Course details

Summary

Are you passionate about creativity and cultural expression? Develop advanced academic, practical and creative skills through an exhibition, publication or industry project and access multi-disciplinary creative studios supervised by industry leading educators, artists and designers. The Postgraduate Diploma in Creative Practice offers a highly flexible studio or industry based programme based at Unitec’s Creative Industries cultural hub.

Programme overview

The Postgraduate Diploma in Creative Practice enables artists, designers, photographers, animators, educators, performers, directors, producers and other creative thinkers to advance their professional careers within Unitec’s Creative Industries cultural hub.

In the first semester, a combination of taught, negotiated or studio courses allow you to tailor the learning experience to specialist creative research interests, whether these fall into traditional (graphic design, industrial design, photography, animation, visual arts, performance) or hybrid domains (service design, experience design, design for social innovation, performance or production design, transmedia, interdisciplinary practice).

Your second semester involves conceptualizing, proposing and implementing advanced creative research. You will be supervised and mentored by academic staff and/or industry professionals. Creative projects may take place on campus or be integrated into a relevant workplace.

Highlights

• Create a body of new work, improve your job opportunities, and refresh or re-orient your profession.
• Develop critical self-reflection, creative thinking and research skills by taking your practice to an advanced level.
• Work in an evolving multi-disciplinary environment with exposure to a wide range of approaches, practices, and theories.
• Improve your communication and project proposal skills through studio critiques and written components.
• Learn from supervisors that include notable artists, designers, and educators.
• Enhance your creative portfolio with a significant advanced research project.

CAREER OPTIONS

• Artist
• Creative director
• Curator
• Digital artist
• Director
• Graphic designer
• Photographer
• Producer
• Visual artist

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