Film and Television Studies and English with Placement Year

Film, television, and English literature together address the dominant forms through which modern cultures tell stories about themselves. Screen media and literary texts are not separate worlds: they share narrative conventions, theoretical frameworks, and debates about representation, authorship, and meaning. Studying them in combination gives you a richer analytical toolkit than either discipline alone provides, and the ability to move between close textual reading and broader cultural analysis is genuinely distinctive.

At Brunel this four-year full-time programme includes a placement year, giving you the opportunity to test your skills in a professional environment and bring real-world experience back into your final year of study. On the film and television side you will explore both audio-visual practice and the range of ways that screen media have been theorised, from early film theory through contemporary debates about platform, audience, and algorithmic distribution. On the English side you will study the major historical areas of English literature, up to recent poetry, fiction, and drama, while developing critical and creative thinking, communication, and collaborative skills that are increasingly valued in a landscape shaped by artificial intelligence.

The programme gives you the flexibility to map your own route through, combining theory and practice in ways that reflect your own interests.

Graduates of this combined programme find opportunities in a wide range of fields. Careers in television and film production, publishing, journalism, advertising, digital media, education, and cultural policy are all natural destinations. The critical writing and analytical skills developed through the literary side are valued in law, the civil service, and consultancy, while the screen media training opens doors in the creative industries and in roles requiring understanding of visual communication.

The placement year adds practical credibility and professional networks that support transition into competitive fields. Many graduates also progress to postgraduate study in film studies, English, creative writing, or media production.