Frequently asked questions
What will I get out of a creative writing course in Higher Education?
- With hard work, you will get the qualification on offer - degree, MA or PhD.
- You will also get a chance to develop your own writing style and voice within a critical but supportive environment.
- Your reading will be guided and extended.
- Your critical faculties will be developed.
- Your writing craft and technique will be honed.
- You will learn to think, to research, to discuss, to make presentations.
- You will make friends with like-minded people.
- In short, it will give you everything you could get from a 'traditional' Humanities course - and much more besides.
How should I go about choosing a course?
- Think about where you would like to be (or need to be) geographically.
- Make a list of the things your ideal course would include.
- Check the UCAS website and NAWE website for details of courses.
- Send for prospectuses of those which interest you the most.
- Visit the University's website - it has room for much more information than the prospectus.
- Go to Open Days.
- Talk to staff and students.
- Don't rely on league tables.
- Trust your instincts.
What questions should I ask?
- Who teaches on the course? If all the staff are practising writers, are they also experienced HE tutors? A good writer is not necessarily a good teacher.
- What extra-curricular writing activities (e.g. visiting speakers) are offered by the institution?
- What are the Unique Selling Points of the course?
- Does it have a theoretical or practice-based approach?
- How many students do they have and how large are classes?
- What have previous graduates gone on to do?
- How are classes taught - by lectures, seminars, group tutorials, workshops, individual tutorials, on-line?
- What form does assessment take?
What job can I get afterwards?
Forty percent of graduate jobs do not require any particular degree. Writing degree students go on to further degrees or to work in jobs right across the creative industries, in newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, book publishers, children's publishers, advertising, PR, literary agencies, press offices, theatre, art therapy, web writing, libraries, schools, and colleges. Oh yes, and many become published writers.