Changing direction at postgraduate level

Whether you're already working and want a change of career, or you’ve made it to the third year of your degree and feel like you might want to change your subject, there are plenty of options for you at postgraduate level. We offer a range of postgraduate conversion courses designed to help you fast-track into a new profession, after completing an undergraduate degree.

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A number of our courses accept students at postgraduate level regardless of their undergraduate subject. As long as you have a good undergraduate degree, you may be eligible to apply to a range of courses.

What is a conversion course?

A conversion course is a postgraduate course which does not require you to have a specific undergraduate degree. They are designed to help you enter a new career, which may not be related to your undergraduate degree. In some courses, you will take a short induction course to give you a broad understanding of the subject area, before you begin studying.

Most of our conversion courses offer the opportunity for you to study either full-time or flexibly on a part-time basis. You’ll develop your existing skillset and be able to adapt to a changing and increasingly competitive job market.

Are you a current BCU undergraduate student?

You might be starting to think about your next steps. Find out about our Graduate Scholarship,

how to apply through our fast track application and the benefits of studying your Master's at BCU.

Staying at BCU

Why you might want to change direction

You might see an opportunity in another sector

Every subject is valuable, but you probably know more about the field of your original subject than you knew at the beginning of your course. If working in that field no longer appeals to you then it’s possible to transfer your skills to another discipline. Equally, you might be limited in your progression in your field due to a lack of roles or other factors, so why not try another area?

You might not be interested in your subject any more

It happens! And you shouldn’t feel bad about it. Three years is a lot of time to change your mind and your reward for sticking it out is the chance to get into something you’re passionate about at postgraduate level.

You started working after graduating and want a change of pace

Sometimes the career you had in mind doesn’t work out or you might have become interested in other things. A postgraduate degree is a door-opener and, if you study part-time, it’s possible to study around your work.

You're looking to progress your career

Doing a postgraduate degree is a great way to set yourself apart from the crowd and improve your employability, making you more qualified for roles and making you more attractive to employers. Someone with a Master's degree or PhD earns £5,000 more per year, or £200,000 over a 40-year working life, than someone with just a degree (Graduate Labour Market Statistics 2023, Department for Education).

How we can help you

If you’re nervous about the jump from undergraduate to postgraduate study, or about returning to education after a break, our Centre for Academic Success can help you to develop all of the necessary academic, technical and numerical skills you need to successfully complete your course. Support includes workshops and tutorials, as well as an optional online ‘Success’ course which you can follow in your own time.

What can you study?

We offer conversion courses across a range of fields, including the Arts, Computing, Law, Management, Nursing, Social Sciences and Teaching. See all of the conversion courses we offer.

What should you do next?

Find out about our Graduate Scholarship

You could be eligible for a 20% fee reduction if you're a BCU graduate enrolling onto an eligible Master's or PhD qualification for the first time in 2024/25 or 2025/26!

BCU's Graduate Scholarship

Discover what it's like to study a Master's

Josi shares her experience of starting a Master’s straight after her Bachelor’s degree at BCU and discusses a lot of the questions you may currently have about the transition between courses.

Josi's experience

Apply using our fast track application

Our fast track application means you can apply for postgraduate study in just a few minutes if you're a current BCU undergraduate student.

How apply using the fast track application

[Music]

Hello my name is Fayo, I'm a student of Birmingham City University I did my master's in fashion management and for my undergrad, I studied economics.

A conversion course is um more like changing cost from a totally different um area to a new area, more like from what I'm doing I studied economics and then now I'm doing fashion management which are totally two different sides. Uh, there are - many reasons to choose to do a conversion course maybe you realize you wanted to take a totally different career path or while studying your undergrad you realised maybe the course isn't for you and you decided to actually didn't realize the actual part you wanted to go through go down. Um for me I decided to study economics 'cause I wanted to see the bigger picture, I wanted to understand what goes into play in terms of the er in terms of economy and the factors involved and then while studying that I realized I actually love fashion and then I decided to study fashion, and I decided to study fashion for my undergrad.

[Music]

After my undergrad, I started working 925 and then a lot of things came into place and then I realised I wanted to do fashion so I actually became a Fashion Stylist, so I worked as a freelance Fashion Stylist for a period of time and then I realised um I understood more of the creative side more than the business side of fashion so and then I saw myself working in bigger fashion brands like the global ones and I wanted to see how I can feat feature myself into it so I decided to study fashion management.

[Music]

When we started fashion management it was a bit daunting and we had a lot of questions but we had the tutors to actually help and support us. I also have a friend who studied a different course like totally different course he studied Quantity Surveying and then now he's studying fashion management, so yeah you can come from any background as long as you have an understanding of the facts of of what you want to study, yeah you just need to make it, just take a step.

I was able to go through it because of the help of tutors and because of the help of my colleagues um I was able to whenever I needed had questions or I needed help I would ask my tutors and then they were willing to come through. They will let, they would give me um sources I could research on and then I would do that and then it will actually answer my question.

[Music]

So yeah when I decided to attend BCU I did a lot of research, so I went to social media I looked on BCU on Instagram, on Facebook and then I also went to the website and then I looked through about their the the the classes more, like I looked through the classes and then the tutor also and then I also Googled the tutor to know more about him and then I realised he had lot of years of experience in terms of fashion management so it made me a bit more comfortable knowing what um the tutor was more experienced. And then um one thing I wished I attended was open days, and I think it's it might be a bit crucial to if you can to attend open days.

[Music]

I was able to network with people network with different individuals and then I was also able to make use of the facilities provided to help me in terms of my course and to help me to grow as a person more, there are a lot of um support systems or support organizations that are there to support you.

[Music]

So right now I'm looking to work in fashion I think that's why I actually studied the course, so now I want to go more in-depth into it I want to work in fashion companies I want to work in the business side of fashion so majorly in operations and if not I can also use my experience which I have as a Fashion Stylist and continue that.