DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
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BA in English Literature and Community Engagement
The information on this page is for prospective students. If you are a current student on the course, you may wish to visit our page for current students.
New! UALL Awards Scheme
We are delighted to announce that the BA English Literature and Community Engagement has been shortlisted for the Universities Association for Lifelong Learning (UALL) annual awards scheme for 2013. The UALL Awards Scheme 'recognises and celebrates projects, programmes and practices that promote lifelong learning in the university sector'. The Scheme runs annually and entries are assessed on the criteria of 'creativity, innovation, sustainability, impact and transferability'.
A unique degree
The part-time BA English Literature and Community Engagement is unique. It offers you a chance to gain an undergraduate degree from the University of Bristol, while attending one night per week, and to share what you are learning in the wider community. The course has been running since 2008 and the first group of students will graduate in 2014.
How to apply
We are now accepting applications from those wishing to start this programme in October 2013. You can download an information pack (PDF 1.5MB) and application form (66.5kB, Word document).
This year there will be two deadlines for applications.The initial deadline was on Monday 26 November 2012. The second deadline for applications is Monday 1 July 2013, with interviews to be held later that month.
These dates are designed to acknowledge that some applicants are also pursuing other options for further study, and may need to make decisions early in the academic cycle, while other mature students may prefer to complete a prior course of study in 2012/13, such as our Reading English Literature course, before applying to the degree.
Find out more
You can watch a short film about the course, made by the University, which features a tutor, student and one of our community partners, the IDEAL Project.
Are you unsure whether you can afford to study for a degree? Or worried that you don't have the right qualifications? Do you want to know more about what the 'community engagement' bit of the degree entails? Find answers to these, and other frequently asked questions.
For further information about the course, or for an informal discussion about it, e-mail Gareth Griffith on gareth.griffith@bristol.ac.uk
Fees and funding for students starting the course in 2013/14
Please note that the information here may be subject to change for students commencing the course in 2013/14.
In 2013/14, loans for tuition will be available to eligible part-time degree students, except those who already hold an equivalent qualification. Eligible students will not have to pay up front for their tuition. The cost of tuition will be paid by a loan which students will only start to repay from four years after they commence the programme and only if they are earning over £21,000. If/while you are earning less than this amount, you will not have to pay back anything.
What will the tuition fee be in 2013/14?
We expect the fee for students starting the course in 2013/14 to be comparable to that for students who commenced the course in 2012/13. The tuition fee for this programme for students starting in 2012/13 is £2,550 per year of the course (increasing annually in line with inflation in each year from 2013/14), or approximately £15,300 for the six-year programme as a whole (allowing for inflationary increases). This is the equivalent of £5,100 per full-time year.
How does this compare to the fee for full-time programmes?
With effect from 2012/13 the University of Bristol is charging an annual tuition fee of £9,000 per full-time year (increasing annually in line with inflation) for all UK and EU students on full-time undergraduate programmes, or approximately £27,000 for a three-year programme as a whole (allowing for inflationary increases).
Is the University of Bristol offering any tuition fee waivers?
Yes. Further information on fee waivers is available in the application pack, which can be downloaded above.
Preparing for degree-level study
If you are considering applying to the course in future you may be interested in our short preparatory course, Reading English Literature: A Pathway to Further Study, or in our other short courses.
About our students
Three of our students featured on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour on Monday 18 October 2010. You can listen to the programme here.
One of the aims of the mode and content of this course is to broaden the range of students who are able to study for a degree in the English Department. We are proud of, and celebrate, the diverse range of students currently enrolled on the degree. Our students range in age from early 20s to early 70s, with a wide range of ages in between represented. Statistical and anecdotal evidence gathered at admission shows that the course recruits students from an exceptionally wide range of social, educational and ethnic backgrounds. Most of our students work, full- or part-time; a few are retired; many have family or other commitments. Some students started the course soon after completing an A-Level or Access course, while others had been out of education for up to 40 years. This diversity is an important part of what makes any discussion on the course wide-ranging and widely informed – and we believe that it also helps make the course a shared adventure.You can read about some of our students in the stories in the application pack (available to download above).
Why community engagement?
‘Reading has assumed many different forms among different social groups in different eras. Men and women have read in order to save their souls, to improve their manners, to repair their machinery, to seduce their sweethearts, to learn about current events, and simply to have fun.’ – Robert Darnton, book historian
Our community projects are designed to celebrate the diverse uses of reading in our lives and students set up projects in a wide range of venues, currently including libraries, pubs, community centres, a drug rehabilitation centre and a prison.
This course is founded on a belief that education has value not only to the individual, but also to society and to the wider community. Students reflect on what they are learning and utilize it in some form in a community setting, from the second to fourth year of the course.
Some students feel nervous to begin with about this aspect of the course. Each student has an opportunity to develop a project that fits with their other commitments and which is in a setting in which they feel comfortable. Often the project is in the form of a reading group, but students can do this work in other ways, if they don’t wish to run a group or if it evolves in a new form out of their interaction with the community. The groups may read literary works that are also studied on the degree or popular fiction, non-fiction, short stories or extracts that are read aloud.
We ensure that all students have appropriate levels of preparation and support in undertaking any project. Students are not expected to take on a wider role in the setting, such as a therapeutic or social care role, even where this is the focus of the work undertaken by the community partner. The focus is on the uses of reading in a wide variety of places.
The range and diversity of projects our students undertake is something we celebrate and each project is also shaped by the needs, interests and participation of the community with whom the student engages.