University Carlos III of Madrid
Bachelor's Degree in Cultural Studies (Bilingual)
Getafe, Spain
Bachelor's degree
DURATION
4 years
LANGUAGES
English, Spanish
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2026
TUITION FEES
EUR 7,000 / per year *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* for non-European students | for EU students: € 1,500/year
Key Summary
The Bachelor’s Degree Program in Cultural Studies seeks to train professionals capable of understanding the growing complexity of today’s urban and cosmopolitan societies: social movements; leisure industries and cultural consumption as the basic economic engines; access to cultural property and goods; cultural factors in group management in all ambits; and the semantic complexity of messages in the information society.
This bachelor’s program, broadly extended in Anglo-Saxon countries, endows its students with the theoretical, analytical, and methodological tools necessary for pursuing their professions as analysts, creators, managers, or activists in companies and institutions related to this sector and cultural communication, as well as cultural management.
The Cultural Studies Bachelor’s Degree, to be taught for the first time in the academic year 2019-2020, can be studied in the bilingual modality and offers curricular internships in the sector’s principal businesses and institutions.
Bilingual studies
This degree courses in English and Spanish. In the courses taught in English, there aren't groups in Spanish, so there isn't a possibility to choose the language in which you will carry out your studies. You must take into mind that:
- In groups in English, all work (classes, drills, exercises, tests, etc.) will be conducted in English.
- During the first year, it must establish an English B2 level, perform a test, and provide one of the supported official certificates or any way determined by the university. In the first weeks of the course will inform students how they can prove their level.
- After completing the studies, in your DS will appear a mention of bilingual studies.
Year 1 - Semester 1
- Cultural Anthropology (6 ECTS)
- The cultural dimension of art (6 ECTS)
- Humanities courses I (6 ECTS)
- Information Skills (3 ECTS)
- Introduction to cultural studies (6 ECTS)
- Mass Media Theory (6 ECTS)
Year 1 - Semester 2
- Cultural Geography (6 ECTS)
- Culture in its historical dimension (6 ECTS)
- Philosophy in History and Culture (6 ECTS)
- Humanities courses II (3 ECTS)
- Theory of Representation (6 ECTS)
- Writing and communication skills (3 ECTS)
Year 2 - Semester 1
- Analysis of literary discourse (6 ECTS)
- Communication and mediation theory (6 ECTS)
- Construction, transmission, and reception of culture (6 ECTS)
- Ethics and Culture (6 ECTS)
- Sociology of Culture (6 ECTS)
Year 2 - Semester 2
- Analysis of audio-visual discourse (6 ECTS)
- Current tendencies in literary studies (6 ECTS)
- Rhetoric, Culture, and Mass Media (6 ECTS)
- Social Groups and its Cultural Imaginaries (6 ECTS)
- World cultural regions (6 ECTS)
Year 3 - Semester 1
- Analysis of performative discourse (6 ECTS)
- Cultural Industry (6 ECTS)
- Policies of diversity (6 ECTS)
- Processes of Modernization (6 ECTS)
- Science and Culture (6 ECTS)
Year 3 - Semester 2
- Analysis of Subcultures in Social Sciences (6 ECTS)
- Digital Culture (6 ECTS)
- Feminisms (6 ECTS)
- Urban Studies (6 ECTS)
- Electives: Recommended 6 credits
Electives: Recommended 6 credits
Year 4 - Semester 1
- Cultural policies and institutions (6 ECTS)
- Culture, work, and intellectual property (6 ECTS)
- Race, ethnicity, and post-colonial cultures (6 ECTS)
- Religion and cultural construction (6 ECTS)
- Written and visual culture (6 ECTS)
Electives: Recommended 6 credits
Year 4 - Semester 2
- Bachelor Thesis (6 ECTS)
- Globalization (6 ECTS)
- Intermediate knowledge of Spreadsheets (3 ECTS)
- Management and interpretation of cultural heritage (6 ECTS)
- Soft Skills (3 ECTS)
Electives: Recommended 6 credits
Electives to choose in 3rd and 4th year
At the end of your studies, you must have obtained a total of 18 credits of selectivity
- Cultural History (6 ECTS)
- History of Cinema (6 ECTS)
- History of Music (6 ECTS)
- History of Theatre (6 ECTS)
- Inter-disciplinary seminar on body, emotions, and culture (6 ECTS)
- Inter-disciplinary seminar on culture and digital society (6 ECTS)
- Inter-disciplinary seminar on diversity and cultural studies (6 ECTS)
- Inter-disciplinary seminar on the city (6 ECTS)
- Knowledge Society (6 ECTS)
- Language and Society (6 ECTS)
- Professional Internships (6 ECTS)
- Culture, work, and intellectual property (6 ECTS)
- History of Cinema (6 ECTS)
- History of Theatre (6 ECTS)
- Inter-disciplinary seminar on body, emotions, and culture (6 ECTS)
- Inter-disciplinary seminar on culture and digital society (6 ECTS)
- Knowledge Society (6 ECTS)
- Culture, work, and intellectual property (6 ECTS)
Electives to choose in 3rd and 4th year
At the end of your studies, you must have obtained a total of 18 credits of selectivity
- Cultural History (6 ECTS)
- History of Music (6 ECTS)
- Inter-disciplinary seminar on diversity and cultural studies (6 ECTS)
- Inter-disciplinary seminar on the city (6 ECTS)
- Language and Society (6 ECTS)
- Professional Internships
Mobility
Exchange programs
The Erasmus program permits UC3M first-degree and post-graduate students to spend one or several terms at one of the European universities with which UC3M has special agreements or take up an Erasmus Placement, a work placement or internship at an EU company. These exchanges are funded with Erasmus Grants which the EU and the Spanish Ministry of Education provide.
The non-European mobility program enables UC3M degree students to study one or several terms in one of the international universities with which the university has special agreements. It also has funding from the Banco Santander and the UC3M.
These places are offered in a public competition and are awarded to students with the best academic record and who have passed the language threshold (English, French, German, etc..) requested by the university of destination.
- QS World University Rankings Top 50 Under 50
- 35th spot worldwide and ranked 10th in Europe, on QS Top 50 Under 50 Ranking
- QS World University Rankings
- 319th position on the QS World University Rankings 2024
- QS World University Rankings Subjects Rankings
- Among the world’s best universities in 13 academic fields, according to QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023
- QS Graduate Employability Rankings
- Among the 136 best universities in the world for employability, according to THE’s Global University Employability Ranking 2022
Graduates of the Bachelor's Degree in Cultural Studies must have a theoretical or practical interest in the various facets of contemporary society, but to which is added a greater sensitivity to the semantics and contents of the particular cultures that articulate social institutions. This is a student who is not entirely satisfied with the tools and theories of the social sciences, but who also does not consider the teachings of the more traditional disciplines of the humanities to be sufficient.
Secondly, a student who is an analyst, a theoretician, a creator, a manager, and an activist. The degree proposed here also aspires to provide knowledge and tools with which to understand and provide an adequate response to these characteristic challenges of today's societies, without prejudice to recognizing that the analytical procedures and academic rigor achieved by traditional disciplines must constitute a stimulus for the use of basic knowledge and methodological tools with which to solidly construct the new frameworks of creation and interpretation.
The bilingual nature of the proposed degree provides a further attractive and differentiating factor within the panorama of university studies in the Humanities in Spain and will notably increase the international mobility of students, which will also be favored by the fact that it is a degree that already exists and is consolidated in a good number of European countries, as well as in North America and other regions, as will be explained in the following section of this report.
The Degree in Cultural Studies aims to train professionals capable of understanding the growing complexity of urban and cosmopolitan societies: social movements; leisure industries and cultural consumption as basic drivers of the economy; access to cultural goods; cultural factors in the management of groups in all areas and the semantic complexity of messages in the information society
They will be able to develop their work as:
- Analysts, creators, and managers in companies and institutions related to the industry and cultural communication, as well as cultural management
- Research and dissemination of knowledge
- Management of education and cultural institutions
- Research in arts and humanities
- Intercultural relations and cultural diversity management (Cultural mediation tasks
- Territorial development and international cooperation