The academic side of the Creative Arts courses

Nope.

I'm not sure there's much of an "academic" tradition in graphic design, if you're talking about academia in the sense of empirical studies and papers. In the UK university courses are generally one subject only. If you really wanted to do an academic subject alongside you could plump for a joint honours degree, or a "with" degree.

So, basically most courses are not run on different subjects? It's normally just "the" subject chosen?

More or less yes; if it says graphic design on the tin you will be learning how to draw stuff and then drawing stuff. A joint honours degree is when it's, say, "graphic design AND history", which means it's 50-50. Then there are degrees like "graphic design WITH history", which means it's more graphic design than history, probably more like 75-25 or 67-33.

Then again, you may find yourself taking one or two interdisciplinary modules, for example in international relations you might expect to take a politics or sociology module. This generally happens in first year which is when you learn the basics.

Some courses do allow you to take modules from wildly different schools just for the hell of it, and receive the same credit as a module from your school, but it's only usually one module out of eight or similar.

Hi - I know you posted this 2 days ago, but I've been in a similar situation in terms of being quite academic and doing a creative arts course.

I did my foundation at Chelsea, and while the combined CCW course will probably be a bit different, I personally found that the course did have some elements of academia involved but not really a tremendous amount. We had to do 'contextual studies' in addition to all the practical projects, and this involved lectures, seminars and essays including a general run through of art history. Lots of room for discussion and debate in the seminars I found, and broadly, everything we covered was to push our own practice as artists/designers in a modern context as opposed to a proper in depth analysis of other people's work.

It was all really interesting, but it was only once a week or once every few weeks, so not a lot, and it was not enormously challenging for anyone who can write reasonably well and enjoys discussion. Also, something which I found quite good (I don't know if they'll do it again this year, but it would be amazing if they did), we had a cinema programme thing, where we'd watch really 'artsy' films in a cinema in Leicester Sq once a week. For free. Again, lots of talking and an essay on one of the films was required.

I should think the CCW course will be similar to Chelsea's individual one, just in a different setting and loads more students.

At degree level, you definitely get lectures and a handful of essays, but again, it's predominantly practical. In terms of research and so on, obviously, you'll have to undertake some within the context of your projects and to inform your work, but it's less 'taught', I imagine. I know at Chelsea, where I'm doing graphic design in septemeber, there's a whole lot of 'professional practice' lectures from working designers and stuff. And within UAL, there's always lectures and talks on a broad range of art and design subjects outside of college hours which usually anyone can attend, and often featuring big names within the industry.

But yeah. You kind of have to do some of the leg work yourself if you want to further your knowledge as well as practical skills, but it's an art school, so they were never going to offer side courses on Maths. However, if you decide to do your degree at a university which offers other non creative subjects you may be able to take electives in academic stuff too.

Sorry for being so long - this is like an essay!

I'm sorry I didn't reply sooner, I canceled my subscription on this thread by mistake.
That definitely helps me, and the perspective of having lectures and talks through the year is encouraging. I came to terms with the fact that I'll have to be quite self-motivated to keep myself informed about the academic or theoretical side of my course. But being that I, just like you I suppose, genuinely like this type of things that involve writing long dissertations and discussing, maybe that won't be as a big problem as I initially thought.
I was considering Chelsea for my BA, so maybe I'll get in touch with you in a few months asking how you're finding the course. If you don't mind, of course
Thank you very much for your reply

You're welcome Glad to help really, especially since I went into the whole foundation thing utterly blind as to what to expect, so having some level of non-practical work was a relief, even if it was very Fine Art centered (although, I was one of the few to feel this way - but such is the nature of art school!) I just wish there was a bit more of it.

It's still early for you yet though, so if you decide to end up doing a degree in Fine Art for example, and you have sensible grades at school and a good portfolio, I know a lot of top universities (specifically the Slade at UCL and at Oxford) offer Fine Art degrees with a heavier emphasis on academics too. But for us Graphic Design students, you just have to deal with an unfortunate compromise

That, or run off to the US, where they have some enviable art and design courses with more of an emphasis on a rounded liberal arts education (Rhode Island School of Design ) at eye wateringly high prices!