Design, media and the built environment

Media, Journalism and Communication

The degree with the weakest formal requirements and the strongest dependence on what you actually make. Nobody is hired on this qualification alone, and people are hired on the work it lets you produce.

How long: Three to four years, with placements and student media effectively compulsory in practice if not on paper.
Called: BA Journalism · BA Media and Communication · BA Mass Communication · بكالوريوس الإعلام

What you actually study

As opposed to what the name suggests.

News writing and reporting: structure, sourcing, verification and the discipline of getting it right at speed.
Media law and ethics — defamation, privacy, contempt and the specific legal environment you will work in.
Production skills: audio, video, digital publishing and increasingly data journalism.
Communication theory and media systems, which is the academic half and the part that varies most between programmes.
A substantial portfolio, produced across the degree, which is what actually gets you hired.

The hardest part

The industry, not the degree. Journalism has contracted in most markets, entry is portfolio-driven and often begins with unpaid or low-paid work, and the qualification carries less weight than published work does. The degree is genuinely useful for the law, ethics and craft — and anyone choosing it should be clear that the plan is the portfolio, and the degree is the structure around it.

What you need to get in

By school system. Requirements are set by individual universities and change — confirm on the course page for the year you apply.

Saudi curriculum track

requiredالمسار العام or مسار إدارة الأعمال

A humanities-side track. Media faculties at King Saud University, Imam Muhammad ibn Saud and the private universities are the domestic routes.

A-Level

helpsEnglish Literature · History · A language · Economics · Politics

No required subject anywhere. English and history are the ones that build the skill the job needs; a specialism — economics, science, a language — is what makes a journalist employable in a shrinking market.

IB Diploma

helpsEnglish A HL · History HL · Global Politics · A second language

The Extended Essay is unusually relevant here: it is the closest thing school offers to a commissioned long-form piece.

Advanced Placement

helpsAP English Language · AP US or World History · AP Statistics · AP Comparative Government

AP Statistics is the surprising one, and data journalism is one of the few genuinely growing parts of the field.

IGCSE

First language English at a strong grade matters more than anything else. Arabic first language is equally important for working in the region.

Tests and other gates

Portfolio or writing sampleBefore applying, and continuously afterwards
Not required by every programme and required by every employer. School newspaper, a blog, a podcast, published pieces — start at fifteen, because this is the only credential the industry reliably reads.
Qudurat and TahsiliGrade 11 and 12
The Saudi admission composite; the verbal half of Qudurat carries more weight for media colleges.
IELTS or TOEFLBefore applying abroad
English-language journalism programmes abroad often want a higher score than the university minimum, because the degree is written work.

What closes this door

Nothing closes at subject-choice level, which is genuinely unusual on this page.
What closes is the market: without published work, entry to journalism is very difficult regardless of the degree.

Where it leads

Careers written up on this site, and the reason each one follows from this degree.

Journalist
The direct destination, though the industry hires on portfolio rather than on the qualification.
Policy Analyst
Communications and public affairs roles in government and institutions, which are larger and more stable than newsrooms.
UX Designer
Content design and user research — a well-trodden move for people who can write clearly about complex things.
Management Consultant
Communications consulting and corporate affairs, which recruit from this background.
Secondary School Teacher
English and media teaching, a common and stable destination.
Compliance Officer
Corporate communications, reputation and regulatory disclosure work.

And, without a page here yet

Corporate communications and public relations
Content strategy and digital marketing
Documentary and broadcast production
Publishing and editing
Social media and platform work
Data journalism and visual storytelling

What it is not

That the degree is the credential. It is not; the portfolio is. This is the clearest case on the site of a qualification that opens a door only if you also make the work.
That journalism and media studies are the same. One is a craft training, the other an academic study of media, and employers distinguish them.
That the field is dying. It is contracting in some places and growing in others — data journalism, specialist reporting and corporate communications are all hiring; general assignment newsroom jobs are not.

In Saudi Arabia

The media and entertainment sector is an explicit and heavily funded part of Vision 2030, and it is growing quickly from a small base — production, digital content, sports media and the tourism and entertainment sectors' communications functions. That growth is real and is mostly in production and communications rather than in independent journalism, which operates within a regulated environment. Arabic and English fluency together is the most valuable combination in this market, and it is worth being clear-eyed about which parts of the field are expanding.

Consider instead

Same interest, different trade-off — the most useful section on this page and the easiest to skip.

The parts that go out of date

Entry requirements are the fastest-moving information on this site. These are the statements most likely to have changed.

Media employment patterns are changing fast in both directions, and any statement about which parts are growing dates quickly.
Saudi media and entertainment sector growth is policy-driven and its scale depends on continued investment.

Where this came from

Admission patterns stated by journalism and communication faculties in the UK, the Gulf and the US, most of which name no required subject. Employment patterns reasoned from consistently reported hiring practice in journalism and media, where portfolios dominate.

Last checked 2026-09-06. The requirements above describe the pattern across universities, not any one of them — the course page for the year you apply is the only thing that is ever authoritative.