Museum and Gallery Studies degree
BA Museum and Gallery Studies Degree (P131) - 3 years
The Museum and Gallery Studies degree is unique to the UK. It provides you with a historical, theoretical, and practical introduction to museums and galleries, the collection and interpretation of material culture, and the curatorship of exhibitions, combined with the study of Art History. The Museum and Gallery Studies degree scheme deploys the resources of its own Registered Museum and a suite of contemporary art galleries housed at the School, together with an extensive collection of fine and decorative art. The future for graduates in this field is bright; and the curriculum of the degree is designed to prepare you to be adaptable and acquire varied skills as twenty-first century museums embrace new technologies and embark upon radical changes in the display, interpretation, and management of collections.
Museum and Gallery Studies degree structure
Year 1
In Year 1 of your Museum and Gallery Studies degree, you get to grips with current issues and special topics in Art History and Visual Culture. However, the unique feature of the first year of this degree is its two core modules on Collecting and Collections from 1450 - a historical and theoretical introduction to museums and collecting from the Merchant-Princes of the early modern period to the museum in the modern world. Both traditional and new approaches to museum displays are explored, alongside the rationales which have underpinned the practice of collecting by private individuals and corporate bodies. The approach is inter-discplinary, looking at collections from a historical, theoretical, practical, formal and sociological standpoint.
Years 2 and 3
Building on the foundation which has been laid in the first year, years 2 and 3 of the Museum and Gallery Studies degree course will encourage you increasingly to develop your own spheres of interest and the professional techniques and skills which are related to the curating of collections of whatever kind. Ultimately, these years build toward a final dissertation which gives you the opportunity to investigate in depth a geographical area or historical period, how it is represented in existing collections and how it might be represented in future.
Career opportunities
The Heritage industry is itself a growing career field, as the public demand grows for informed reflection on the art and artefacts of the past. As a graduate in Museum and Gallery Studies, you will be ideally equipped to go on to one of the many postgraduate opportunities in the field or to take advantage of the much more widespread opportunities which have been brought about by the relative decentralisation of the UK Museums and Galleries sector in recent years. However, the skills and abilities of the Museum and Gallery Studies graduate are of wider application. As a graduate of this Aberystwyth degree, you will have learnt skills of observation, appreciation, research, analysis, presentation and organisation which are in demand in may kinds of career, and from prospective employers in many areas of work.
The Aberystwyth School of Art enjoys an excellent employment record from its graduates. Students have gone on to obtain careers in all areas of teaching and lecturing, in museums, art galleries, libraries and in arts administration, and as designers, researchers, conservation officers, and art therapists in addition to practising as professional artists, photographers and printmakers.
Available with:
BA
- Fine Art WP1C
- History PVC1
- P102
- Irish (Joint Honours) PQ1M
- Welsh/Cymraeg QP51*
* = Welsh Medium Courses