The Faculty of Arts will be offering an innovative degree course as from October – the Bachelor of Humanities. The course allows students to create a tailored degree, where they choose study units most suitable to their aims and interests. Students will also be able to choose a proportion of study units from other faculties.

This new concept aims to cater for students with a specific career goal in mind as well as mature students wishing to generally broaden their education.

The number and variety of taught masters’ programmes is also growing with the latest addition being a taught MA in Mediterranean studies, which will also start in October.

The launching of these new degrees coincided with the publication of positive results of a tracer study on faculty alumni, which indicated that only 5.9 per cent of arts graduates were currently out of work, or employed but looking for a new job.

The study was conducted by the University’s Centre for Labour Studies among 1,570 students who graduated from the faculty between 2003 and 2012, representing 66 per cent of the targeted students. The faculty is now one of the University’s largest faculties with around 1,300 students in 16 departments.

Faculty dean Dominic Fenech said the study disproved the myth that it is hard for arts graduates to find work or that they generally find unsatisfactory employment. On the contrary, he said the study shows that arts graduates’ academic and job expectations are often met, and that most graduates eventually settle down well in their career.

Prof. Fenech said although the faculty cannot predict which jobs its graduates would find, the market for art students was constantly expanding. He added that arts graduates were no longer forced to remain in the traditional track of jobs that a BA degree usually offers. Since these degrees do not focus on leading students to a specific profession, their career possibilities have become endless, he said.

Marie Claire Finger is an MA History of Art student and Insite print editor.