Kunstgeschiedenis: Arts, Media and Society

First year

In the first year of the BA Arts, Media and Society, students take introductory courses in various fields. All courses are obligatory.

All first year courses need to be passed in order to participate in the BA3 Seminar and the Final Paper Arts, Media and Society in the third year. A fully completed first year might also be a requirement for some electives.

Second year

In the second year of Arts, Media and Society, students build further upon the knowledge and skills gathered in their first year.

Aside from the obligatory core courses, students can choose one out of three specialisation topical courses, and one out of two BA2 seminars in semester 1.

Semester 2 follows a similar pattern, with obligatory courses and a range of topical courses as well as seminars.

*NB: Please note that this programme wil change significantly per 2026-2027, hence cannot be used to create a study plan. Please contact the study advisor for any questions related to the curriculum in 2026-2027.

Third year

The third year comes with a free elective space of 30 EC. Students can decide to obtain these credits in a minor, an individual elective package, an internship or to study at a foreign university. Students may choose courses in another discipline to satisfy these 30 EC. It is also possible to choose electives from the Art History curriculum. It is recommended to discuss your options with the study advisor.

Students need to take only one BA3-seminar (10 EC) in their third year. Depending on their interests and study planning, they follow this course either in the first, or in the second semester.

*NB: Please note that this programme wil change significantly per 2027-2028, hence cannot be used to create a study plan. Please contact the study advisor for any questions related to the curriculum in 2027-2028.

Electives

Admission requirements

The first year of study (60 EC) must have been completed.

Description

In addition to the required courses in the bachelor’s programme, the student is required to take of total of 30 EC in elective courses.
The elective requirement can be satisfied in a variety of ways provided the prevailing faculty and university requirements and norms according article 3.2 of the Course and Examination Regulations are met.

Minor

A minor is a specified programme that is approved in advance. All university faculties offer a range of minors. The minors offered by the Faculty of the Humanities are often interdisciplinary in nature, which means that certain topics, which are sometimes social issues, are approached from various angles.
On the minors website you will find information about the minor system. The minor programmes on offer can be found in the online prospectus for more specific information.

Studying Abroad

A study abroad programme is a good experience for any student and an excellent way to complement the curriculum for your own major area of study. Your time studying abroad also helps you prepare for the job market. For more information about exchange programmes with a foreign university and about grants, please contact either the Humanities International Office or your study advisor.

Study abroad in the BA Arts, Media and Society
There are possibilites to incorporate a full semester abroad in your study programme without delaying your studies. Discuss the options with the study advisor. Students are advised to contact the study adviser in the first period of their second year in order to arrange their exchange in time.

Internship

You can also obtain your 30 EC of electives by completing an internship. This involves working at a business or organisation under the guidance of a lecturer in the faculty and an employee of that organisation. The activities during an internship are often related to what you have learned in your degree programme. If you chose to do an internship, the Student Career Service can help you find a suitable placement at one of a large number of businesses and institutions. Take a look at the internship guidelines and the internship rules and regulations.

Elective Package

If you wish to assemble your own personalised elective package using course offerings at either Leiden University or another institution of higher education, the following conditions apply: The courses chosen must exhibit cohesion and structure. You must consult with your coordinator of studies concerning how to satisfy your elective requirements. The individual elective package must be presented to the examination committee for approval, using the request procedure.

If you want to follow an internship as part of your elective package, the content of your internship must be coherent with the other courses in your elective package.

Remarks

The Board of Examiners needs to approve the course you use in your free elective package. The content of the courses needs to be coherent and the course should be of sufficient level (a combination of first, second and third year courses would be ideal). Students who follow a minor from Leiden University, TU Delft or Erasmus University Rotterdam do not have to ask the permission from the Board of Examiners.

More info

• Programme objectives

• The programme

• Combined BA Arts, Media and Society (Leiden University) and BA Fine Arts (Royal Academy of Art The Hague)

• Transition provisions

• BA Thesis and graduation requirements

• Master's after graduation

Programme objectives

As a student of Arts, Media and Society, you will examine contemporary art practices in order to find new perspectives on global issues. At the Faculty of Humanities, you will make an in-depth study of:

• Historical and contemporary developments in art

• Developments in (digital) media

• The role of art in society

• The cultural value of arts

Arts, Media and Society offers you the opportunity to build both broad and specialist knowledge of how arts, media and society interact with one another. Bringing these elements together makes this programme unique in the world. Becoming an authority starts in Leiden!

The programme

The English-taught full-time Bachelor’s programme in Arts, Media and Society takes three years, and you will graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History, specialisation Arts, Media and Society. In principle, you will be studying for 40 hours a week – a full working week. Around 16 hours a week will be spent in lectures and tutorial groups. In the rest of the week you will be studying independently.

Year 1: Working on fundamental knowledge
In the first year of Arts, Media and Society, you will establish core knowledge and competences in the field of Art History.
While contemporary art is the main focus of the programme, in order to understand the present and the future, you will need fundamental knowledge about the past.

Binding Study Advice
Bachelor students at Leiden University, will be issued with binding study advice (BSA). This means you must obtain sufficient study credits in your first year of study to be permitted to continue your Bachelor’s programme. The general requirements for full time BA students are: 45 EC in your first year.
In addition, the BA programme Arts, Media and Society requires students to succesfully pass the courses Photography: Analysis & Theory and Academic Skills II (minimum grade 6.0). Please read the information about the binding study advice (BSA) procedures.

Year 2: Studying cutting-edge developments
Focusing on global issues in our globalised and technological era, you will examine the impact of art and media in society, and of course, the interactions between them.
You will immerse yourself in the world of cutting-edge developments in contemporary art and media — from traditional media to digital media, from activist art to poetic encounters.
Social media will be examined as platforms and strategies for political and social action, e.g., during the Arab Spring.

Year 3: Theorising intersections and relations
In the third year, you will advance your theoretical understanding at the intersection of art, media and society and develop your own critical analysis in the form of a thesis.
The dynamic exchange between artistic strategies and activist strategies will be a converging point of the programme.
In the Arts, Media and Society programme there is a free elective space of 30 EEC which you can use to do an internship, study abroad or follow a minor programme at another faculty.

Combined BA Arts, Media and Society (Leiden University) and BA Fine Arts (Royal Academy of Art The Hague)

Please note that the Combined Degree programme will be discontinued per 2025-2026. The last Combined Degree cohort has started in 2024-2025.

Students from the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) can combine their visual arts program with the Bachelor’s programme Arts, Media and Society at Leiden University. After four years, students receive a bachelor's degree from Leiden University as well as from the Royal Academy . The goal is to train artists who will actively participate in the discourse in arts and society.

Students participating in the Double Degree programme must comply with the Binding Study Advice requirements for the BA Arts, Media and Society. Please note that KABK exemptions are considered regular AMS courses which count towards the BSA requirements.

Transitional provisions

Due to changes in the curriculum of the programme with effect from 1 September 2023, the transition regulation below applies. Courses listed in the left-hand column, are no longer offered and may be replaced by courses listed in the right-hand column.

Transition regulations BA1

*This course replaces the course 'Cultures of Exhibiting'. Students who started their programme in 2024-2025 or earlier, and did not pass Cultures of Exhibiting, have to follow an online version of Cultures of Exhibiting in 2025-2026. Please e-mail stuco-ba-kg@hum.leidenuniv.nl in case of any questions.

BA Thesis and graduation requirements

In order to be able to graduate, students need to have obtained 180 EC according to the programme requirements. Furthermore, they need to meet the requirements of the free elective space and they should have succesfully finished the BA Final Paper AMS. The regulations with regard to the Final Paper are published in the most recent Teaching and Examination Regulations and on the website with graduation procedures.

The Bachelor Thesis Arts, Media and Society is written as part of a thematic seminar, offered in the second semester. There is the possibility to ask the Board of Examiners for permission to write the thesis in the first semester. Students who do not succeed to pass their thesis on the deadline or resit deadline, have to start again in the next semester, with a new subject for their thesis.

Master's after graduation

After obtaining your bachelor’s degree you can continue with a master’s programme. Once you have successfully completed your master’s you will have earned the title of Master of Arts (MA).

If you have obtained a bachelor’s diploma in Arts, Media and Society, then Leiden University offers four types of masters:

One-year master’s
A one-year master’s in Arts and Culture (60EC) which follows on from the Bachelor’s programme in Arts, Media and Society. Within this master’s programme you can opt for the following specialisations:

• Art History

• Museum Studies

Research master’s
A two-year master’s programme for if you want to continue in the academic world once you have completed your studies. The Bachelor’s programme in Arts, Media and Society can be completed with this research master’s:

• MA Arts, Literature and Media (research)

A master’s in teaching
A two-year master's which prepares you for a position in education in the Netherlands, for example at a secondary school or in adult education. There are a number of criteria students of Arts, Media and Society have to meet to be eligible for this programme.

• ICLON

Other one-year master’s programmes
For example:

• MA in International Relations

• MA in Media Studies

Career Preparation

Labour market preparation in the BA Arts, Media and Society

In addition to offering a solid university education, Leiden University aims to prepare you for the labour market as well as possible, and in doing so contribute to the development of your employability. In this way, it will become easier for you to transition to the labour market, to remain employable in a dynamic labour market, in a (career) job that suits your own personal values, preferences and development.

'Employability' consists of the following aspects that you will develop within your study programme, among others:

1. Discipline-specific knowledge and skills
Knowledge and skills specific to your study programme.

2. Transferable skills
These are skills that are relevant to every student and that you can use in all kinds of jobs irrespective of your study programme, for example: researching, analysing, project-based working, generating solutions, digital skills, collaborating, oral communication, written communication, presenting, societal awareness, independent learning, resilience.

3. Self-reflection
This concerns self-reflection in the context of your (study) career, including reflecting on the choices you make as a student during your studies, what can you do with your knowledge and skills on the labour market?
In addition, reflecting on your own profile and your personal and professional development. Who are you, what can you do well, what do you find interesting, what suits you, what do you find important, what do you want to do?

4. Practical experience
Gaining practical experience through internships, work placements, projects, practical (social) assignments, which are integrated into an elective, minor or graduation assignment.

5. Labour market orientation
Gaining insight into the labour market, fields of work, jobs and career paths through, for example, guest speakers and alumni experiences from the work field, career events within the study programme, the use of the alumni mentor network, interviewing people from the work field, and shadowing/visiting companies in the context of a particular subject.

Employability in BA Arts, Media and Society

You will also find these employability elements in your study programme. Examples of subjects that pay attention to this are:

First year

• Academic Skills I: introduction to academic research and written communication, as you will for the first conduct literature research and write an academic paper about this.

• Academic Skills II: oral communication (you will give a presentation of your own research to your fellow students), analysing texts, critical thinking and offering constructive feedback (by commenting on the oral presentations of your peers).

Second year

• World Art and Beyond: intercultural skills (students will be made aware of the commonalities and differences between different cultures and the ways these are being dealt with in art)

• AMS on Site: collaboration (students will have to work on assignments in a group), project management (dividing tasks in the group and monitor progress of the project), written and visual communication.

• Digital Heritage:
  Digital Heritage focuses on the most current form of heritage research involving both the preservation of digital heritage, and the digitization of heritage.

Third year

• Framing AMS Case Studies: to creatively engage with approaches to case studies and related materials, to learn how to ‘frame’ cases or objects.

Activities to prepare for the labour market alongside / outside the curriculum

You will be notified via the Humanities website, your study programme website and email about further activities in the area of job market preparation. The following activities will help you to thoroughly explore your options, so we would encourage you to take careful note of them:

First year

• Introductory interview with study advisor

• Mentoring and Academic Skills

• Study career session with student mentors and teaching staff mentor

• Introduction to the the Humanities Career Service

• Study abroad information session

• Leiden University Career Zone.

Second year

• Internship information session

• Workshop ‘Competences in Humanities’ and

• Various other Humanities Career Service workshops

• Minor Market (Leiden University)

• Master’s Open Day (Leiden University)

• Humanities Career Event

• Activities of study association The Leiden Art History Association

• Leiden University Career Zone.

Third year

• Practical knowledge about the academic world of Arts, Media and Society during The Academic Art of Publishing: Theory and Practice

• Study abroad

• Master’s Open Day (Leiden University)

• Humanities Career Event

• Workshop ‘How to find a job?’ and workshop ‘CV and letter’

• Activities of study association The Leiden Art History Association

• Leiden University Career Zone.

Humanities Career Service, LU Career Zone and Career Workshops Calender

Humanities Career Service
The Humanities Career Service offers information and advice on internships, study (re)orientation and master's choice, orientation on the labour market and careers.

Leiden University Career Zone
The Leiden University Career Zone is the website for students and alumni of Leiden University to support their (study) career. You can find advice, information, (career) tests and tools in the area of (study) career planning, career possibilities with your study, job market orientation, job applications, the Alumni Mentor network, job portal, workshops and events and career services.

Workshops and events
On the Workshops calendar you will find an overview of career and application workshops, organised by the Humanities Career Service.