English BA

If you can get lost in a book for hours on end, and enjoy writing or even drama, English is a natural choice. Storytelling is part of every culture and reveals much about a person’s lived experience, values and aspirations within a given time.

Taking the English BA at Brunel is an opportunity to uncover the richness of English literature history – its periods, genres and diverse storytellers – through a set of underlying themes.

Your journey will commence with a module on ‘Reading Resilience’ to help equip you with the required skills and competencies relevant to literary studies, so you can approach any topic with confidence.

After a first year of modules that pass through modern literature and formative texts to help develop your critical reading, your exploration in English is very much down to your own interests and choices.

In years two and three a wealth of optional modules await you, covering every period and genre from Shakespeare to Jane Austen, postcolonial writing to the women’s movement, with plenty of choice in contemporary and genre fiction like comedy, science fiction and horror.

Throughout your literature degree you will be encouraged to express your own thoughts and creativity in your coursework and seminars, which will help you to grow as a critic and writer.

An English degree will equip you with personal skills that employers’ prize in graduates – not just exceptional written and verbal communication, but also the ability to communicate collaboratively in a team towards an agreed goal.

As part of your English BA you will learn to participate and present confidently in seminars, communicate your ideas effectively in writing, and to critically evaluate relevant themes within texts that frequently cross into other disciplines such as history and politics.

Opt for a placement year and you will gain hands-on work experience while you study which will further increase your attractiveness to employers when you graduate.

Outside your classroom, you can look forward to events and activities organised by the Brunel Centre for Contemporary Writing, including the annual Hillingdon Literary Festival: a free weekend of literary performances from internationally renowned authors, writing workshops and lively debates right here on campus.

The English BA at Brunel will give you deeper knowledge of English literature history, world literature and genre writing as you develop key investigative skills, with a wealth of optional modules to suit your interests and aspirations.

This course can be studied 3 years full-time, 4 years full-time with placement or 4.5-6 years part-time, starting in September.

On completion of the English BA, you will have a set of enviable skills which are vital for a variety of careers. Many Brunel English graduates go into teaching, media-related jobs like publishing, marketing and journalism, and others into the business world as account executives, campaign organisers and consultants.

Brunel graduates of this degree fit just as easily into other career environments, and the opportunity of doing a placement year to gain experience in a job role and industry sector will be a distinct advantage.

Above all, this English degree will be enormously beneficial to your own writing, critique and self-expression.

• GCE A-level BBC.
• BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma DMM.
• BTEC Level 3 Diploma DM in any subject, with an A-Level at grade C.
• BTEC Level 3 Subsidiary Diploma M in any subject, with A-Levels grades BB including English.
• International Baccalaureate Diploma 29 points.
• Obtain a minimum of 112 UCAS tariff points in the Access to HE Diploma with 45 credits at Level 3.

 A minimum of five GCSEs are required, including GCSE English Language grade C or grade 4. GCSE Mathematics grade C or grade 4 is also normally required.

Please check our Admissions pages for more information on other factors we use to assess applicants as well as our full GCSE requirements and accepted equivalencies in place of GCSEs.

• IELTS: 6.5 (min 5.5 in all areas)
• Pearson: 59 (59 in all subscores)
• BrunELT: 63% (min 55% in all areas)
• TOEFL: 90 (min R18, L17, S20, W17)  

Each module on the English BA has its own method of assessment which could include an essay, presentation, practical work, or a combination of these to allow you to build up marks in variety of different ways, and to discover your strengths.

In your final year, you will research and write a dissertation on a topic of English literature under the guidance of a dissertation supervisor. Many students value this unique experience and the opportunity to become authorities in an area of English literature research.