Four year degrees: Year 0

Develop your creative practice

Our courses are practical: you’ll experiment with different techniques and test different formats.

Our tutors are experts in their field and you’ll hear from visiting professionals about the latest practice in the workplace.

You will be encouraged to explore your ideas, collaborate with fellow students and develop your creative practice.

Common starting point

The extra year at the start of your degree will see you initially collaborate on common projects with students from the other Year 0 disciplines.

Those common projects are designed to build your creative skills and sharpen your perceptions of the world around you.

And they will give you a valuable insight into the kind of multi-disciplinary approach that you’ll find in creative workplaces after graduation.

Head start on Year 1

By the time you progress to Year 1, you will already be thinking more deeply about creative methods and approaches than many of your peers.

And you will have already put your practical skills to the test in our workshops and studios.

It’s no surprise that a high proportion of our Year 0 students go on to graduate with first class honours or 2:1 degrees – winning recognition through prizes and embarking on successful creative careers or further study.

How Year 0 works

Many students choose to take the Year 0 option to give themselves more time to acquire specialist practical skills in their chosen field and develop their creative approach and confidence after school or college.

Sometimes, we recommend and offer students the four year option in their course rather than three for the same reason.

The aim of Year 0 is simply to give students a head start and the very best chance of future success.

Year 0 structure

Year 0 is structured in two parts.

We teach students from across our Year 0 option together for some workshops in the first 10 weeks.

You will learn fundamental skills that are essential to any of our degree courses.

There will be specialist workshops in your chosen course where you will immerse yourself in the creative processes and key skills, building your confidence, within your chosen course of study.

You will have inductions to different workshops with our expert technicians.

In the second 20-week phase of Year 0, you will balance the new creative skills you’ve acquired with thinking skills and work more independently.

You’ll be focused on your chosen course, further working with resources and tutors from within your chosen specialism.

You’ll start to develop your own style or approach by building on your emerging practical skills and growing expertise in research, questioning and ideas development.

Year 0 courses at NUA

Entry requirements can be found on each course page.