Creative & Digital Media

Course description

This programme incorporates classroom-based study with work-based learning to prepare you for entry to the workplace or full-time Further or Higher Education. Students who have completed the FA have also gone directly into paid apprenticeships which have led to industry roles. The course is funded by Skills Development Scotland.

Creative and Digital media encompasses a wide range of creative roles where interactive media storytelling and commerce collide.

The utilisation of creative digital content to enable either a product of another service such as marketing, advertising, or information gathering, offers a vast array of job roles ranging from purely creative to more technical and data-driven responsibilities within film, TV, VFX, animation, games, radio, advertising and marketing communications, publishing, print and fashion and textiles.

In addition to all of this – and more importantly – this growing sector needs people! One-third of tech companies cite talent shortages as an inhibiter to expansion and there are significant opportunities for young creative people whose interest in digital media extends beyond consuming content and into creating it and getting it out to audiences.

Find out more about this course from Skills Development Scotland

What you will experience

The Foundation Apprenticeship in Creative and Digital Media is for pupils in S5 and S6.

Over one year, you will complete a National Progression Award at SCQF Level 6 in Creative and Digital Media: Technologies, Processes and Practices and a large part of the Diploma in Creative Digital Media.

Units covered on the course include:

• Creative Industries: An Introduction — Scotland
• Storytelling for the Creative Industries
• Understanding the Creative process
• Understanding a Creative Brief
• Presenting Ideas and Information to Others in the Creative Industries
• Working Effectively with Others in the Creative Industries
• Developing Professional Practice in the Creative Industries
• Working with Digital Media
• Managing and Marketing Yourself as a Freelancer in the Creative Industries

You will design work utilising video and audio skills to present films, podcasts, and presentations. There will also be opportunities to learn basic skills in graphic design, animation, photography, and website development.

Gaining an understanding of how the Creative Industries work while working with practicing industry professionals and artists. The creative industries encompass architecture, fashion, videogames, art, literature, music, museums and galleries, publishing, and advertising

Alongside this, pupils will undertake a work placement. There, they will experience working with clients to create digital visual and audio products, furthering their understanding of how to build professional relationships and develop creative solutions.

Pupils will be expected to undertake both coursework and work-based learning elements within the same year, generally spending the equivalent of a day a week in a College staff-delivered class and a day a week on placement.

Our previous placements and client briefs have included SPECTRA, Aberdeen City Council and Grey Hope Bay, Press & Journal, Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce, Central Library, Aberdeen Art Gallery, Transition Extreme, and the hospitality sector.

We recommend that applicants only study 3 additional school-based courses alongside the Foundation Apprenticeship.