Studying for a masters

How to apply

Applying for a Masters degree with ThinkSpace Education is a straightforward process. However, if you have not done so already, we recommend booking a one-to-one chat with a course advisor beforehand, as it could save you time overall.

They will be able to answer any questions you might have and take a listen to some examples of your music/audio to check that you are ready for a Masters.

You can also ask us any questions you might have by getting in touch:

postgraduate@thinkspace.ac.uk

+44 (0)1243 256049 (UK office hours)

Ready to apply?

GET STARTED

Step 1

Fill out the online application form

You do not have to complete the form in one sitting. You can save and resume later. What you will need:

To have decided whether you want to study full or part-time.
To provide a personal statement that tells us little about yourself (your background, circumstances, reasons for applying, and personal or professional goals).
To provide some links to examples of your music/audio (e.g links to Soundcloud, YouTube, Bandcamp etc). See below for guidance on what we are looking for.
If you do not have an undergraduate degree (in any subject), you will need to complete an application task. You will find all the details about the task at the relevant stage of the application form.

start your form

Step 2

Wait for your application to be reviewed

This usually takes around 3 weeks, however, we are able to fast-track applications received in the final weeks before a new term begins.

If you have submitted a form and not yet received a response, you can always check in with us by emailing postgraduate@thinkspace.ac.uk

Step 3

Receive a conditional offer

If your application has been successful, we will email you with a conditional offer. This means that as long as you can provide the documentation and additional information we require of students (see next step), you have been accepted onto your degree.

Step 4

Provide documentation

You will need to provide the following documents, which you can upload to our applications system.

A scan or photo of your undergraduate degree certificate (or equivalent qualification).
A scan or photo of your Photo ID (e.g. driving license, passport, national identity card).
If English is not your native language (or you have not completed an undergraduate degree that was taught in English), a copy of your English language test results.
If you do not have an undergraduate degree, any documents to support your application e.g. certificates from vocational courses, foundation degrees, other unaccredited courses, etc.

Step 5

Receive a confirmed offer

We will then review everything you have submitted in Step 4. If we have everything we need, you will receive email confirmation that your application is now complete, along with further details on how to prepare for your course. You will also be sent a student contract and a link to pay an initial deposit. The contract must be signed and the deposit paid within two weeks of receipt. The only exception is if there are less than two weeks remaining before the start date, in which case you need to have signed and paid before the start date.

guidance on examples of music/audio

Our courses require you to submit some examples of your music/audio. This will be different for each course, due to the different skills required for each program. Please read the guidance notes below as part of your application. If you are unsure if your music/audio is of the standard required, we recommend booking a one-to-one chat with a course advisor or emailing us at postgraduate@thinkspace.ac.uk

For this course, we want to hear your ability to write and produce music suitable for media. We would like to hear no more than 10 minutes of your work, with a minimum of 3 pieces of music.

You should be able to produce a good quality, finished MIDI mockup or recordings of your compositions. Evidence that you can make good use of your DAW and MIDI to make your music is key.

We are not expecting everyone to write traditional, cinematic orchestral music. We welcome a wide range of musical approaches, so if you have any doubts about your ability to write suitable music please reach out.

The music should be entirely your own work. You must make it clear where loops or any other pre-recorded audio that is not your own has been used (excluding drum and percussion loops).

For this course, we want to hear your ability to write and produce orchestral music in your DAW. We would like to hear no more than 10 minutes of your work, with a minimum of 3 pieces of music.

You should be able to produce a good quality, finished MIDI mockup or recordings of your compositions. Evidence that you can make good use of your DAW and MIDI to make your music is key. Music written and exported directly as a sound file from a score editor like Sibelius of Finale is unlikely to be sufficient.

We would also like you to submit a written orchestral score of one piece of music. Please provide the score as a PDF. As a rough guide, this score should be of a piece of music around 2 minutes in length.

The music should be entirely your own work. You must make it clear where loops or any other pre-recorded audio that is not your own has been used (excluding drum and percussion loops).

For this course, we want to hear your ability to write and produce music suitable for media. We would like to hear no more than 10 minutes of your work, with a minimum of 3 pieces of music.

You should be able to produce a good quality, finished MIDI mockup or recordings of your compositions. Evidence that you can make good use of your DAW and MIDI to make your music is key.

Video game music covers a wide range of styles, so we are not expecting everyone to write traditional, cinematic orchestral music. If you have any doubts about your ability to write suitable music please reach out.

If you have already worked in games then examples of your work, preferably as screen-captured video and audio, would be welcome.

The music should be entirely your own work. You must make it clear where loops or any other pre-recorded audio that is not your own has been used (excluding drum and percussion loops).

We would like to hear no more than 10 minutes of your work, demonstrating your ability to create sound design or manipulate audio. Ideally, this would be examples of sound design replacements you have done to video games or film clips. However, we understand not everyone will have this in their portfolio if you are moving from a different discipline.

We would encourage you to try replacing the sound effects from a video game cutscene or gameplay footage, but we will also accept:

- Audio and dialogue editing
- Mixing and mastering music (a ‘before and after’ is appreciated)
- Any audio to picture
- Field recording, and foley
- Practical or musical sound design
- Music that shows a high level of audio editing and manipulation capabilities

If you choose to do sound effect replacements, you are allowed to use sound libraries. Sound effects created and manipulated by you is encouraged, but using sound libraries is a key part of a sound designer's workflow so you can use these in your application.

If you have already worked in games then examples of your work, preferably as screen-captured video and audio, would be welcome.

It should be entirely your own work. You must make it clear where loops or any other pre-recorded audio that is not your own has been used. A list of sound libraries you have used to create your work is required.

Please send us a portfolio of your work. We would like to hear no more than 10 minutes of your work. Please include no fewer than 3 different pieces of music. When submitting your application we will ask for a link to your work - here you can provide links from streaming services or direct to a file sharing service (Google Drive, Dropbox and others).

If you have collaborated with anyone else or used commercial loops or midi packs (other than drum loops) please clearly identify which elements are your own original work and what are not.

Your portfolio is the most important part of the application. We would like to hear no more than 10 minutes of music, with a minimum of 3 tracks. When submitting your application we will ask for a link to your work - here you can provide links from streaming services or direct to a file sharing service (Google Drive, Dropbox and others).

What we are looking for is music that demonstrates your ability to write in a variety of styles, including orchestral music. You should be able to produce a good quality, final recording of your compositions. Evidence that you can make good use of your DAW and MIDI to make your music is key. Music written and exported directly as a sound file from a score editor like Sibelius of Finale is unlikely to be sufficient.

We would also like you to submit a written orchestral score of one piece of music. Please provide the score as a PDF. As a rough guide, this score should be of a piece of music around 2 minutes in length.

The music should be entirely your own work. You must make it clear where loops or any other pre-recorded audio that is not your own has been used (excluding drum and percussion loops).

Your portfolio is the most important part of the application. We would like to hear no more than 10 minutes of music, with a minimum of 3 tracks. When submitting your application we will ask for a link to your work - here you can provide links from streaming services or direct to a file sharing service (Google Drive, Dropbox and others).

What we are looking for is music that demonstrates your ability to write in a variety of styles, including orchestral music. You should be able to produce a good quality, final recording of your compositions. Evidence that you can make good use of your DAW and MIDI to make your music is key. Music written and exported directly as a sound file from a score editor like Sibelius of Finale are unlikely to be sufficient.

We would also like you to submit a written orchestral score of one piece of music. Please provide the score as a PDF. As a rough guide, this score should be of a piece of music around 2 minutes in length.

The music should be entirely your own work. You must make it clear where loops or any other pre-recorded audio that is not your own has been used (excluding drum and percussion loops).

Your portfolio is the most important part of the application. We would like to hear no more than 10 minutes of music, with a minimum of 3 tracks. When submitting your application we will ask for a link to your work - here you can provide links from streaming services or direct to a file sharing service (Google Drive, Dropbox and others).

What we are looking for is music that demonstrates your ability to write competently, preferably in a range of styles. You should be able to produce a good quality, finished recording of your compositions. Evidence that you can make good use of your DAW and MIDI to make your music is key.

We are not expecting everyone to write traditional, cinematic orchestral music. We welcome a wide range of musical approaches, so if you have any doubts about your ability to write suitable music please reach out.

The music should be entirely your own work. You must make it clear where loops or any other pre-recorded audio that is not your own has been used (excluding drum and percussion loops).

Your portfolio is the most important part of the application. We would like to hear no more than 10 minutes of music and audio, with a minimum of 3 music tracks. When submitting your application we will ask for a link to your work - here you can provide links from streaming services or direct to a file sharing service (Google Drive, Dropbox and others).

What we are looking for is music that demonstrates your ability to write competently, preferably in a range of styles. You should be able to produce a good quality, finished recording of your compositions. Evidence that you can make good use of your DAW and MIDI to make your music is key.

We are not expecting everyone to write traditional, cinematic orchestral music. We welcome a wide range of musical approaches, so if you have any doubts about your ability to write suitable music please reach out.

We would also like to see examples of you manipulating audio. Ideally, this would be examples of sound design replacements you have done to video games or film clips. However, we understand not everyone will have this in their portfolio if you are moving from a different discipline.

We would encourage you to try replacing the sound effects from a video game cutscene or gameplay footage, but we will also accept:

- Audio, music, and dialogue editing.

- Mixing and mastering music (a ‘before and after’ is appreciated).

- Any audio to picture.

- Field recording, and foley.

- Practical or musical sound design.

Feel free to reach out and show us your portfolio if you want to check if it's suitable. We are happy to discuss this with you.

The portfolio should be entirely your own work. You must make it clear where loops or any other pre-recorded audio that is not your own has been used (excluding drum and percussion loops).

Additional Information

Applying for a postgraduate degree can raise a lot of questions, so in this section we're putting all the miscellaneous information such as a deeper understanding of what we're looking for from applicants, information on applying without an undergraduate degree, technical requirements for different courses and more. If you have any additional questions just reach out.

We want to hear some evidence of the foundational musical or sound design creative skills upon which careers are built. A competent portfolio is key, showing good evidence of your ability to produce good quality work, both creatively and technically. The details of this will vary between courses, so check out the individual course pages for more information.

When assessing your portfolios, we are listening for evidence of significant obstacles - for example, the inability to hear problems with the harmonic or melodic coherence of your music, or poor production and technical skills. We are not expecting a flawless portfolio, but understand that being an online Masters degree we must make sure that our incoming students are capable of keeping up with the demands of the course right from the start.

With our orchestration courses, we are looking for evidence of a high level of music theory. On all the other courses, this is not as important. Many musicians can get by with surface-level music theory and relying on their own ear and intuition, but orchestration requires a foundational set of skills when it comes to music notation and understanding the limitations of the orchestra.

The music/sound design in your portfolio must ideally be all your own work.

Where you have used construction kits, loops, SFX libraries or any other pre-recorded audio that is not your own work you will need to make that very clear. You do not need to tell us if you have used drum or percussion loops, but anything else needs to be declared in the covering letter.

Sound design applicants are permitted to use sound libraries in their submissions. However, it would be useful to make it clear to us what sounds are from library and what was originally recorded by you.

In short, we want to assess you on what you do best, so be clear and upfront about your portfolio and all should be fine!

There are minimum computer specifications and software requirements for each course. These are published on the individual course pages, and you can contact us to discuss your particular workflow and whether the current technical resources you have are suitable. Whilst we are not needlessly biased about your choice of software, there are sometimes features which will be required of which the potential student may not be aware. An example is DAW video player support for a wide range of timecode standards, frequently required in the film/TV industry and not always supported on all software.

If you realise that your technical resources are not up to the job, but plan to upgrade, then that is perfectly acceptable. Many students will need funding before they can make a major purchase. They might want to wait to qualify for an educational discount before purchasing costly software. While we give them advice, ultimately it is the student’s responsibility to ensure they have sufficient technical resources to complete the course.

Applicants are required to have successfully completed an undergraduate degree in any subject. A limited number of places are available for non-degree holders (see the ‘Recognition of Prior Learning’ section). We assume that completion of an undergraduate degree shows the applicant has the required level of academic ability to complete the course. Where applicants have been out of education for some time or come from a very different discipline, we can provide additional support through one to one tutorials during their course.

Our goal is always to make our courses as practical as possible, and directly relevant to the industry you're trying to break into. However, a certain amount of academic writing and workflow is required on any accredited degree course. We understand this may be something that you struggle with so always reach out to us if you have any concerns.

Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) is an application method for those who are applying without a prior undergraduate degree. We have a limited number of applicants we accept each intake through this route, so we highly advise you reach out and discuss this with us before applying.

For those applying through RPL, we would like you to complete the Application Task to submit alongside your regular portfolio of work.

Our goal is always to keep our base course costs low whilst also maintaining high-quality education standards. We do have some additional financial aid we can offer, but we don't have an extensive bursary budget. If you are concerned about funding the course we are happy to talk to you in-depth about the payment schedules and how we deal with invoicing our students.

If you are a UK citizen you may be eligible for a student loan through the Student Loans Company. We suggest taking a look at their website for the most accurate information.

For applicants who are from a country where the first language is not English, we will need you to provide an English language test certificate.

You would be exempt if you have studied an undergraduate degree (in any country), or a higher qualification, that was formally taught in English, regardless of whether English is your first language or not.

The test must be taken before your course start date. Applications may be accepted provisionally pending test results.

For more information about English language tests and the required result score, take a look at the Arts University Bournemouth's website for more information.

have a question? contact us

Need some advice? We’re always here to lend a professional ear.

postgraduate@thinkspace.ac.uk

+44 (0)1243 256049