Program Overview

An International Foundation Year at our International Study Centre prepares you for your degree at Lancaster University. You will focus on English language, university-level study skills, and academic modules that relate to your degree subject.

Supporting your progression to the University
At the International Study Centre, we take every measure to ensure you are supported in your academic journey. Our programmes allow for increased time spent learning, researching and developing your skills. By studying with us, you will benefit from:

• Formal assessments at the end of each term.
• An improved English language module, Academic English Skills, providing greater opportunity for informal assessments and feedback.
• Combining and reducing the number of module assessments allowing more time to prepare.
• A personal tutorial system with a focus on your academic progress at key points of the academic year, creating action plans based on your performance and progession options.

Social Studies
The International Foundation Year in Social Studies leads to a choice of undergraduate degrees in the Faculty of Arts and Social Studies and the Faculty of Science and Technology. To prepare for your degree, you will study core English language modules and subject modules. Degree options include Philosophy, Sociology, and Film.

You will learn about global issues and contemporary events, including business, culture, politics and environment. Other areas of study include advertising, social media, psychology, and theories that relate to media and modern society.

Film, Media and Cultural Studies
Lancaster’s degree in Film, Media and Cultural Studies, taught by the Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts and the Sociology department gives you the opportunity to study film within the broader areas of communications and entertainment media and culture.

Film at Lancaster is a stimulating and intellectually engaging course which provides a framework for the close analysis of individual films. You will study cinema history and the social significance of films and will develop a detailed understanding of the techniques of film production. You will also have the opportunity to produce short films in all three years of your study. You can choose from a range of specialist courses and will develop skills that can lead to postgraduate study and careers in the media, advertising and marketing.

The Media and Cultural Studies programme at Lancaster is similarly theoretical and analytical but also contains practical components and skills embedded within the core curriculum. This programme is concerned with the critical study of media and culture and offers you the opportunity to examine historical and contemporary issues and debates. We will cover such themes as media history, politics and power, subcultures and marginal cultures, the role played by media in contemporary activist movements, the relationship between media, gender, race, ability, disability and body image, and making, reforming and hacking the public sphere.

On this combined programme of study you will take the core modules from the Film Studies programme and the closely related Media and Cultural Studies programme. You can choose optional modules from a wide range of topics (see Course Structure section in above menu). 

In your final year, you will complete an independent research Dissertation, where staff will support you on a topic of your choice, and where you have the option to combine practical and written elements.