The Next Chapter: Understanding the Career Aspirations of Students on the MA in Creative Writing, and Developing Teaching and Assessment to Support Them

Creative Writing MAs in traditional bricks and mortar universities such as University of East Anglia and Lancaster are highly selective in their intake and attract students who intend to pursue literary writing as a career. The Open University MA in Creative Writing (qualification code F71), in keeping with the OU’s mission to make HE open to all, is accessible to any student with an Honours degree in any subject, although they are advised to have studied Creative Writing at undergraduate level. Knowledge of the study motivations of these students is limited to the information captured when students first register, which includes categories such as ‘mainly employment/career’ and ‘mainly personal development’. The module team’s assumption when developing the qualification was that most students would, like their counterparts at bricks and mortar HEIs, aspire to become published writers. Over the years since the MA launched evidence has emerged (detailed below) to suggest that our students’ study motivations are more complex and diverse than initially thought. 

The MA in Creative writing is a successful qualification, with both modules (A802 and A803) achieving retention and completion rates higher than other comparable MAs in the Faculty. Both modules have employability embedded in the teaching content. In A802 this takes the form of ‘Professional Practice’ elements (including a dedicated forum featuring guest threads from literary agents and editors). In A803 every unit of teaching material includes ‘Writer in the World’ content, and – as in A802 – there are guest visits from publishing industry professionals to a dedicated forum. Student participation in these guest ‘visits’ is disappointingly low, with only a fraction of students taking the opportunity to engage with the industry professionals. 

 The Creative Writing team has partnered with Bloomsbury Publishing’s Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook to run public, paid-for events on ‘Getting Published’ which are available to OU CW MA students at a generous discount. Generally, around half the 80-90 attendees per event are OU students. 

TMA 04 in A803 has an assessed professional practice component, e.g. a novel synopsis and letter to a literary agent or publisher. A number of students have expressed their dissatisfaction with this component on the various module forums, declaring that it is not useful to them as they have no interest in being published. 

Around 40% of students on the MA are in full-time employment or self-employment. 

Using the information gathered through the Student Support Tool (provided by the Data Interpreter) the breakdown of study motivation for F71 students is: 

5% – Mainly employment/career 
24% – Mainly personal development 
24% – Both equally 
45% – Don’t know 

Therefore, the specific research questions we would like to address are 

(1) What are students’ motivations for doing the MA in Creative Writing? We want to obtain information that goes into more granular detail than the ‘mainly employment/career’ and ‘mainly personal development’ information captured when students first register. 

(2) How might the current teaching materials on Professional Practice/Writer in the World be developed to support the career aspirations of a broader range of our students? 

(3) Do we need to reconsider how this aspect of the module is assessed on A803? 

(4) Should the FutureYOU employability resource that has been developed for UG students on Q86 (English Literature and Creative Writing) be developed for PG CW students?