About this course
How do you become a better writer? On this course, you'll develop your creative and critical writing and discover the links between literature and visual culture, science, and politics. Your final project lets you complete an extended piece of imaginative writing. You'll be guided by our award-winning novelists, journalists and playwrights.
The creative writing degree allows you to choose from Creative Writing and English options each year, building your knowledge of a range of genres and traditions. We'll encourage you to make connections between your critical and creative practice throughout the course.
We will also support your professional practice with:
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an arts ambassador scheme
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regular readings and writers' events
-
paid internships in arts organisations
You'll have the opportunity to study abroad, spending a semester, a summer or even a full year at one of our global partner universities.
As part of this course you can:
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join one of 40 student-led performing arts groups
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study film and visual culture
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take part in writing workshops at Nuffield Southampton Theatres
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use a unique collection of rare books at the Chawton House Library
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learn a modern language at any level
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join a student-run English society for social events
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explore experimental writing with our Entropics events
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get media experience with our student societies for film, TV and radio
Course location
This course is based at Avenue.
Awarding body
This qualification is awarded by the University of Southampton.
Download the programme specification
The programme specification sets out the learning outcomes of this course and details how the course is taught and assessed.
Entry requirements
For Academic year 202223
A-levels
AAB including English Literature or a related subject*
A-levels additional information
Offers typically exclude General Studies and Critical Thinking. *Related subject includes History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
A-levels with Extended Project Qualification
If you are taking an EPQ in addition to 3 A levels, you will receive the following offer in addition to the standard A level offer:
ABB including English Literature or a related subject* and grade A in the EPQ
A-levels contextual offer
We are committed to ensuring that all applicants with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise an applicant's potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience.
Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme, as follows:
ABB including English Literature or a related subject*
International Baccalaureate Diploma
Pass, with 34 points overall with 17 points at Higher Level, including 5 at Higher Level in English Literature or a related subject*
International Baccalaureate Diploma additional information
*Related subject includes History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
International Baccalaureate contextual offer
We are committed to ensuring that all learners with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise a learner’s potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme.
International Baccalaureate Career Programme (IBCP) statement
Offers will be made on the individual Diploma Course subject(s) and the career-related study qualification. The CP core will not form part of the offer. Where there is a subject pre-requisite(s), applicants will be required to study the subject(s) at Higher Level in the Diploma course subject and/or take a specified unit in the career-related study qualification. Applicants may also be asked to achieve a specific grade in those elements.
Please see the University of Southampton International Baccalaureate Career-Related Programme (IBCP) Statement for further information. Applicants are advised to contact their Faculty Admissions Office for more information.
BTEC
Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC Extended Diploma plus A in A level English Literature or a related subject*.
or
Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC Diploma plus A in A level English Literature or a related subject*
or
Distinction in the BTEC Subsidiary Diploma plus A in A level English Literature or a related subject* and A in one further A level
BTEC additional information
*Related subject includes History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
Access to HE Diploma
60 credits with a minimum of 45 credits at Level 3, of which 39 must be at Distinction and 6 credits at Merit, to include 6 Distinctions in English Literature or a related subject*
Access to HE additional information
*Related subject includes History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
Irish Leaving Certificate
Irish Leaving Certificate (first awarded 2017)
H1 H2 H2 H2 H2 H2 including English Literature or a related subject*
Irish Leaving Certificate (first awarded 2016)
A2 A2 A2 B1 B1 B1 including English or a related subject*
Irish certificate additional information
*Related subject includes History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
Scottish Qualification
Offers will be based on exams being taken at the end of S6. Subjects taken and qualifications achieved in S5 will be reviewed. Careful consideration will be given to an individual’s academic achievement, taking in to account the context and circumstances of their pre-university education.
Please see the University of Southampton’s Curriculum for Excellence Scotland Statement (PDF) for further information. Applicants are advised to contact their Faculty Admissions Office for more information.
Cambridge Pre-U
D3 D3 M2 in three principal subjects including English Literature or a related subject*
Cambridge Pre-U additional information
*Related subject includes History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
Welsh Baccalaureate
AAB from three A levels including English Literature or a related subject*
or
AA from two A levels including English Literature or a related subject* and B from the Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate Skills Challenge Certificate
Welsh Baccalaureate additional information
Offers typically exclude General Studies and Critical Thinking. *Related subject includes History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
Welsh Baccalaureate contextual offer
We are committed to ensuring that all learners with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise a learner’s potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme.
European Baccalaureate
80% overall including grade 8 in English Literature or a related subject*
Other requirements
GCSE requirements
Applicants must hold GCSE English language (or GCSE English) (minimum grade 4/C) and mathematics (minimum grade 4/C)
Find the equivalent international qualifications for our entry requirements.
English language requirements
If English isn't your first language, you'll need to complete an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) to demonstrate your competence in English. You'll need all of the following scores as a minimum:
IELTS score requirements
- overall score
- 6.5
- reading
- 6.0
- writing
- 6.0
- speaking
- 6.0
- listening
- 6.0
We accept other English language tests. Find out which English language tests we accept.
You might meet our criteria in other ways if you do not have the qualifications we need. Find out more about:
-
our Access to Southampton scheme for students living permanently in the UK (including residential summer school, application support and scholarship)
-
skills you might have gained through work or other life experiences (otherwise known as recognition of prior learning)
Find out more about our Admissions Policy.
For Academic year 202122
A-levels
AAB including English Literature or a related subject*
A-levels additional information
Offers typically exclude General Studies and Critical Thinking. *Related subject includes History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
A-levels with Extended Project Qualification
If you are taking an EPQ in addition to 3 A levels, you will receive the following offer in addition to the standard A level offer:
ABB including English Literature or a related subject* and grade A in the EPQ
A-levels contextual offer
We are committed to ensuring that all applicants with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise an applicant's potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience.
Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme, as follows:
ABB including English Literature or a related subject*
International Baccalaureate Diploma
Pass, with 34 points overall with 17 points at Higher Level, including 5 at Higher Level in English Literature or a related subject*
International Baccalaureate Diploma additional information
*Related subject includes History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
International Baccalaureate contextual offer
We are committed to ensuring that all learners with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise a learner’s potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme.
International Baccalaureate Career Programme (IBCP) statement
Offers will be made on the individual Diploma Course subject(s) and the career-related study qualification. The CP core will not form part of the offer. Where there is a subject pre-requisite(s), applicants will be required to study the subject(s) at Higher Level in the Diploma course subject and/or take a specified unit in the career-related study qualification. Applicants may also be asked to achieve a specific grade in those elements.
Please see the University of Southampton International Baccalaureate Career-Related Programme (IBCP) Statement for further information. Applicants are advised to contact their Faculty Admissions Office for more information.
BTEC
Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC Extended Diploma plus A in A level English Literature or a related subject*.
or
Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC Diploma plus A in A level English Literature or a related subject*
or
Distinction in the BTEC Subsidiary Diploma plus A in A level English Literature or a related subject* and A in one further A level
BTEC additional information
*Related subject includes History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
Access to HE Diploma
60 credits with a minimum of 45 credits at Level 3, of which 39 must be at Distinction and 6 credits at Merit, to include 6 Distinctions in English Literature or a related subject*
Access to HE additional information
*Related subject includes History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
Irish Leaving Certificate
Irish Leaving Certificate (first awarded 2017)
H1 H2 H2 H2 H2 H2 including English Literature or a related subject*
Irish Leaving Certificate (first awarded 2016)
A2 A2 A2 B1 B1 B1 including English or a related subject*
Irish certificate additional information
*Related subject includes History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
Scottish Qualification
Offers will be based on exams being taken at the end of S6. Subjects taken and qualifications achieved in S5 will be reviewed. Careful consideration will be given to an individual’s academic achievement, taking in to account the context and circumstances of their pre-university education.
Please see the University of Southampton’s Curriculum for Excellence Scotland Statement (PDF) for further information. Applicants are advised to contact their Faculty Admissions Office for more information.
Cambridge Pre-U
D3 D3 M2 in three principal subjects including English Literature or a related subject*
Cambridge Pre-U additional information
*Related subject includes History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
Welsh Baccalaureate
AAB from three A levels including English Literature or a related subject*
or
AA from two A levels including English Literature or a related subject* and B from the Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate Skills Challenge Certificate
Welsh Baccalaureate additional information
Offers typically exclude General Studies and Critical Thinking. *Related subject includes History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
Welsh Baccalaureate contextual offer
We are committed to ensuring that all learners with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise a learner’s potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme.
European Baccalaureate
80% overall including grade 8 in English Literature or a related subject*
Other requirements
GCSE requirements
Applicants must hold GCSE English language (or GCSE English) (minimum grade 4/C) and mathematics (minimum grade 4/C)
Find the equivalent international qualifications for our entry requirements.
English language requirements
If English isn't your first language, you'll need to complete an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) to demonstrate your competence in English. You'll need all of the following scores as a minimum:
IELTS score requirements
- overall score
- 6.5
- reading
- 6.0
- writing
- 6.0
- speaking
- 6.0
- listening
- 6.0
We accept other English language tests. Find out which English language tests we accept.
You might meet our criteria in other ways if you do not have the qualifications we need. Find out more about:
-
our Access to Southampton scheme for students living permanently in the UK (including residential summer school, application support and scholarship)
-
skills you might have gained through work or other life experiences (otherwise known as recognition of prior learning)
Find out more about our Admissions Policy.
Got a question?
Please contact our enquiries team if you're not sure that you have the right experience or qualifications to get onto this course.
Email: enquiries@southampton.ac.uk
Tel: +44(0)23 8059 5000
Course structure
COVID-19: we've made some changes to the structure of the course for this academic year. Download the programme specification addendum in 'About this course' to learn more.
This english with creative writing course takes an interdisciplinary approach to studying poetry, prose, and drama. Creative writing modules will develop your understanding of short stories, novels, poetry, scriptwriting and narrative non-fiction.
You can complement your degree with modules in other subject areas, including modern languages, music, and philosophy.
Your personal academic tutor can help you plan your course.
Year 1 overview
Your first year will introduce you to new forms of literature and new creative and critical methods.
You'll take 3 core modules that give you a foundation in critical thinking, essay writing and group research. They will help you develop your own perspectives on the subject. You'll also take an introductory module on creative writing, which will explore story structure.
You can choose more modules on topics including:
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world drama
-
poetic language
-
migration and literature
Year 2 overview
You'll explore creative genres and forms in more depth. Typically, you'll take core modules in 4 areas of creative writing:
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short stories
-
scriptwriting
-
experimental writing
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how writers influence each other
You'll learn more about literature from other periods, choosing from core modules in Renaissance culture, romanticism, and modernism. You can also choose additional options across English, film studies, philosophy and beyond, including:
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African worlds
-
Victorian feelings
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sweatshops, sex workers and asylum seekers: world literature and visual culture after globalisation
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images of women
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film adaptation
Year 3 overview
In your final year, you'll develop your creative writing in prose, poetry, and narrative non-fiction. You'll write a dissertation on a research topic of your choice, or complete a creative project.
You'll choose core creative writing modules covering:
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writing the novel
-
narrative non-fiction
-
creative writing in schools
-
poetry and the non-human
You'll also be able to choose modules from a wide range of literary topics, including:
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literatures of islands and oceans
-
American drama
-
utopias and dystopias
-
the historical novel
Want more detail? See all the modules in the course.
Modules
For entry in Academic Year 2021-22
Year 1 modules
You must study the following modules in year 1:
“A stranger comes to town” is often called one of the only stories of great literature, and in this introductory module we explore ideas of strangers and strangeness in creative writing and creative writers. How do creative writers make language strange?...
This module both challenges and enriches the idea of ‘the human’ as an idea for ‘the humanities’. You will reflect upon ‘the human’ as a concept that exceeds the individual person in literary, artistic, historical and political texts. Taking this challe...
How do we read poems, and what language can we use to describe our readings? This module will provide a detailed introduction to the particular qualities your ear, eye and brain will need to read poetry more effectively. You will study key features of poe...
This module focuses upon the essay as a critical practice and a literary form. The essay is fundamental to literary criticism, and basic to assessment across your degree. But the essay is also a literary and popular-cultural genre in its own right, a form...
‘A novel does not assert anything; a novel searches and poses questions’. The contemporary novelist Milan Kundera describes the novel as an exploratory and engaging form, a way of telling stories that involves readers both in its searches and in the quest...
The module asks big questions. What do we do when we interpret literature and culture, and how can we analyse our practices of interpretation? Can anything be a text, and if so what do we understand by ‘literature’? How does literature shape our identity,...
You must also choose from the following modules in year 1:
Why have some stories gripped the imagination of writers, musicians, and artists across cultures and centuries? And what does the emergence and constant re-emergence of such stories tell us about ourselves and others, past and present? What do readers and...
Both individuals and society attach great importance and value to certain works of art, including poems, novels, films, plays, symphonies, and paintings. Most of us spend a considerable amount of our limited time and resources acquiring, creating, experie...
In this module, you will learn how to approach dramatic texts in a way that takes into consideration their place in the world as a complex political, economic, and cultural network. We will focus on questions such as: • What is the difference between r...
Year 2 modules
You must choose your modules from the following modules in year 2:
Many writers begin with the short story. Through writing short stories they are able to experiment, learn the fundamentals of narrative composition, and have the satisfaction of completing something to a high standard in a relatively short period of time....
What happens when writing positions itself against communication or expression? How can the form and content of a literary text be determined by chance, constraint or the operations of the unconscious? Can a text ‘perform’ on the page? How might oral perf...
Literary history is often told in epochs. In particular, it can be useful to understand the world in relation to some or other idea of “modernity”: for example, English literary studies is often organised through conceptions of the early modern, the mode...
This module presents a history of post-war multicultural Britain through the lens of British film and television, considering how our attitudes to 'race', sexuality and British identity more generally have been defined, challenged and changed by film and...
Many writers have penned essays about fiction and memoir: E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Italo Calvino, Vladimir Nabokov, Milan Kundera, A.L. Kennedy, A.S. Byatt, to name just a famous few. Indeed, it seems essential at some p...
Cultural representations of women shed important light on notions of female subjectivity, sexuality and racial identity in the modern world. Medical discourses on gender, mental pathology and the rise of modern feminism are just some of the pivotal histor...
In 1831 the philosopher John Stuart Mill struggled to define the ‘Spirit’ of the nineteenth century. ‘It is’, he wrote, ‘an age of transition. Mankind have outgrown old institutions and old doctrines, and have not yet acquired new ones.’ If the nineteenth...
What does it mean to make literature new? Why create a revolution of the word? In this module you will study the revolutionary literary transformations of modernism. Modernism responded to the advent of modernity: urbanisation, imperialism, mechanisation,...
Early modern England is a period associated with Elizabeth I and the Tudor court, the plays of Shakespeare, blood and violence on the Jacobean stage, the discovery of new worlds, and the persecution of witches and heretics. The diversity and vitality of t...
Dialogue, pace, setting, and story. Understanding the nuts of bolts of scriptwriting is not only key to a successful piece of theatre, cinema, or radio, but to all forms of creative writing or literary analysis. This course will introduce you to the art o...
What can the voices and narratives of sex workers and asylum seekers depicted in world literature and visual culture tell us about the conditions and pressures of life in the contemporary world? How might considerations of narrative technique, genre, and ...
Joy, dejection, devotion, boredom—among the ways in which we respond to literary texts, feelings are perhaps the most immediate and the most permanent. And yet, feeling is often treated as reason’s less reputable cousin. For the Victorians, however, feeli...
From the cut, copy, and paste aesthetic of the musical remix or “mashup” to video montages on YouTube, reuse, reinterpretation, and re-presentation have become familiar features of contemporary art and culture. “Remix studies” has recently emerged as a mo...
The period 1770-1830 was a pivotal time in the history of women’s writing in Britain. Reacting against slavery and responding to the French Revolution, women assumed a prominent role in debates that would shape the modern world, and lead to modern feminis...
Year 3 modules
You must study the following module in year 3:
Undertaking independent research into an aspect of literature or creative writing which particularly interests you is a cornerstone of your degree. A dissertation gives you the opportunity to study a subject in much greater depth than usual and, with gui...
You must also choose from the following modules in year 3:
What constitutes the experience of being American, or of America itself? This module will explore these questions by examining the aesthetic, social, and political ideas of modern and contemporary American dramatists. The theorist Jean Baudrillard saw Ame...
What can animals teach us about the human and non-human? What do the creative forms we use to describe them show us about human form and the other? In this module, you will read a range of poetic and critical material which explores the porous boundaries ...
Are you interested in helping young people study English? This module will introduce you to teaching creative writing in secondary schools by providing training in effective classroom management and guidance on designing lesson plans for studying fiction ...
Fantasy film and fiction spans a wide range of texts, from Gothic 'classics' and feminist fairy tales, to Utopian literature and musicals. Analysing fantasy texts alongside psychoanalytic and cultural theories will enable you to engage with questions conc...
The Regency era, from around 1795 to 1820, saw the French Revolution, more than twenty years of global warfare, the expansion of the British empire and rapid industrialisation and social change in Britain itself. It was in this period that the novel becam...
We tend to assume our world is shaped by the geographies of continents and nation-states. This module allows us to grasp the significance of other spaces. Exploring how islands and oceans, ports and ships, deep water and coastal zones have been imagined, ...
Writing is inherently an interdisciplinary art. From novelists to poets to narrative non-fiction writers, writers tend to delve into fields that are not their own. Ian McEwan shadowed neurologists for several years as he was researching Saturday; Hilary ...
The seventeenth century was a time of extreme change and political instability in England. In 1649, after years of civil war, Charles I, the King of England, was beheaded on Whitehall in front of a crowd of thousands. England, overnight, became a republic...
The 1790s was a decade of revolutions abroad and of chaos and state paranoia at home. Britain began its longest continuous war in 1792. In a letter years afterwards to Byron, Percy Shelley declared that the French Revolution was ‘the master theme of the e...
This module invites you to enter the rich and strange world of Stuart drama, to explore the curious theatrical landscape shaped by the artistic prowess of Ben Jonson, William Shakespeare, John Webster, and others. It is a world at once more refined and mo...
What can novels tell us about history? What can history tell us about novels? This module will explore these questions by studying the literary genre of the historical novel, from its origins in the eighteenth century to its emergence as one of the most p...
From Plato’s Republic and Thomas More’s Utopia to Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale and Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, utopias have always been haunted by the spectre of the dystopian. If utopias imagine alternative ways of organizing society, dy...
Victorians, comprising the world's first capitalist economy, made, bought and sold a vast range of items, ideas and inventions globally. The term ‘bestseller' was coined by a journalist in the United States in the 1880s, and used to describe a specificall...
The essential elements of writing a novel include crafting beginnings and endings, constructing characters, manipulating structure and plot, and developing an intimate relationship with language. Writing exercises and discussions of work in progress will ...
Learning and assessment
The learning activities for this course include the following:
- lectures
- classes and tutorials
- coursework
- individual and group projects
- independent learning (studying on your own)
Academic support
You’ll be supported by a personal academic tutor and have access to a senior tutor.
Course leader
Carole Burns is the course leader.
Careers
This english and creative writing degree at Southampton gives you a strong foundation in:
-
research
-
presentation skills
-
project management
-
critical thinking
-
writing
You'll learn how to tell a story - a crucial skill whether you want to write a press release or funding application, or edit a book or podcast.
Our English graduates have progressed to careers including:
-
administration
-
advertising
-
business
-
creative writing
-
government, including the civil service
-
journalism
-
marketing
-
media
-
publishing
-
public relations
-
teaching
-
translation
Your personal academic tutor can write a reference based on knowledge of you as a student over the 3 years.
Careers services at Southampton
We are a top 20 UK university for employability (QS Graduate Employability Rankings 2019). Our Careers and Employability Service will support you throughout your time as a student and for up to 5 years after graduation. This support includes:
work experience schemes
CV and interview skills and workshops
networking events
careers fairs attended by top employers
a wealth of volunteering opportunities
study abroad and summer school opportunities
We have a vibrant entrepreneurship culture and our dedicated start-up supporter, Futureworlds, is open to every student.
Work in industry
You can take work placements through our Excel internship scheme or Year in Employment scheme. Placements include art galleries, publishing houses, schools and performing arts organisations. We can help you to get placements and employment with local, national and international employers.
Fees, costs and funding
Tuition fees
Fees for a year's study:
- UK students pay £9,250.
- EU and international students pay £18,520.
What your fees pay for
Your tuition fees pay for the full cost of tuition and all examinations.
Find out how to:
Accommodation and living costs, such as travel and food, are not included in your tuition fees. Explore:
Bursaries, scholarships and other funding
If you're a UK or EU student and your household income is under £25,000 a year, you may be able to get a University of Southampton bursary to help with your living costs. Find out about bursaries and other funding we offer at Southampton.
If you're a care leaver or estranged from your parents, you may be able to get a specific bursary.
Get in touch for advice about student money matters.
Scholarships and grants
You may be able to get a scholarship or grant that's linked to your chosen subject area.
We award scholarships and grants for travel, academic excellence, or to students from underrepresented backgrounds.
Support during your course
The Student Services Centre offers support and advice on money to students. You may be able to access our Student Support fund and other sources of financial support during your course.
Funding for EU and international students
Find out about funding you could get as an international student.
How to apply
When you apply use:
- UCAS course code: CW01
- UCAS institution code: S27
What happens after you apply?
We will assess your application on the strength of your:
- predicted grades
- academic achievements
- personal statement
- academic reference
We aim to respond to you within 2 to 6 weeks with a decision about your application.
Equality and diversity
We treat and select everyone in line with our Equality and Diversity Statement.
Got a question?
Please contact our enquiries team if you're not sure that you have the right experience or qualifications to get onto this course.
Email: enquiries@southampton.ac.uk
Tel: +44(0)23 8059 5000
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