Creative Writing and Psychology BA (Hons)

CREATIVE WRITING

Liverpool is a city of poets and storytellers so the perfect location to study creative writing. Merseyside has a distinctive literary culture and at Liverpool Hope you are taught by writers, poets and academics with strong connections to the local writing community and international recognition for their work.

Creative Writing at Liverpool Hope will give you the chance to experience the joys of crafting the written word. The degree focuses on developing you as a writer of poetry and prose (fiction and creative nonfiction), across the broad field of literature (poems, short stories, novels, reflective and critical essays). Professional writing - reviews, blogs and articles for different kinds of media, including how to operate in today’s marketplaces - is also studied. Our focus on creativity and employability means you will be able to produce engaging, innovative and marketable texts.

By studying Creative Writing, you will be empowered with an enhanced command of your craft, increased confidence in expressing your thoughts and emotions, an understanding of the values that inform your writing practice, and the technical skillset to deliver your work to various audiences. Your writing will be enhanced by studying under leading published writers and academics, and you will develop a range of workplace skills to prepare for fulfilling careers.

The degree will often challenge you and ask you to reach beyond your own experience and interests into those of contemporary and historical communities. Using these as creative stimuli, you will be required to reflect upon social contexts, power, and how truth and justice can be communicated or miscommunicated through creative writing. By the end of the degree, you should have a wide appreciation of forms, genres and applications. Included in the degree are field trips which provide material for writing exercises as well as widening your student experience.

Lecturers are all practising writers, poets and academics and will include you in their working lives as writers whether this is book launches, public readings and festivals or writing workshops in the community. You will have the opportunity to read your work at open mics on campus and in the city, present at city cultural events or publish in the two literary magazines run by Liverpool Hope students and postgraduates.

PSYCHOLOGY

The importance and relevance of psychology to all areas of life and society continues to grow, meaning that an undergraduate degree in psychology will prepare you for a diverse range of careers. The Psychology courses at Liverpool Hope University equip students with knowledge and understanding of human thinking and behaviour. The single honours BSc Psychology course has a focus on applications of psychology and students are supported in their development of skills to apply psychological knowledge to real-life settings. As an alternative, a combined honours Psychology degree at Liverpool Hope allows you to study psychology alongside one of over thirty other disciplines (e.g., Tourism, Criminology, Geography; see the list on the combinations tab for the full range of Psychology combined honours courses) meaning you can choose to study psychology in a way that matches your interests. 

Accredited by the British Psychological Society, the single and combined honours Psychology courses provide an in-depth scientific knowledge and understanding of the core areas of psychology. You will be supported by a friendly team of experienced and research-active lecturers to acquire skills of critical thinking and independent learning. The transferable skills developed through the course will be relevant to a variety of sectors including healthcare, the criminal justice system, education, and marketing.    

You will have the opportunity to enrich your degree through a series of extra-curricular activities, such as working as a research intern, supporting your peers as a mentor, and applying psychology outside the University (e.g., working in groups on an outward-bound retreat and teaching in another country as part of our Global Hope network). You will also have access to the School of Psychology labs where you can gain first-hand experience of specialist psychology techniques and equipment, such as eye-tracking, EEG, and observational methods.