MA Immersive Media

Why choose Herts?

Cutting-edge curriculum: Learn emerging AR, VR and real-time technologies through hands-on projects.

Industry Exposure: Herts is on the doorstep of London, the immersive tech and creative innovation capital of the UK.

Industry connections: One of the few universities that are members of Access:VFX with strong links to VFX, Film, Games and Animation sectors.

A degree, ideally in a relevant subject (2.2 minimum), plus a portfolio demonstrating recent engagement and creative activities in your intended study area. Accreditation of professional experience may be possible for practitioners without a first degree. Your degree subject doesn't need to be in immersive media, but some kind of creative subject degree (fine art, film, games, graphics) will be an advantage.

A minimum IELTS score of 6.5 overall with at least 5.5 in any component (or equivalent) is required for those whose first language is not English.

For country specific qualifications, please visit our your country page.

If you do not have the required level of English for entry, our academic English courses can help you to achieve this level.

A selection of your portfolio/reel/previous coursework or self-initiated art. We’re looking for potential to succeed in your chosen field, good ideas that have been developed (they don’t necessarily have to be complete!) and a flair and openness toward the challenge of a masters degree. We recommend you visit us to see if we are right for you - we hold open days where you can often meet relevant staff and view the facilities.

A personal statement outlining why you want to pursue your chosen master's course at the University of Hertfordshire, reflecting on your current skills and experience, and detailing your ambitions for your future career.


Institution code	H36
Course length	Full Time, 1 Years Part Time, 2 Years
Location	University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield

Employability

Careers

With an MA in Immersive Media, you’ll graduate with a strong portfolio of interactive and immersive projects that showcase your creative and technical abilities. These projects will act as your calling card for roles you’ve researched and prepared for during the course. You’ll also develop a deep understanding of contemporary debates around ethics, technology, and workplace practices—ensuring you can adapt to a wide range of industries or thrive as part of the growing freelance workforce within immersive media.

Career paths are varied and exciting. You could become an immersive writer, AR/VR content producer, real-time event producer, or move into more hands-on creative roles such as VR artist, technical artist, or technical director. If you’re drawn to shaping user experiences and thinking strategically, you may find your future in UX design or creative direction. Immersive media needs storytellers, designers, technologists, and visionaries of all kinds—this course will help you find your place among them.

Professional Accreditations

The University of Hertfordshire is a member of Access:VFX the international organisation pursuing inclusion, diversity, awareness and opportunity in the VFX & Animation industries. The program leader is a member of the honorary Visual Effects Society (VES) and UK SIGGRAPH, the worldwide computer graphics association. Herts are also an Unreal Engine accredited school.

Herts is also a Rookies certified school as well as a Houdini certified school.

About the course

MA Immersive Media at Herts will enable you to:

Explore emerging fields such as Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), 360° and volumetric film, spatial computing, and real-time interaction
experiment with a range of immersive technologies to expand creative possibilities and shape your own understanding of the value of immersion through practice
investigate user agency, presence, and representation to blend the digital and physical worlds for live events or individual VR experiences
build artistic resilience in a fast-evolving field, continuously refining your projects and creative resources
perfect for those looking to move into or advance within roles in advertising, marketing, animation, VFX, film, or interactive media.

Why choose this course?

Immersive media is redefining how we experience stories and environments, merging the digital and physical through Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, 360° film, and spatial computing. The MA Immersive Media course helps you expand your creative and technical skillset to design innovative, interactive experiences across diverse industries. Guided by specialists in emerging media, you’ll gain the expertise and confidence to push boundaries and shape the future of immersive storytelling.

Hatfield is on the doorstep of one of the biggest media hubs in Europe, offering direct access to opportunities and expertise in London — the top European centre for immersive tech funding, fuelled by the rise of AR, VR and Metaverse technologies. London also accounts for a third of all VR and AR usage in the UK. With Cambridge, the UK’s AI research hub, just a short train ride away, you’ll be ideally placed to draw inspiration and innovation from both creative and technological centres.

Postgraduate media pathway at the university of Hertfordshire is well respected in the industry, regularly winning awards in The Rookies global rankings, placing third in the world for 2D Animation and fourth for Production Excellence in VFX. The University is also a member of Access:VFX, one of only a few institutions worldwide to hold this status. Our strong connections with the VFX, Film, Games and Animation industries mean you’ll learn first-hand how immersive technologies are being embedded within professional workflows and creative pipelines.

You’ll be able to investigate Generative AI tools and form your own opinions on how useful they are for your own practice. The MA Immersive Media course builds on your previous experience and develops your project management, team collaboration and technical abilities. You’ll gain new enabling toolsets to design, control and deliver immersive experiences for screen-based and interactive industries. Designed for early adopters and entrepreneurial artists, the course is led by tutors and industry professionals who share their case studies, practices and insights — helping you navigate and succeed in this rapidly evolving creative field.

Depending on the direction of your work, you’ll also be able to collaborate with a range of artists and peers across our courses in Animation, Games, Concept Art, 3D and VFX, as well as Digital Comics and Film.

What will I study?

The MA Immersive Media course begins with a series of short, creative projects designed to build your resilience, confidence, and technical skills. You’ll explore a range of immersive tools and technologies, assessing their uses and limitations, while being encouraged to experiment and challenge assumptions about immersion and its real value. Alongside this, you’ll engage with current debates in critical media theory, examining ideas of real-time feedback, presence and embodiment, and the health and wellbeing issues linked to emerging technologies such as visors, haptics and latency.

Our curriculum is the key to the course’s success – a tried and tested structure that has shaped professionals across the screen industries. In the first semester, you’ll be challenged with practical projects that stretch your creativity and imagination. You’ll begin to explore a constellation of 3D, interactive and real-time tools, while the Sources and Significance module introduces you to leading media theorists and critical thinkers. This combination ensures that your practice is both technically innovative and intellectually informed, with the flexibility to incorporate new tools and processes as they emerge.

The second semester focuses on locating your practice within the creative business landscape and aligning your work with your career goals. You’ll research and refine your showreel, portfolio or exhibition, and research your chosen industry, guided by insights from industry professionals and artists. The summer semester is dedicated to your Major Study – a self-initiated project that showcases your creative voice and technical expertise. This final piece will form the centrepiece of your professional portfolio, marking your entry into the evolving world of immersive media.

Level 7

Module	Credits	Compulsory/optional
Practice 1: Developing Skills	30 Credits	Compulsory
In this module, you will develop your knowledge and understanding of current practitioners, processes, techniques, and the scope of your chosen award field. You will become aware of contemporary activities and of where your interests and professional aspirations might fit within current practices and developments. You will develop your independence and autonomy through a series of projects which develop your own voice or style, exploring the particular issues, processes and ideas that interest you. You will also document your creative work and then use reflection to become aware of personal creative methodologies and of new learning.
Digital Media: Sources and Significance	30 Credits	Compulsory
This module aims to provide you with a range of conceptual, critical and research skills suitable for postgraduate-level study in media while supporting you in developing a personal resource of key texts and theories through which you can articulate and locate your own individual practice and its significance. The module views creative practices as research processes and helps you locate your own work within contemporary, advanced-level practice in your discipline and to critically evaluate the bodies of practice and ideas that sustain them. Module delivery includes a range of critical and theoretical methodologies through which the experience of media artefacts may be examined and discussed along with the development of key academic skills including research management, critical evaluation, and creative practice as a research methodology. The skills gleaned on this module will provide you with a platform for research for the remainder of the programme and in your future career.
Practice 2: Creative Project Development	30 Credits	Compulsory
In this module you are required to relate your own practice and learning to developments and emergent activities in their chosen field. In particular, you are asked to challenge your preconceptions of the boundaries, traditions and conceptual paradigms associated with your award field and to work innovatively both within your chosen field and in interdisciplinary contexts. The module is typically delivered in two phases; an interdisciplinary group project which allows you to learn and reflect on group processes and interdisciplinary creative practices and an individual portfolio of projects which is concentrated on creative innovation and those planning processes and documentation strategies appropriate to your own practice. You will continue with the personal blog you began in previous modules and produce an evaluative commentary which identifies the forefront of your field and explores the relationship of your own practice to this work.
Exploring Professional Practice	30 Credits	Compulsory
The Exploring Professional Practice module enables you to plan and manage a small-scale research project that explores an issue or theoretical/critical approach relevant to the professional practice of your individual specialism. The module is delivered through a series of lectures and workshops examining the social, political and economic dimensions of creative digital media practices within professional contexts. You negotiate a topic and approach with your tutor and then carry out an enquiry which must include at least one interview with an appropriately informed professional practitioner. The outcome of this enquiry is an artefact with commentary or video essay equivalent to around 4,000 words. This negotiated outcome may take a variety of forms but usually will draw on or relate to the professional practices or contexts of your award field. The module equips you with the skills, knowledge and understanding to be an authoritative, informed and principled professional practitioner.
Major Study: Immersive Media	60 Credits	Compulsory
This module offers an opportunity to undertake a substantial project in specialist areas of 3D Modelling and Visual Effects, as an individual or a group. You'll learn about developments and antecedents in your chosen area(s) of practice, and how to utilise visual and technical research, and both project and self-management to leverage enterprise and employability opportunities. You will also relate your own practice and learning to developments and emergent activities at the forefront of practice and knowledge in the field of contemporary 3D and VFX.

Further course information

Programme specifications
MA Immersive Media	Download

Additional information
Sandwich placement or study abroad year	n/a
Applications open to international and EU students	Yes

Student experience

At the University of Hertfordshire, we want to make sure your time studying with us is as stress-free and rewarding as possible. We offer a range of support services including; student wellbeing, academic support, accommodation and childcare to ensure that you make the most of your time at Herts and can focus on studying and having fun.

You’ll study in the award-winning FMM (Film, Music and Media) building on the College Lane campus with high spec computer labs. You’ll also have access to the software and hardware of the Learning Resource Centre. If you are a home student, you’ll be able to access the course remotely. It is a prerequisite of your visa for overseas students to study on campus, but all students are welcome on campus 5 days a week.

Find out about how we support our students

You can also read our student blogs to find out about life at Herts.

Funding and fees
Other financial support

Find out more about other financial support available to UK and EU students

Fees 2026
UK Students
Full time
- £10320 for the 2026/2027 academic year
Part time
- £860 per 15 credits for the 2026/2027 academic year
EU Students
Full time
- £17950 for the 2026/2027 academic year
Part time
- £1495 per 15 credits for the 2026/2027 academic year
International Students
Full time
- £17950 for the 2026/2027 academic year
Part time
- £1495 per 15 credits for the 2026/2027 academic year
*Tuition fees are charged annually. The fees quoted above are for the specified year(s) only. Fees may be higher in future years, for both new and continuing students. Please see the University's Fees and Finance Policy (and in particular the section headed "When tuition fees change"), for further information about when and by how much the University may increase its fees for future years.

View detailed information about tuition fees

Living costs / accommodation

The University of Hertfordshire offers a great choice of student accommodation, on campus or nearby in the local area, to suit every student budget.

View detailed information about our accommodation

Read more about additional fees in the Programme Specification.
How to apply

International/EU applicants without pre-settled status in the UK

Apply through our international/EU application portal

Home and EU applicants with pre-settled/settled status in the UK

2026
Start Date End Date Year Location Link
21/09/2026 30/09/2027 1 UH Hatfield Campus Apply online (Full Time)
21/09/2026 30/09/2027 1 UH Hatfield Campus Apply online (Part Time)
2027
Start Date End Date Year Location Link
21/09/2027 30/09/2028 1 UH Hatfield Campus Apply online (Full Time)
21/09/2027 30/09/2028 1 UH Hatfield Campus Apply online (Part Time)

Start Date	End Date	Year	Location	Link
21/09/2026	30/09/2027	1	UH Hatfield Campus	Apply online (Full Time)
21/09/2026	30/09/2027	1	UH Hatfield Campus	Apply online (Part Time)

Start Date	End Date	Year	Location	Link
21/09/2027	30/09/2028	1	UH Hatfield Campus	Apply online (Full Time)
21/09/2027	30/09/2028	1	UH Hatfield Campus	Apply online (Part Time)

Book your Open Day

Apply now

What type of applicant are you?

Sign up for Clearing VIP Access

Get info and updates

Sign up for updates

MA Immersive Media

Why choose Herts?

Careers

Professional Accreditations

About the course

Why choose this course?

What will I study?

Further course information

Student experience

Other financial support

Fees 2026

UK Students

Full time

Part time

EU Students

Full time

Part time

International Students

Full time

Part time

Living costs / accommodation

International/EU applicants without pre-settled status in the UK

Home and EU applicants with pre-settled/settled status in the UK

2026

2027