Course details

Summary

Are you passionate about creativity or cultural expression? Do you enjoy designing solutions to complex problems, or imagining new ways of experiencing and living in the world? Would your practice and portfolio benefit from undertaking a significant piece of advanced creative research? Consider advancing your career through a Masters programme designed for creative professionals.

The Master of Creative Practice enables artists, designers, photographers, animators, educators, performers, directors and producers to develop expertise in practice-based creative research within Unitec’s Creative Industries cultural hub.

Immerse yourself in an evolving environment of diverse creative practices including dance, theatre, music, film, new media, animation, visual art, craft, graphic design, product design, experience design and service design. Work on exciting and innovative projects in our art, design, photography, craft and media studios. Learn how to collaborate across disciplines, and facilitate or lead creative projects and teams.

A typical first semester experience provides you with foundation knowledge in areas including: locating your creative practice within a wider body of knowledge, reading and thinking critically, experimenting with, and critiquing, approaches to collaborative and creative industry practice, and applying practice-based and qualitative research methods.

Negotiated studies courses give you the option of undertaking industry placements with leading creative organizations and agencies in Auckland, while supervised interdisciplinary studios provide possibilities for developing and enhancing practice based research skills.

The remainder of your studies is the capstone project, which involves the conceptualization, proposal and implementation of creative research (90 or 120 credits), during which time you will be supervised and mentored by academic staff and/or industry professionals.

Highlights

• Create a body of new work, build a portfolio, advance your practice and refresh or reorient your career.
• Gain industry experience through negotiated placements or work on live projects.
• Work in an evolving multi-disciplinary environment with exposure to a wide range of approaches, practices, and theories.
• Improve your communication skills through studio critiques and written components.
• Learn from supervisors that include notable educators and creative practitioners.
• Get feedback on your developing work from specialists in your field.
• Develop advanced creative research and critical thinking skills through a significant project.

CAREER OPTIONS

• Artist
• Art director
• Product designer
• Graphic designer
• Director
• Photographer
• Experience designer
• Producer
• Production designer
• Sculptor
• Visual artist
• Performance designer
• Service designer
• Curator
• Actor for theatre, film and television
• Choreographer
• Filmmaker

Entry criteria

For this programme, you will need the following:

1. A Bachelor’s degree in the same or similar discipline; OR
2. A Bachelor’s degree in an unrelated discipline with a minimum of two years’ appropriate work experience AND demonstrate an ability to succeed in the programme by providing:

• Recommendations from employers or professional colleagues; and
• Evidence of outcomes in the discipline work environment.

3. 8 credits at NCEA Level 2 in English (4 in reading, 4 in writing).

English Language requirements:

• Have achieved NCEA Level 3 and New Zealand University entrance
• NZCEL (Academic) (Level 5)
• IELTS score of 6.5 with no band score lower than 6.0
• TOEFL (pBT) Paper-based test score of 590 (essay 5.5 TWE)
• TOEFL (iBT) Internet-based test score of 79 (writing 21)
• CAE, or CPE with a score of 176. No less than 169 in each skill. OET at Grade B in all sub-tests
• Pearson Test of English (PToE) Academic with a score of 58 with no score lower than 50