Music at Bangor University: Tailor Your Degree and Find Your Passion

A Warm Welcome and Instant Connection

From the moment she arrived, Fern Wilson knew Bangor University was home. Hear about her transformative experience in the Music department, where she found supportive faculty, lifelong friends, and the freedom to pursue her musical passions.

"Well, I came on the applicant day with my mum, and as soon as we got here, it was just so beautiful. It was such a rainy day as well, so we thought it was going to be such a Monday, but it wasn’t. It was beautiful, it was so nice. After having a little meeting with the School of Music, everyone was so lovely. Everyone was so helpful, and everyone wanted to help and wanted to do everything for you. They answered every one of our questions, which was so pretty. I just felt like I was already at home, so I knew that I wasn’t going to feel homesick when I came here, which was quite a nice feeling to have."

A Flexible and Personalised Music Degree

"In the music degree, there are so many options you can get, so you can pretty much tailor the course to how you want to do it. You can literally pick every module that you want to do, apart from a few core modules. So, I’ve got basically the same degree as all my friends, but we do completely different things. It’s nice to have variation in what you can do. Then, when it got to my third year, I started to specialise more and more, which was really handy for me. There were some subjects that I wasn’t interested in, or I didn’t think I’d do well in those ones, so I picked the ones that I was really, really passionate about, and I got to do really well in those ones. There’s hundreds of modules to choose from, which was really helpful for me."

Real-World Experience and Career Development

"In my third year, I applied for an internship here at Bangor and was offered one. It was a Snapchat internship, so I got to take pictures around Bangor for a couple of months and go to all the events, which was a fun experience. I was also a digital ambassador here, so I got to do the same thing: go to open days and take pictures. I also did work experience at one of the ensemble groups we have, going around and touring with them on that tour in November and May. It was to help boost my CV a bit for my master’s application, so that really helped me get to where I wanted to go."

A Vibrant Student Community

"In my first year, I was really, really worried about joining anything, so I didn’t join anything. I was too scared, and I so wish I had done it because I joined handball in the second year and then powerlifting in the third year, and it was the best decision I ever made to join something. So, my only regret is that I wish I joined it in the first year. I really wish I did. I think meeting so many amazing people is so nice that you get to have a mix of everyone from different courses. You can also make friends who study zoology, psychology, and everything here, which is the best feeling ever. And even when you get really close to your coursemates, because you really do, like, we’re a family on my course, because only about 50 of us study it, and that was just the best. And I pretty much made life-long friends. I will continue my education with one of my closest friends here, so that’s probably nice."

Future Aspirations and Career Goals

"I’m going to do my master’s at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, which I’m very excited about. So, I get to do that for a year, and then hopefully from there, I will get to do a job in arts management, so I get to study all the business side as well as the music side, which is fun."