Your student experience

The Main Library holds material covering a wide range of subjects, with 400,000 items of high-use material on the first, second and third floors.

Our heritage research collections are in the Research Reserve, which comprises over 50 kilometres of stock. Items from the Research Reserve can be requested via our catalogue (FindIt@Bham), and will be retrieved for you to consult. Certain items, due to fragility or rarity, can only be consulted in the Allport Room study space in the Research Reserve. Research postgraduates can request to browse the stock on the shelves in the Research Reserve. The Main Library’s Tony Skyrme Research Suite, exclusively for the use of research students and academic staff, is located on the first floor with views over the Green Heart.

Subject libraries

The University’s collections are located primarily in the Main Library, but other subject specific libraries across campus will be particularly beneficial to College of Arts and Law students.

The Barber Fine Art Library is a specialist research level collection. It covers most of the major European schools of painting from the early Renaissance to twenty-first century, the history of collecting, and also some Byzantine art.

The Cadbury Research Library is home to the University’s Special Collections, which includes extensive archives, manuscripts and rare book collections.

The Orchard Learning Resource Centre can be found on the Selly Oak campus and holds over 100,000 items, encompassing religious studies, arts and humanities. It has over 400 study spaces and is also home to the Eton Myers teaching collection, on loan from Eton College.

The Shakespeare Institute Library is a major UK resource for the study of English Renaissance literature, situated in Stratford-upon-Avon. It has an international reputation and is used by Shakespeare academics and scholars from around the world, and is home to the Shakespeare Rare Book and Archive Collection.

Westmere is the hub for postgraduate research students at the University of Birmingham. It offers quiet study spaces and communal areas just for our postgraduates.

The building hosts regular postgraduate researcher workshops, conferences, training sessions, socials and networking events.

Each of the University’s five Colleges has a Westmere scholar to coordinate activities for postgraduate researchers. They ensure that students are able to benefit from the opportunities offered.

The facilities in Westmere can also be booked by postgraduate research students for events and meetings. There are four spaces available to book: the Seminar Room, Foyer, Social Space and Garden.

The College of Arts and Law has a variety of comfortable places available for you to study and research in.

Postgraduate researchers

Desk space is available for postgraduate researchers in the Westmere Postgraduate Research Hub. Students can be allocated a desk with a computer as well as shelf space. There is access to a kitchen, lockers and meeting rooms. A limited number of desks have been made available exclusively for use by students in the College of Arts and Law.

The College also has a significant number of desks available to postgraduate research students in the European Research Institute (ERI). With similar facilities to Westmere, students become part of the academic community.

Postgraduate taught students

The Arts Building and the European Research Institute (ERI) building provide hot-desking facilities for postgraduate taught students. These provide a quiet working place to use between lectures and seminars, with computer and printing facilities. These spaces are generally available for use from 9:00 to 18:00 every day of term.

Postgraduate students can access learning resources and facilities in the College of Arts and Law.

The Bramall Music Building hosts a wide variety of events across the year, and is also home to the Electroacoustic Music Studios. These are used for a variety of tasks, including multichannel electroacoustic composition, mixed instrumental and electroacoustic composition, and multimedia work.

The Barber Institute of Fine Arts contains two libraries specialising in music and fine art. It exhibits the work of an extraordinary range of artists, including Monet, Manet, Renoir, Degas, and Van Dyck.

The Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing has a range of digital tools. They can be used for viewing original materials, transcribing them, comparing texts and analysing patterns of variation.

The Shakespeare Institute, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, is home to researchers with varied interests. These include Shakespeare and medicine, Asia and religion, textual editing, and wider corpus of Renaissance drama.

The Danford Collection of West African Art and Artefacts celebrates the artistic expression of countries in West Africa. It is home to over 1000 objects, including woodcarving, metalwork, pottery, textiles, painting and domestic and votive objects.

The Archaeology Museum is an actively used teaching collection of approximately 2000 examples of Greek, Mycenean, Roman and Egyptian pottery, funerary, domestic and religious objects.

The Barber Institute of Fine Arts houses one of the most impressive collections of coins in the world with around 16,000 objects in its collection. These include Roman, Byzantine, Sasanian, medieval Islamic and medieval and modern Hungarian coins.

The College of Arts and Law Graduate School provides a range of careers support throughout your degree and beyond.

The College careers support includes:

• Development Needs Analysis to support your skills development
• Workshops and events to contribute your personal development
• Access to online resources
• Language training
• Employability skills training

The Careers Network also provides substantial support to postgraduates.

In addition, a range of employability events are held by the University Graduate School for postgraduate researchers. Please refer to the University Graduate School for more information about these.

Postgraduate students in the College of Arts and Law are encouraged to undertake paid work alongside their study or research.  This includes casual work opportunities on campus and student representation. Researchers may also be offered teaching opportunities.

For postgraduate researchers, postgraduate teaching assistant (PGTA) roles are not only paid generously, but are also a brilliant way to develop confidence. They are particularly useful if students are hoping to embark on an academic career. This role would involve facilitating seminar groups or teaching small classes of undergraduate students. If students choose to be a PGTA, there are also a wide variety of training workshops designed to prepare them for the role.

Alongside paid work, the Guild of Students also has over 200 societies, community volunteering groups and associations for you to join. These provide brilliant development opportunities whilst allowing for flexibility alongside your research. Those providing voluntary experiences include: Amnesty International, the Howard League for Penal Reform, Freedom from Torture, Nightline, Student Action for Refugees, and The Autism Play Project.

Birmingham is home to lots of brilliant places to visit for your studies, research and enjoyment.

Museums and Art Galleries

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery has a collection of international importance covering fine art, ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, natural history, archaeology, ethnography, local history and industrial history. This ranges from a Pre-Raphaelites Gallery to an Ancient Egypt Gallery.

The Ikon Gallery is a gallery of contemporary art, located in Brindleyplace. It is housed in the Grade II listed, neo-gothic former Oozells Street Board School and was set up to encourage the public to engage in contemporary art. The gallery runs an off-site 'Education and Interpretation' scheme that educates audiences, promotes artists and their art.

Music and theatre venues

Birmingham is home to a wide variety of music and theatre venues including Birmingham Symphony Hall, Birmingham Hippodrome and large international music venues.

For classical music lovers Birmingham Town and Symphony Hall will be right up your street. The Symphony Hall, widely considered one of the finest in the world, has a 6000-pipe symphony organ specially tailored to the hall's reverberation chambers. Along with classical music, these venues present a programme of jazz, world, folk, rock, and pop concerts, organ recitals, spoken word, dance, comedy, and educational performances.

The Birmingham Hippodrome is the place to go for the best musicals, dance, opera, ballet and even pantomime.

The Solihull Arts Complex hosts a varied mix of professional and amateur events including music, drama, comedy and dance. Most areas are available to hire and successful events are held almost every night from local drama groups to national commercial promoters.

For those who prefer a smaller audience, the Old Joint Stock would be ideal. This old Victorian bank building is now home to a theatre and pub with an island bar below a glass-domed roof. The Old Joint Stock offers regular productions with low prices and a great atmosphere.

There are lots of ways to keep up to date with what is going on in the College. We would recommend you to follow the @UoBGradSchool, @CAL Postgrads and @Artsatbham Twitter feeds below.  Events and opportunities are promoted on these feeds, as well as postgraduate open days that you or friends may wish to attend.