Certificate in Arts

Course details

The Certificate in Arts is a programme of full-time study carefully designed to provide a positive, valuable and highly-supported educational experience for learners with a variety of needs and ambitions. The programme offers a qualification and an ideal course of preparation for learners wishing to progress to honours level study in the arts or social sciences and it is also very useful for those looking for a broad, skill-based education in preparation for transition to the workplace. Our emphasis throughout the programme is on the building of knowledge, the support of our learners in the acquisition of key academic and work-related skills, and on ensuring that graduates from the programme are placed in a strong and advantageous position for meeting future challenges and opportunities.

Programme Aims and Objectives

The aims and objectives of the Certificate in Arts can be summarised as follows:

• To provide an introduction to a range of subjects available for study within the arts and social sciences.
• To acquaint learners with the requirements of studying particular subjects.
• To promote an understanding of how different academic disciplines or subjects engage and explore different and related concepts and issues.
• To facilitate the development of writing, oral presentation and IT skills.
• To promote the practice of writing in a range of conventions, forms and styles appropriate to different academic subject or disciplines.
• To facilitate in the development of independent study, research and learning skills.
• To facilitate in the development of team-working, project-management, time-management and careers skills.
• To offer the opportunity for progression onto Level 8 programmes of education and training in subject areas related to the content of the programme.

Programme Content

The Certificate in Arts consists of an attractive mix of traditional academic education and a course of continuing academic, personal and professional learning development. The academic strand of the programme consists of four interdisciplinary modules which between them deliver introductions to eight academic subjects or disciplines, with the aim of promoting a broad understanding of their nature, methods, key concepts and concerns. Successful completion of these modules will provide learners with a broad and valuable knowledge base and put them in a very good position to make informed decisions about future study options and their ambitions for the future. The skills based, developmental strand of the programme places very strong emphasis on the process of learning to learn and on the acquisition and constant practise of key academic and transferable skills, such as organisation and time management, effective written and verbal communication, public speaking, project management, career development and IT skills. Successful completion of these modules will ensure that learners know how to manage their own learning and development and to take full responsibility for it.

Teaching and Assessment

As is most appropriate to the nature and purpose of the programme, the teaching philosophy of the Certificate in Arts is to be as learner-centred, exploratory and imaginative as we can be and to make education relevant and exciting to our learners. Our teaching approach is therefore interdisciplinary in nature, being based around the exploration of relevant current topics and issues in the world today from different disciplinary perspectives, and we seek always to ensure that our learners understand that learning is not something that happens only in classrooms, that it happens at all points and situations in our lives and that academic ideas and concepts belong in the world around us. Many of the programme modules therefore incorporate trips to places and events in the immediate Dublin area and beyond in an attempt to connect knowledge to life.

The programme assessment strategy is equally tied to our purpose. It reflects the nature of the challenges the learner can expect to encounter in continuing study or in situations beyond this programme. Learners will become familiar with a variety of styles of writing and presentation and with ways of handling the increasingly wide variety of assessment practices now being employed on academic programmes, including traditional essays, other types of written task, reading tasks, presentations, group and individual projects, group activities, in-class tests, formal examinations, learning diaries, self-reflection exercises, online activities and mock interviews.