Graduate Certificate Jewellery and Related ProductsSchool of Jewellery
Additional costs for this course
We have provided you with a breakdown of the essential costs and the optional costs which are dependent on your budget.
Please note that your marks are not a reflection of how much you spend, so a student who spends less than the estimated costs won’t be marked down, compared to a student who spends more.
Materials for technical modules
Throughout your course you’ll find you will be required to purchase a number of additional items, which are not included within your course fees. The cost will vary depending on the design project each student devises.
We appreciate that resources can be expensive, so you’ll be provided with the best advice and guidance on where to buy materials and tools. Jewellery can be a high-end luxury item and even at its most modest level requires a budget to realise a collection of work of professional standard.
You’ll require a variety of materials throughout the course, such as paper, textiles, fabric, metals, wood, tools, sculpting and modelling materials to develop experimentation and prototypes – these depend on the scale and direction of your design projects.
It is also mandatory for you to put together a professional portfolio on the course. It can consist of business cards, website, and blog for example. The cost of this is included in the average budget mentioned below.
Depending on your particular project, you may also incur costs for external technical services such as laser printing and cutting, casting, plating, presentation materials for the installation of collections.
An average budget of £1,500 for modelling and final presentation of projects for the length of the course is typical.
Books
There are a number of specialist publications and the vast majority are available from our university library and digital library. The School of Jewellery houses a very special and subject-specific library.
Specialist booksellers visit the school and offer the opportunity to buy some rare jewellery books. On average a budget of about £100-£150 for books is sufficient.
Laptops and Software
You will require use of a laptop or Mac, however it is not essential for you to purchase your own laptop (PC or Mac), as you can also borrow a laptop from the university or use one of our shared computer rooms. Laptops may be borrowed for free for up to six hours and may be found at the following locations: Curzon building, Millennium Point, Parkside building, the School of Jewellery and Margaret Street (Birmingham School of Art). Most students do prefer to have their own laptops, and we suggest you allow about £300 to £1,200 for this, dependent on your preferences and budget. Apple also offer a discount on laptops for UK students: go to Apple for Education for more details.
If you would like to purchase a laptop we would advise the below:
It has over 1GB memory and a large enough hard drive to access relevant software. It is capable of running Adobe Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator.
capable of running Adobe Creative Suite (recommend a student subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud for these applications)
You’ll also be provided with a free account for Lynda.com worth £227.40.
Microsoft Office 365 and 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage space is provided free to all students.
Printing
Our on-campus print shop can produce high-quality prints for your portfolio, assignments and dissertation on an at-cost basis, although you can reduce print costs by submitting assignments online.
However there will be requirements to print some documents. On this course you’ll be required to produce a professional portfolio. You should budget for up to £200 for printing and binding.
Field trips
We encourage you to attend exhibitions and events, and there will be organised study trips that require travel to various places such as London and Manchester. You may want to budget between £50-£100 for general UK events and exhibitions to cover travel and entrance fees. You’ll be able to take advantage of the student discounts.