A degree that grows with you
Many students begin university with a clear career goal in mind, while others simply know what interests and inspires them. Along the way, they often discover new opportunities, passions and careers they hadn't previously considered. The Bachelor of Creative Arts allows you to respond to those discoveries, explore new interests and create a skill set unique to you.
Rather than fitting your ambitions into a predefined structure, you can build a degree that reflects who you are and where you want to go.
Here's how the building blocks of your degree work together.
TL;DR
There isn't just one way to build your degree. Depending on your interests and goals, you can combine majors, minors and electives in several ways to tailor a degree unique to you:
- Major + Second Major
- Major + 2 Minors
- Major + 1 Minor + Electives
- Major + Electives
How is the Bachelor of Creative Arts structured?
Your Bachelor of Creative Arts consists of 288 credit points, made up of:
- 96 credit points of core Creative Arts and QUT You units
- 96 credit points in your chosen major
- 96 credit points of complementary studies that you can tailor to your interests
Build your foundation through core units
As a Bachelor of Creative Arts student, you will complete a set of core units, spread over the course of the degree and designed to bring creative disciplines together. These units provide opportunities to collaborate with students from across the degree, explore contemporary creative practice and develop the interdisciplinary skills needed to succeed in today's creative sector. For example, later in your degree, you'll complete Situated Creative Practice (SCP) units that connect your learning with industry and community projects. These units provide opportunities to apply your creative skills in real-world contexts, collaborate across disciplines and build valuable professional experience.
You will also choose two QUT You units. These units are an innovative new university-wide curriculum designed to prepare you for a rapidly changing future.
Choose your major
Your degree begins with the creative discipline you want to develop. This is where you'll deepen your knowledge, practical skills and industry experience in your chosen area.
Your major gives you dedicated time to refine your creative practice while learning from industry-connected academics and professionals.
Choose from:
Personalise your degree with complementary studies
The remainder of your degree is entirely flexible and designed to combine several interests spanning not only creative arts, but other areas of the university. This allows you to graduate with a broad mix of creative, technical and professional skills that can be applied across a wide range of industries and career pathways.
There are several ways to explore complementary studies to make up the remaining 96 credit points.
Add a second major
Want to pursue more than one passion? A second major allows you to study another discipline in depth and create a degree that's uniquely yours.
By combining two majors, you can build expertise across complementary areas, develop transferable skills and explore new ways of creating, collaborating and thinking. A second major can strengthen your career opportunities while helping you stand out with a distinctive combination of creative disciplines.
You can choose a second major from the list of Creative Arts majors above* or explore a university wide second major to broaden your studies even further.
*The Acting major cannot be added as a second major.
You might combine a Music major with a Creative Writing second major to develop your creative practice across performance, storytelling and written expression. Or pair a Visual Arts major with Animation to explore how traditional and digital mediums can work together. Studying two disciplines in depth allows you to build a broad and interdisciplinary creative skill set.
Add minors
This is where your degree really starts to take shape. You can choose from a range of available Creative Arts minors to complement your major and explore additional creative disciplines. Alternatively, you can broaden your studies through a university wide minor and develop capabilities in areas beyond the creative arts.
You might pair a Film and Screen major with a Production Design minor and a Creative Writing minor to explore storytelling from concept development through to visual realisation on screen. Or you could combine a Drama major with a Dance minor to explore storytelling through both movement and theatre. The result is a degree that's uniquely yours.
Add electives
While minors allow you to explore an area in depth, electives are individual 12-credit-point units that give you the flexibility to personalise your studies and explore topics that align with your interests, ambitions and goals.
You can use electives to:
- try something new
- broaden your perspective
- deepen an existing interest
- test a potential career direction
- complement their major or minor
Since electives are individual 12-credit-point units, they can be combined in different ways throughout your degree. You might pair one 48-credit-point minor with four electives or use all 96 credit points available for complementary studies to complete eight electives. This gives you the freedom to create a study experience tailored to your interests.
Because creative careers continue to evolve, elective study can help you build a skillset that responds to changing industry needs.
Consider a double degree
If your interests span creative and non-creative disciplines, a double degree provides an opportunity to build expertise across two fields of study. By combining creative arts with another qualification, you can develop a unique mix of creative, critical and professional capabilities that reflect your career ambitions.
Combine the Bachelor of Creative Arts with:
- Business - combine advanced technical and creative skills with highly developed business knowledge to run you own business or work in the corporate industry
- Education - combine your interests in the creative arts and education to prepare you to teach in secondary schools and other education environments. Additional entry requirements apply to the Bachelor of Education.
- Law - gain knowledge of the law and key skills such as research, communication and dispute resolution.
- Psychology - combine your passion for creativity with psychology to broaden your career options in creative practice or psychology.
'I studied my education degree alongside drama, and I chose this combination because I wanted a practical subject in my teacher toolkit. Drama is a great subject with tools to adapt a regular classroom into a more engaging space that students enjoy. I'm passionate about nurturing the next generation, helping them find their rhythm in the classroom.'
Holly Pearce, creative arts and education double degree graduate
Think of your degree like a creative toolkit
Your major gives you depth in your chosen discipline, while complementary studies allow you to build additional capabilities around it. Whether you choose a second major, add minors, explore electives or combine study areas from across the university, every choice helps shape a degree that's uniquely yours.
Explore the Bachelor of Creative Arts
