, Text and Politics in Seventeenth Century England, Twentieth Century North American Literature, Violence and Death in Romantic Period Literature. Outside the Department: Options in Film, History, History of Art, Modern Languages, Classics, Theatre Studies

As with most Arts courses, in your final year you are likely to undertake more specialised work which emphasises independent project work and individually tailored dissertations.

In most universities you can also take courses in a number of other related disciplines, such as Film, Dramatic Literature, Creative Writing, a modern foreign language, Philosophy, and English or American History.

Studying English Literature will equip you with valuable skills relevant to a wide range of careers. There are many professions which require literary expertise, for example, publishing, journalism and other forms of writing, editorial work, teaching in Britain and abroad, librarianship, and of course further research into literary studies. More generally, graduates of English Literature are seen as literate and articulate; studying English fosters skills in analysis and communication, arguing effectively and using supporting evidence, thinking logically, strategically and critically, working both independently and as part of a team, meeting deadlines, and in using computers. Such skills make English graduates attractive to employers in the media, law, accountancy and finance, management, personnel, and administration.

The University of Loughborough has an outstanding reputation for all its design and technology courses and is currently the most popular destination for Langton students wishing to study Product Design. The Loughborough course is outlined below.

Industrial Design and Technology

This programme develops your ability in three dimensional designing and making, and includes the study of design-related academic subjects. Knowledge and skills are gained in materials and processes, the development and communication of ideas, ergonomics, design for all, the techniques of planning and costing, and the production of prototypes and finished artefacts. Year 1 aims to develop designing and making skills, modelling skills including 2-D sketching and drawing, 3-D physical modelling (eg in foam and resistant materials), computer modelling and electronics, mechanics and materials technologies. Year 2 encourages the learning of further skills in research, planning, modelling, building and evaluating. Design projects are undertaken alongside the lecture programme. Final year students undertake a client based project, a concept design project, a design week and a dissertation on an aspect of design. This involves researching appropriate literature, discussing the topic with people in the subject area and gaining first hand experience of the chosen topic. The design project may be linked to industry, hospitals, social needs or research. Recent projects have included links with manufacturers of domestic appliances (Morphy Richards, Bosch), communication products (Motorola, Nokia) and transport (Jaguar, Land Rover). Some projects have been developed from the students' own ideas including an innovative speaker taken to production by a student via venture capital funding (Ellula Sounds Ltd).

A distinctive feature of the BSc is that an Electronics/Mechanics module is studied through the three years of the course, with Materials in Years 1 and 2. Product outcomes for the Major Project in the final year reflect the nature of this programme in equipping students to get technology to work through the development of innovative mechanical and electronic solutions as part of the product design approach.

Modules Include:

Year 1

• Design Practice
• Design Contexts
• Technical Design Practice
• Electronics/Mechanics
• Ergonomics for Design
• Computing for Designers
• Prototyping for Design

Year 2

• Design Practice
• Design Communication
• Computing for Designers
• Electronics/Mechanics

Plus two options from:

• New Product Development
• Sustainable Design
• Teaching Design and Technology
• Design Ergonomics
• Computer Programming.

Year 3

• Major Design Project
• Electronics/Mechanics
• Dissertation

Plus two options from:

• Materials and Recycling
• Sustainable Design
• Internet and Interface for Designers
• Issues in Design Education
• Computer- Aided Modelling and Manufacture (CAMM)
• Universal Design
• Entrepreneurship
• Mechatronics

For those interested in becoming teachers of Design and Technology this programme may be followed by a one-year PGCE.

Professional Recognition

Our Product Design and Technology graduates may apply for Membership of the Chartered Society of Designers.

Industrial/Professional Training (DPS)

This programme also offers the opportunity to spend the third year in industry and gain the Diploma in Professional Studies (DPS) (see p36). Although the Department is able to offer guidance, it is your responsibility to find an industrial placement. These can be found in large industrial companies or small design consultancies. The Department encourages you to take short-term industrial placements during summer vacations.

Assessment

You will take part in a wide range of lectures and project work. Performance is assessed through coursework and examinations at the end of each semester. The coursework - practical design work, essays and laboratory reports - is evaluated throughout the year. The combined results of the written examinations and coursework assessments in Year 1 form the progress examination. In Years 2 and 3 the combined results of examination and coursework assessments form the final degree examination.

Careers and Further Study

Industry is keen to recruit people with capabilities in product design and development, who understand how products are made successfully at minimum cost. The skills developed through the Department's co-operation with commercial clients enhance our graduates' position in the job market. Possible careers include consumer product design, engineering product design, marketing, industrial design consultancy, production engineering, project planning, technical sales, furniture design, CAD/CAM, buying, interior/exhibition design, advertising and display design, with companies such as Boots, Dyson, Nokia and Rover. The broad base of our courses mean that some graduates obtain jobs where there is no direct relationship to design such as those in financial services.

If your interest is specifically in developing your expertise as an instrumentalist you should consider applying to a conservatoire. You do this through CUKAS – Conservatoires UK Admissions Service - (Rather than UCAS) and can access information about all courses through the UCAS website.

The Conservatoires in the UK are:

Birmingham Conservatoire
Leeds College of Music
Royal College of Music (London)
Royal Northern College of Music (Manchester)
Royal Scottish College of Music and Drama
Royal Welsh College of Music
Trinity College of Music (London)

Degree programmes aim to create professional musicians with high-level practical skills who are flexible, thoughtful and well-informed about music and the opportunities available within the profession. Your development as a performer or composer will lie at the heart of any programme.

Your application will be considered on the basis of your completed application form and audition.

Studying at a conservatoire will be an excellent foundation for a career as a professional musician or teacher.

MusB (Hons) in Music aims to provide you with a comprehensive and interesting musical training, to enhance your academic skills through a study of music in its historical and contemporary contexts, to develop your performing and compositional skills and to encourage critical awareness and creative imagination.

A popular choice for Langton students in recent years has been the University of Manchester. Its course is outlined below:

In the first year you will gain a broad foundation in the skills of writing, analysing, listening to, thinking about and playing challenging music. At the same time, your knowledge of history and repertoire is developed and the skills of gathering information, critical reading and essay writing are fostered.

During the second year, half of your time will be spent studying individually-chosen courses from a 'core curriculum' of history, analysis and aspects of technical training. The remainder of the second year content is extremely flexible - you can even take course units from another subject.

By the third year your achievements will be focused on one or two main projects chosen from recital, dissertation or a portfolio of compositions. Additional courses are available to support your main projects.

Careers

Many students proceed to postgraduate study at a college of music and become professional performers or continue at the University to become professional composers or musicologists; others go on to a Post-Graduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) with an aim to teach, or continue their studies towards further degrees in composition or musicology. Many go into music or arts management, or other high-level employment such as law, journalism, medicine, and civil and financial services.

The skills developed in a Music degree are valued by all kinds of employers. Above all, the ability to function well in a team and the understanding that precision and imagination must always work hand in hand are two qualities which serve our graduates well.

The University of Loughborough has an outstanding reputation for all its design and technology courses and is currently the most popular destination for Langton students wishing to study Product Design. The Loughborough course is outlined below.

Product Design and Technology

This programme develops your ability in three dimensional designing and making, and includes the study of design-related academic subjects. Knowledge and skills are gained in materials and processes, the development and communication of ideas, ergonomics, design for all, the techniques of planning and costing, and the production of prototypes and finished artefacts. Year 1 aims to develop designing and making skills, modelling skills including 2-D sketching and drawing, 3-D physical modelling (eg in foam and resistant materials), computer modelling and electronics, mechanics and materials technologies. Year 2 encourages the learning of further skills in research, planning, modelling, building and evaluating. Design projects are undertaken alongside the lecture programme. Final year students undertake a client based project, a concept design project, a design week and a dissertation on an aspect of design. This involves researching appropriate literature, discussing the topic with people in the subject area and gaining first hand experience of the chosen topic. The design project may be linked to industry, hospitals, social needs or research. Recent projects have included links with manufacturers of domestic appliances (Morphy Richards, Bosch), communication products (Motorola, Nokia) and transport (Jaguar, Land Rover). Some projects have been developed from the students' own ideas including an innovative speaker taken to production by a student via venture capital funding (Ellula Sounds Ltd).

A distinctive feature of the BSc is that an Electronics/Mechanics module is studied through the three years of the course, with Materials in Years 1 and 2. Product outcomes for the Major Project in the final year reflect the nature of this programme in equipping students to get technology to work through the development of innovative mechanical and electronic solutions as part of the product design approach.

Modules Include:

Year 1

• Design Practice
• Design Contexts
• Technical Design Practice
• Electronics/Mechanics
• Ergonomics for Design
• Computing for Designers
• Prototyping for Design

Year 2

• Design Practice
• Design Communication
• Computing for Designers
• Electronics/Mechanics

Plus two options from:

• New Product Development
• Sustainable Design
• Teaching Design and Technology
• Design Ergonomics
• Computer Programming.

Year 3

• Major Design Project
• Electronics/Mechanics
• Dissertation

Plus two options from:

• Materials and Recycling
• Sustainable Design
• Internet and Interface for Designers
• Issues in Design Education
• Computer- Aided Modelling and Manufacture (CAMM)
• Universal Design
• Entrepreneurship
• Mechatronics

For those interested in becoming teachers of Design and Technology this programme may be followed by a one-year PGCE.

Professional Recognition

Our Product Design and Technology graduates may apply for Membership of the Chartered Society of Designers.

Industrial/Professional Training (DPS)

This programme also offers the opportunity to spend the third year in industry and gain the Diploma in Professional Studies (DPS) (see p36). Although the Department is able to offer guidance, it is your responsibility to find an industrial placement. These can be found in large industrial companies or small design consultancies. The Department encourages you to take short-term industrial placements during summer vacations.

Assessment

You will take part in a wide range of lectures and project work. Performance is assessed through coursework and examinations at the end of each semester. The coursework - practical design work, essays and laboratory reports - is evaluated throughout the year. The combined results of the written examinations and coursework assessments in Year 1 form the progress examination. In Years 2 and 3 the combined results of examination and coursework assessments form the final degree examination.

Careers and Further Study

Industry is keen to recruit people with capabilities in product design and development, who understand how products are made successfully at minimum cost. The skills developed through the Department's co-operation with commercial clients enhance our graduates' position in the job market. Possible careers include consumer product design, engineering product design, marketing, industrial design consultancy, production engineering, project planning, technical sales, furniture design, CAD/CAM, buying, interior/exhibition design, advertising and display design, with companies such as Boots, Dyson, Nokia and Rover. The broad base of our courses mean that some graduates obtain jobs where there is no direct relationship to design such as those in financial services.