BA Liberal Arts
About this course
Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts, a Liberal Arts degree centred on interdisciplinary studies across arts, humanities, and social sciences. Core topics include Data Analysis, Research Methods, Human Behaviour, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, and Social & Cultural Analysis. Students examine cultural, ethical, and political questions while exploring subjects of personal interest. The first year covers foundational subjects through Ancient Greek Philosophy, Comparative Politics, and Ethics. Second-year studies advance through Culture, Power and Resistance in the Portuguese-Speaking World, Contemporary Issues and Debates in Archaeology, and Criminological Perspectives in Global and Post-colonial Contexts. Optional modules allow further exploration across various disciplines within the arts and social sciences.
Written by AI from the university's course page and module list. It can get details wrong, so check the official course page before you rely on it.
Entry requirements
A level: AAB IB: Pass, with overall score of 34 points with 17 at Higher Level
What students say
Based on about 15 final-year students who answered, across similar courses at this university (a small group: a rough guide only)
- Teaching on my course: 95%
- Learning opportunities: 91%
- Assessment and feedback: 88%
- Academic support: 89%
- Organisation and management: 100%
- Learning resources: 95%
- Student voice: 95%
Do students stay on the course?
Based on about 15 students who started, across similar courses at this university (a small group: a rough guide only)
- Continued on course: 95%
- Left higher education: 5%
Who gets in
Based on about 15 students who started, across similar courses at this university (a small group: a rough guide only)
- A levels: 70%
- Foundation course: 15%
- Other HE qualification: 10%
- Other qualifications: 5%
- No formal qualifications: 5%
Accreditation & quality ratings
TEF 2023 (whole university): Silver overall, Silver for student experience, Silver for student outcomes.
Modules
- Ancient Greek Philosophy
- Common Practice Tonality Fundamentals
- Comparative Politics
- Elements of Linguistics: Sound, Structure and Meaning
- Engaging Political Ideas
- English on the Move
- Ethics
- European Cinema
- Exploring Other Cultures
- Historical Perspectives: Deviance, Conflict, Censure and Control
- History Matters (Object, Image, Text)
- Human Understanding and Understanding Humans
- Inequalities in Everyday Worlds
- Interrogating Crime: An Introduction to Criminology
- Introduction to Film 1: Form, Style and Analysis
- Introduction to French and Francophone Studies
- Introduction to German Studies
- Introduction to International Relations
- Introduction to Spain, Latin America and the Portuguese-Speaking World
- Key Thinkers and Big Ideas: Foundations in Social Theory
- Landscapes and Seascapes of Britain’s Past
- Language, Ideologies and Attitudes
- Music in Context 1
- Music in Context 2
- Portuguese accelerated language stages 3-4
- Reason and Argument
- The (Undergraduate) Learning Curve
- The Invention of English Literature: Medieval to Early Modern
- The Making of Modern English
- The Novel
- The development of Archaeological and Anthropological Thought
- Truth, Knowledge, and Objectivity
- Understanding the Social World
- World Histories Introduced
- A (Dis) United Kingdom? An introduction to British Politics
- Ancient Sources in Context
- Antiquity and Authority: Ancient Persia in Modern Iranian Politics
- Applications of Linguistics
- Applied Ethics
- Debates and Issues in Archaeological Science
- Delivering Justice: Mapping the Criminal Justice System
- Digital Media: Culture and Identity
- Faith and Reason
- Film Theory, Media, Culture and Society
- Foundations of Modern Politics
- Freedom and Responsibility
- Global Dilemmas: Reading Contemporary Politics
- Human Origins
- Introduction to Ethnography: Food and Culture
- Introduction to Global Prehistory: Deconstructing the Emergence of Civilisation
- Language Acquisition
- Literary Transformations
- Masada: History and Myth
- Music sources and transmission
- Pandemic, Famine, War and Popular Revolt: The Apocalyptic Fourteenth Century
- Philosophy of Race
- Putin and the Politics of Post-Soviet Russia
- Puzzles about Art and Literature
- Racism and Resistance: From Slavery to BLM
- Rebellions and Uprising in the age of the Tudors
- Sexual Politics: Gender History in Twentieth Century Britain
- The Crimean War
- The French Revolution
- Theory and Criticism
- Understanding History and Society
- World Dramas
- Culture, Power and Resistance in the Portuguese-Speaking World
- Contemporary Issues and Debates in Archaeology
- Criminological Perspectives in Global and Post-colonial Contexts
- Desire and Decay: Literature of the Long Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
- French Language Stage 5
- German Language Stage 5
- Global Cinemas
- Making History: Historians and Audiences
- Mind and World in the History of Philosophy
- Music Education and Social Justice
- Portuguese Language Stage 5
- Qualitative Research: Methods, Tools and Techniques
- Self, society, nature, and normativity
- Sounding Equality: A Sustainable Music History
- Spanish Language Stage 5
- The Struggle for Democracy
- The Worlding of English Literature
- Theorising International Politics
- Theorizing The Social World
- Variation and Change in English
- Working With Things: the analysis of material culture
- An Anthropology of Everything
- Animal Ethics, Animal Minds
- Building London: the history of a city, 1666 – 2012
- Contemporary Theories of Justice
- Critical Chronologies: Archaeological dating
- Decolonising Modernity
- Digital Media and The World of Work
- Discourse Analysis
- Epistemology: Knowledge and Evidence
- Ethics of Global Poverty
- Ethics of War
- Film, Realism and Reality: representing the world, from revolution to the everyday
- French Accelerated Language Stages 3-4
- Gender and Society
- German Accelerated Language Stages 3-4
- Global Hip Hop
- How the Arts Work: A Practical Introduction to Cultural Economics
- Imperial China: From China’s mythical emperors to the 19th century
- Introduction to European Prehistory
- Language, Power and Institutions: How Linguistic Practices Can Shape Our Lives
- Migration, Borders, Refuge: Political Ethics in an Age of Mobility
- Music Therapy 1: Fundamentals
- Political Thinking
- Portuguese accelerated language stages 3-4
- Psycholinguistics
- Qualitative Research in Politics & International Relations
- Race and Ethnicity in Society
- Spanish Language Stages 3/4 (Accelerated)
- Speech Acts
- Sweatshops, Sex workers, and Asylum Seekers: World Literature and Visual Culture after Globalisation
- Techno Harms: Discrimination, Conspiracy Theories and Extremism
- Television Studies: Key Debates
- The Making of Modern India
- Adventures in Musical Research
- Archaeology Dissertation
- Dissertation
- Dissertation in Politics & International Relations
- Encounters with Bodies in Lusophone Cultural Narrative
- English Dissertation
- Film Dissertation
- French Language Stage 6
- German Language Stage 6
- History Dissertation
- Languages, Cultures and Linguistics Dissertation
- Philosophy Dissertation
- Reading Histories
- Real World Research: Designing Your Dissertation
- Research Project
- Spanish Language Stage 6
- A Short History of Modern Science
- A Short History of the Far Right
- A Short History of the Populist Leader
- Anarchism in Theory and Practice
- Animal Forms: poetry and the non-human
- Breaking the Binary: Gender and Sexuality in Popular Music
- Business, Morality, and Markets
- Classical Chinese Philosophy
- Digital Media, Language and Communication
- Ecology of Human Evolution: Biological, social and cultural approaches to hominin adaptations.
- Environmental Cinema and Media
- Fantasy Film and Fiction
- Framing the Past:Stardom, History and Heritage in the Cinema
- German-Jewish Writing Across the Twentieth Century
- Global Terrorism and Political Violence
- International Film Industry: Issues and Debates
- Music Therapy 2: Beneath the Surface
- Opera and Musical Theatre in Europe (1600-1750): The Birth of Multimedia Entertainment
- Philosophy and Ethics in Psychology and AI
- Presenting the Past: Museums and Heritage
- Reinventing Democracy: Innovation, Participation and Power
- Second Language Acquisition
- Sexuality and Intimacy
- Shakespeare Then and Now
- Social Stratification, Division and Resilience
- The Archaeology and Anthropology of Adornment
- The Ethics of Climate Change
Questions about this course
Are students happy with the teaching on BA Liberal Arts at University of Southampton?
95% of final-year students were positive about the teaching in the National Student Survey 2025-26.
What grades do I need for BA Liberal Arts at University of Southampton?
The typical offer is AAB at A level, or 34 points in the IB. The average entrant had 140 UCAS points.
Does BA Liberal Arts at University of Southampton include a placement year or year abroad?
The course has an optional placement year and an optional year abroad.
How many students continue on BA Liberal Arts at University of Southampton?
95% of students continued into their second year, and 5% left higher education.