BA in Drama and English (MI010)
CAO Points 2024: 378
Duration: 4 years full-time
Places Offered: 15 approx.
Location: MIC Limerick
Lecture hours: 10 approx.
Tutorial Hours: 8 approx.
Assessment:
Mixed but may include presentations, live performances, exams, group-work, poster presentations, problem-based learning, short videos, blogs, and essays.
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Programme Overview
MIC's new BA in Drama and English offers a unique combination of Drama/Theatre practice and research with significant grounding in English Literature. By combining a focus on practical modules in acting and theatre production with academic research on great literature, we offer our students a unique and exciting degree that will develop critical thinking, problem-solving, and excellent writing and communication skills.
Why study on this programme?
This new and exciting programme aims to develop critically engaged and creative thinking graduates with a diverse, sophisticated, and vocational knowledge of Drama and Theatre practice and research, in tandem with English Literature from Shakespeare to the present. The first programme of its kind in Munster, students will engage with a wide variety of texts, including plays, fiction, graphic novels, film, and poetry. Students will learn how stories are brought from the page to the stage and screen, and will help create works for the stage themselves through their involvement in practical theatre-making modules related to acting, directing, playwriting, design, and stage technology/operation. At all times, students will ground their analysis in critical and cultural theory, including contemporary theories of performance.
Over the four years of this unique BA, students can:
- Design their own pathway through a variety of specialist electives on everything from practice-based, skill-development modules in theatre-making, writing, and research to the study of literary and dramatic texts across the ages
- Engage in both small and large group classes, with innovative and flexible assessments
- Gain creative thinking and real-world skills to equip them for a wide spectrum of industries
- Create texts, performances, and even marketing/social media content
- Choose Erasmus study abroad or work placement for their Year 3 off-campus programme
This new BA is an innovative programme, incorporating a range of teaching, learning, and assessment methods. Taught by leading academics across the Drama and English departments, this unique programme has been designed to allow students attain a broad skillset from practical theatre-making to in-depth literary analysis. This is an exciting new programme for students with a passion for the page and the stage!
What you will study?
Our innovative programme incorporates all the foundational skills necessary to support students on their journey. In Year 1 core modules, students will be provided with the transferable skills in Academic Writing, Research, and Information Technology in a discipline-specific manner. These two cutting edge modules embed the key skills required to write an academic argument, to collaborate, and to present ideas (or even dramatic scenes!) using a variety of “live” and digital formats. In Year 1, students will also gain insight into a broad range of literary genres and critical theories. You will be introduced to everything from Greek tragedy to contemporary stage and film adaptations, James Joyce to Felispeaks, and will examine the roles that literature and drama have played in social transformation (from the birth of democracy to #WakingTheFeminists and beyond!).
In Year 2, students will have the opportunity to enhance their study with a choice of electives, including Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL), Introduction to Devising Theatre, Critiquing Theatre, Cultural Policy and Administration, Musical Theatre in Performance, and Ensemble Performance. Alongside your core modules in English and Drama, your electives will allow you to specialise your pathway through the BA.
Career Opportunities
Graduates of the programme will be highly sought after in a range of fields, including:
- Working with theatre companies, arts venues, arts festivals, literary museums, publishing firms, or cultural organisations
- Freelance drama/theatre artistic practice
- Journalism
- Editing
- Publishing
- Advertising
- Marketing
- Social applications of theatre and drama such as freelance teaching, social work, community arts, and drama therapy
- Secondary School Teaching (with PME qualification)
- Further academic study in various fields (Drama/Theatre, English Language and Literature, Professional Masters of Education [PME])
- Further vocational training in a specific discipline of drama/theatre
Graduates will also use the presentation, critical thinking, interpersonal communication, group work, project management, leadership, and problem-solving skills they have gained on the programme to work in any number of fields outside of the cultural sector – including, for example, public relations and online content creation.
In Year 3, students have the opportunity to develop their skills further through practical work placements or study abroad options.
All the skills will be utilised over Year 4 while completing a final undergraduate project and a large, professional production mounted in a state-of-the-art venue (either the Lime Tree Theatre or the Belltable) and core modules in Literary history, from the Elizabethans to the Romantics to the Modernists.
The four-year programme is designed to provide you with an innovative structure that will facilitate:
- The personal development of the student: critically, intellectually, and artistically
- The acquisition of practical theatre-making skills, including: acting, playwriting, directing, lighting design and operation, set design and operation, stage management, producing
- Building an understanding of how theatrical production and literary endeavour can positively influence society
- Building a detailed and broad understanding of literary and theatrical history, across a range of eras and genres
- Developing independent and creative thinking skills, and enhancing communication capabilities
Off-Campus Programme
In Year 3, you will participate in an off-campus programme. This typically consists of a study abroad placement in Europe, North America, Argentina, Australia, China, or Japan and/or work placements in a wide variety of settings, in Ireland or abroad. International placements are highly valued and encouraged for the added cultural and linguistic benefits they offer. The off-campus programme provides students with a unique opportunity to discover the world and experience working environments which may also provide future employment for graduates. Typical work placement settings include educational, theatre, media, cultural, community, local government, and Gaeltacht organisations.
Undergraduate Entrance Scholarships
Each year, Mary Immaculate College awards up to 50 Undergraduate Entrance Scholarships across all undergraduate programmes valued at €2,000 each, on the basis of results obtained in the Irish Leaving Certificate Examination.
Further information about Undergraduate Entrance Scholarships available here.
- Programme Overview
- Programme Content
- Entry Requirements
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