Liberal Arts with Distance Foundation Year (Full-time) (Foundation, BA Hons)
The Liberal Arts with Foundation Year degree at ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø is designed for students seeking a flexible degree that puts their own personal interests at the heart of their studies. This unique programme encourages you to explore and combine ideas across subjects, building a degree that’s as distinctive as you are. From day one, you’ll have guidance from a personal tutor who helps you choose the right modules to reflect your ambitions and curiosity.
The Distance Foundation Year equips students with essential skills and foundational knowledge for success in the Liberal Arts degree, all while offering the flexibility of remote study. Through modules focused on academic writing, language and culture, and key humanities concepts, students gain confidence in vital areas, ensuring a smooth transition into university life and a solid academic base for their degree.
Liberal Arts is based on interdisciplinary learning, which means you’re not limited to one field. You can select from a broad range of topics across Humanities, Arts and Humanities, and Social Sciences. This bespoke degree approach allows you to cross traditional subject boundaries, so whether you’re interested in history, literature, philosophy, or more, you can create a programme that fits your academic goals. By studying these diverse subjects, you’ll gain global perspectives and develop skills that will be valuable wherever your career takes you.
The degree focuses on building employability skills and real-world impact. Through coursework, projects, and assessments, you’ll strengthen your communication skills and critical thinking. The course encourages creative thinking, so you’re not only learning facts but are also learning how to see and solve complex issues from new angles. Employers in today’s world value graduates who can think across disciplines and bring fresh insights to their work.
At ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, every year of your degree can look different, with options to adapt your module choices as your interests evolve. With a curriculum that offers extensive choice across all humanities subjects, you’ll have the freedom to shape a degree that prepares you for a variety of paths, whether in further study, professional roles, or creative industries.
This programme is ideal if you want the freedom to explore a range of topics while developing the essential skills you’ll need for future success.
Course details
- Full-time
- Distance Learning
- English
Tuition Fees 24/25
Home (Full-time): £9,000 per year
Overseas (Full-time): £13,500 per year
Why choose this course?
What you will learn
The Distance Foundation Year offers a flexible learning structure across three semesters each year, allowing students to balance their studies with other commitments. This format covers crucial topics such as academic skills, language and culture, and the humanities, helping students develop critical competencies essential for success in their degree. The remote nature of the programme ensures that students can tailor their learning experience to fit their individual needs while still benefiting from a robust foundation for their future studies.
In the second and third year, you’ll engage in Basic Studies, an innovative model that introduces a wide range of subjects, helping you discover and refine your interests across interdisciplinary fields. You’ll make meaningful choices about your areas of focus, selecting modules from various schools within the faculty to build a degree that suits your personal and academic interests.
In the fourth year, you’ll choose two strands for in-depth study, diving into areas that align with your developing profile and career ambitions. This approach enables a bespoke degree that combines both breadth and depth, ensuring you gain relevant knowledge and practical skills for the real world.
Our teaching philosophy prioritises your autonomy, fostering critical and creative thinking while supporting you in forming connections across disciplines. Each choice you make throughout this degree shapes a personalised and relevant academic experience, equipping you for various paths post-graduation.
Prospective students should be aware of the following:
- Not all optional modules are offered every year
- Optional modules are delivered subject to sufficient student numbers
- Language modules are optional/compulsory/core according to linguistic ability
- There are many Level 5 and Level 6 versions of the same module. Students can only take this module once; this depends on which year the modules are offered in.
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Optional - Any 5 x 20 credit modules from across the offer
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Optional - Any 6 x 20 credit modules from across the offer
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Compulsory
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Optional - Any 4 x 20 credit modules from across the offer
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Course Disclaimer
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We listen to student feedback and insights from industry and from professionals to ensure that course content is high-quality and up-to-date, and that it offers the best possible preparation for your future career or study goals.
For this reason, there might be modifications to the content of your course over time, to keep up to date with changes in the subject area or in the sector. If a module is no longer running, we’ll make sure to keep you informed, and work with you to choose a different suitable module.
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Staff
Our People
You will be taught and supported by a wide range of professional staff and teams here to help you get the university experience you are looking for. Our teaching staff were ranked 2nd in Wales for Teaching, Assessment and Feedback and Academic Support (NSS 2024) meaning that the support and feedback you get will help you learn and develop strong academic skills. Our students have placed us 1st in Wales for Learning Opportunities and Student Voice (NSS 2024) meaning that there are a wide range of opportunities available to enhance your studies and that students play an active role in shaping their learning experiences. Our commitment to your learning has seen our students place us as 1st in Wales and joint 3rd in the UK for student satisfaction (Times Higher Education, 2024, ‘Overall Positivity’ measure). Find out more about our academic staff who teach across our courses.
Further information
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Grades are important; however, our offers are not solely based on academic results. We are interested in creative people that demonstrate a strong commitment to their chosen subject area and therefore we welcome applications from individuals from a wide range of backgrounds.
To assess student suitability for their chosen course we normally arrange interviews for all applicants at which your skills, achievements and life experience will be considered as well as your qualifications.
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The programme is assessed in a variety of ways and will include several of the following type of assessment: essays of 1,000 to 4,000 words in length, document analysis, book/ journal reviews, short reports and reflective journals, time tests, seen and unseen exams, field journals, posters, group and individual presentations, dissertations of 10,000 words, wikis, commentaries and film evaluations.
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The Faculty has estimated on the assumption that students buy new copies of the books. Students may also choose to spend money on printing drafts of work.
Students may spend up to £300 per year on books and additional related materials.
Students are expected to submit two hard copies of their final project, the estimated cost for binding these is £20.
Optional Field trip:
The faculty works to ensure that there are a range of fieldwork and field trip options available both locally and internationally. Thus students can opt to take either more expensive or less expensive placements. The Faculty subsidises these but the cost each year is dependent on airfare, location, and currency exchange rates. Below are the upper end of expected costs based on where students have currently done placements.
Fieldwork (depending on where a student decides to do fieldwork): c. £500 - £1,500
Individual trips: c. £5 - £50
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You may be eligible for funding to help support your study. To find out about scholarships, bursaries and other funding opportunities that are available, please visit our Bursaries and Scholarships section.
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Graduates go on to careers in a variety of fields including:
- Communication, business
- Cultural and social advocacy
- Film and media
- Fundraising, management consultancy, research
- Health, food and lifestyle
- Human, animal and land rights
- International development, aid and charity organisations
- Museums, heritage, tourism
- Publishing
- Race relations, community, social work, caring professions
- Teaching