Learning platform and teaching in practice
Practical and theoretical investigations remain linked throughout the programme by working on artistic decisions, reflection and analysis. Theoretical insight helps ensure innovation in own practice, which in turn enables further analysis and theoretical investigation. This forms a central part of the programme’s didactic processes and is repeated for the duration of the programme.

Students make studio recordings and stage performances, receive lessons on their principal instrument both individually and in a group, train their aural skills, work with software and production and gain an overview of the history of popular music and the industry both in a cultural-historic context and from a business perspective.

Students will meet musicians, artists, songwriters, producers, lecturers, industry experts and researchers with specialist expertise on the different aspects of the programme. The college often receives visits from high-profile visitors and visiting teachers from Norway and abroad. Students will thereby encounter R&D/AD works of an artistic and technological nature. Students will participate in artistic development work through practice and academic supervision and in particular the Principal Instrument courses, which span five semesters.

The programme enables students to immerse themselves and develop their own style and it allows for collaboration and flexibility. Some of the courses are held together with students from other study programmes and several also have an interdisciplinary character. Here, students have the opportunity to collaborate with professional groups they will want to collaborate with in their future career, such as sound technicians, producers, technicians, production management, etc. Students are part of a community at the School of Arts, Design and Media at the University College, in which they will meet students and supervisors from related disciplines and industries in both professional and informal settings. It also stimulates transferable knowledge and skills, such as creative thinking, teamwork, problem solving, technical skills and communication skills. Students will experience and work as co-creators in a study environment that is closely related to practice and ambitious, with generosity, tolerance and creativity as fundamental values.

The University College’s industry-standard production facilities on Campus Fjerdingen (new in 2016) are at students’ disposal, including outside of ordinary teaching hours, to enable them to work on their own projects. The facilities include specially built practice rooms for bands and smaller groups, recording studios, a concert hall, teaching classrooms, meeting rooms and social zones designed to facilitate collaboration. The technology in the practice rooms and studios is connected in order to provide flexible recording opportunities.

Examination and assessment methods
A number of different examination and assessment methods are used throughout the programme. The assessment methods are adapted to the learning outcomes of the individual course; at the same time, there will be an appropriate distribution of contrasting examination methods in each semester of the programme. The assessment methods allow students different forms of academic challenges both individually and in groups.

Some courses may include compulsory coursework requirements. Coursework requirements are those which students must fulfil in order to be admitted to the examination. Entrance to the examination is conditional upon meeting certain coursework requirements. The scope of and plan for coursework requirements are specified in the course descriptions.

For further information about examinations, please see the Kristiania University College website.

Study program POP-BA-TOT

Bachelor in Popular Music