Program Overview

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Liberal Arts BA (Hons)

Overview

Studying a Liberal Arts degree will help you develop essential transferrable skills, such as critical thinking, teamwork, and creative problem-solving.

Defy traditional subject boundaries with our vibrant Liberal Arts degree

Explore countless connections across the humanities with our hands-on Liberal Arts degree. You will inspect various disciplinary approaches while covering topics like:

• revolutions and rebellions
• world religions
• digital production
• creative writing
• journalism and the media
• political communication.

Our BA Liberal Arts degree gives you a broad, interdisciplinary foundation while allowing you to specialise in the areas that excite you most. Major pathways on our BA Liberal Arts degree include:

• creative writing
• English
• film and screen media
• history
• theology.

Our liberal arts programme is also available as an accelerated two-year degree.

Why St Mary's?

Real-world experience

During your Liberal Arts degree, you can engage in real-world public presentations and creative projects through mediums like:

• film and tv
• magazines
• podcasts.

Learn in the capital

Our campus is located in the green and picturesque London borough of Richmond-upon-Thames, so as a BA Liberal Arts student, you’ll have access to the capital's diverse creative, cultural, historical, and political scenes. You could explore places like:

• The British Library
• Shakespeare’s Globe
• The Tate Modern
• Houses of Parliament.

We’ll also take you on exciting field trips to several cultural institutions as part of your degree, including:

• National Theatre
• Museum of London
• the Imperial War Museum.

A campus with a unique creative history

Our campus is attached to Strawberry Hill House. Here, renowned gothic writer, Horace Walpole, designed and lived to inspire his work. As a result, your degree will be a fully immersive and geographically distinct learning experience.

Expert teaching and support

You will learn from experts here to support your personal and professional growth.

Our student, Shekinah, explains that conversations with our academics help her feel "at home". Another student, Davin, says our lecturers are “very helpful and are always available to provide useful feedback”.

We’re rated:

• 1st in London for ‘Academic Support’ (National Student Survey (NSS), 2023).
• 2nd in London for ‘Teaching on My Course’ (NSS, 2023).

Paid work placements

You can complete a paid work placement to build your skills and network. You can work in:

• theatres
• concert halls
• museums
• heritage sites
• publishing houses
• charities.

Course Content

Modules

In the first year of your BA Liberal Arts degree, you will study two core modules and four modules of your own choosing from across a minimum of two subject study areas.

You will study two core Liberal Arts modules in the second year and select four optional modules. If you wish to follow a major pathway you will need to choose a minimum of three modules from that subject study area.

There is one Liberal Arts core module in the third year, the Independent Study, and you will need to select an additional four optional modules. If you wish to follow a major pathway you will need to choose a minimum of three modules from that subject study area.

Indicative modules might be as follows:

• Rethinking Modernity
• The Public Role of the Arts and Humanities
• Current Writers and Writing
• Introduction to narrative
• London Theatre
• Critical Theory and Literature
• Film, Style and Form
• Digital Production
• Doing History
• Revolutions and Rebellions
• Comparative Politics
• World History Since 1945
• Foundations in Biblical Interpretation
• Key Concepts in World Religions
• Fundamentals of Systematic Theology
• The Nature of Religion
• Introduction to Ethics
• Working with the Liberal Arts
• Researching the Liberal Arts
• Writing Lyrics and Poetry
• Writing Genre Fiction
• Journalism 1: News Writing
• The Publishing Industry
• Curating London
• Gothic Cultures
• Romanticism: English Literature and its Background
• Writing Gender and Identity in the Nineteenth-Century Novel
• North American Cinema
• Screen Theory and Criticism
• Documentary and World Cinema
• Multimedia Production
• Screenwriting 1
• Political Ideologies
• The Politics of Memory
• Liberty or Death: The French Revolution
• Great Southern Land: A History of Australia
• Popular Culture, Politics and History
• Public Histories
• Theory, Practice and History of Diplomacy
• Modernity and Global Societies
• Political Economy of Global Development
• Research Methods in Social Sciences
• God in Christ
• Religion and Reason
• Ecclesiology
• Medieval Islamic Thought
• Religion in Contemporary Society
• Bioethics
• Theological Anthropology
• The Aspiring Entrepreneur
• Responsible Leadership in the 21st Century
• An Interdisciplinary Encounter With the Sacred
• Dissertation/Independent Project
• Creative Non-Fiction
• Writing Adaptations
• Writing Children’s Fiction
• Modernisms in English Literature
• Literature and the Unconscious
• New Voices: Twentieth-Century Literature
• The Paradox of Horror
• Screenwriting 2
• Disney and Animation
• The Beatles and the Counterculture
• Human Rights: Historical and Global Perspectives
• Renaissance Kingship
• Liberating Histories
• Nations and Nationalisms
• Political Communication
• International Organisations
• Global Media
• Hindu Texts
• Metaethics
• Theology and Culture
• Religion and Politics
• Christian Ethics
• Christian Spirituality
• Ecclesiology and Mariology
• Sacramental Theology
• Gospel of John
• Ecumenism and Interfaith

How the Degree is Taught

Contact Time

• 60% contact time
• 40% independent study

Teaching Methods

You'll be taught on our beautiful and historic campus located in Twickenham, London.

Most modules will involve three hours of seminar study. All of our modules are taught in seminar groups, giving you a much better chance to discuss ideas and material with tutors and other students than in a large lecture format.

The applied nature of the BA Liberal Arts degree means that you will also have the chance to interact with, and learn from, figures active in relevant fields, such as Cultural Heritage, Government and Politics, and Journalism.

The independent project gives you a chance to shape your own programme of work. You can produce a traditional dissertation or create a website podcast series, short film, or piece of creative fiction. You can choose the media most appropriate to showcase your ideas.

Students on the BA Liberal Arts degree will be allocated a personal tutor, but in line with the focus on collective problem solving embedded through the course content each cohort will also meet as a group on a weekly basis.

Assessment Methods

There are a large range of assessment strategies available to students on the BA Liberal Arts degree. You will develop skills as an academic writer through formal essays, as well as becoming a charismatic communicator through public presentations. The Liberal Arts degree fosters group problem solvers through project work and creative artists through media outputs, film, podcast and/or performance.

All forms of assessment will be designed to enable lecturers to meet the three-week turnaround requirement.

Feedback

We adhere to the university’s policy of providing feedback on assessments within 15 working days.

Who Teaches This Course?

Prof Glenn Richardson

Entry Requirements

2025 and 2026 Entries

• Start date: September 2026
• Standard offer: 112 UCAS points
• Contextual offer: 96 UCAS points

International Requirements

International students should check our country-specific pages for equivalents. If English is not your first language you will need to achieve an IELTS score of 6.0 overall with no less than 5.5 in any section (or equivalent).

UCAS Personal Statement Support

Create your UCAS personal statement through our online builder and we'll email you a copy of your completed version at the end.

Further Information

For more information about entry requirements please get in touch.

Fees & Funding

Tuition Fees

• Home: £9,535
• International: £17,100

Additional Costs

Your tuition fees will cover the cost of all mandatory elements of your programme.

Additional costs could be incurred depending on optional modules chosen and other projects undertaken.

Scholarships

Find out more about our range of scholarships and bursaries available to undergraduate students.

Living Costs

A guide to your living costs has been created by our Student Funding Team.

Accommodation costs vary depending on whether you opt for an en suite room and on-site catering. Take a look at our accommodation options and the prices you can expect to pay.

Career Opportunities

Studying a Liberal Arts degree will help you develop essential transferrable skills, such as critical thinking, teamwork, and creative problem-solving.

Our Liberal Arts students have worked in a variety of fields, including politics and government, education, and marketing and communications.

Some examples of job roles and areas of work for graduates of Liberal Arts BA (Hons) include:

• curation
• government
• event management
• the film industry
• research
• creative writing
• journalism
• 80% say staff value students views and opinions about the course
• 90% of students say teaching staff have supported their learning well.

For more official course information visit Discover Uni.