Are you a future artist? At the Academy of Popular Culture, we will coach you to become an artistic professional and creative entrepreneur. To achieve your ambitions in the artistic world, you will create work as a performer, as a writer/composer or as a visualiser/designer while forging connections with your prospective audience. You want to make an impact with the concepts you create. In order to do so, you will work with students of other disciplines to produce an interdisciplinary performance.

Why choose this programme?

As a professional, you gain inspiration from your own ambitions as well as your engagement with your audience and with society in general. You want to contribute and make an impact with your story. This is something you’ll rarely do on your own: to make your projects come to life, you’ll need to work with others who can help you with things that you’re not (yet) familiar with. You’ll be learning as part of a community whose members inspire each other. The main focus throughout this broad, interdisciplinary degree programme is on the creation of products for an audience. Sharing your story with the audience is the key to making an impact. The Academy of Popular Culture is located in the bustling cultural hotspot that is the northern student city of Leeuwarden.

About this programme

As a professional, you gain inspiration from your own ambitions as well as your engagement with your audience and with society in general. You want to contribute and make an impact with your story. This is something you’ll rarely do on your own: to make your projects come to life, you’ll need to work with others who can help you with things that you’re not (yet) familiar with. You’ll be learning as part of a community whose members inspire each other. The main focus throughout this broad, interdisciplinary degree programme is on the creation of products for an audience. Sharing your story with the audience is the key to making an impact. The Academy of Popular Culture is located in the bustling cultural hotspot that is the northern student city of Leeuwarden.

• Year 1 First year

  During the first year, you'll learn to work at a base level on the core tasks and competences of the programme profile. Your development is assessed through assignments and assessments. You simultaneously work on your own project, which you are free to choose, and on a mandatory group project. In total, you work on 6 different group projects; Clan, Pitch, Try, Lead, Tell and Show, spread over the periods and semesters during the school year. In Clan, you will explore and observe trends and developments in pop culture based on a theme. In Pitch, you will develop a concept for a client, which you will also pitch to the client. Then at Try, you will design and experiment and work out these sketches and experiments. Artistic direction is something you will learn at Lead. After that, at Tell you will learn how to generate (media) attention with a social issue. Finally, you finish the propaedeutic year with Show, the part where your own work is presented.

• Year 2 Core programme

  In the second year, you will begin the core programme. Here, you learn to develop a concept, conduct design research, and prepare a grant application. You learn about the theory of these subjects and apply it to your own practice. Next, you will work on your profiling. Here you will deepen your knowledge and skills based on your desired professional practice. In the second year, you also choose one of three learning environments in which you work on your professional practice from different starting points: production house, labs and in-depth core subjects.

• Year 3 Minor and internship

  In year 3 of the programme, you will be working externally. The first semester you will go on an internship in the field. The purpose is of the internship is that you are able to work and learn within a professional working environment in the field of popular culture. Examples of internships are VERA, NITE, Tivoli, PIP, Explore the North, Neushoorn, Excelsior, Worm, LINDA, Wisseloord studios and Lake Woozoo. There are many options you can fill out the other semester in year three with. Firstly, you have the option of taking another course within Academy Minerva's education offerings, such as Fine Art or Design. You can also choose to do a minor of another course at the Hanze, or you can study for a semester at another university of applied sciences in the Netherlands, for example HKU or Artez. In addition to these options based in the Netherlands, you can choose to study at a university of applied sciences abroad. For a minor abroad, you can choose from the offer of partner institutions that Academy Minerva has a contract with, for example in Finland, Hungary or Latvia.

• Year 4 Graduation

  Graduation covers the entire fourth year. In the first half of your graduation year, you will work on the substantial drivers of your graduation project. You start by writing an essay on a trend in pop culture that inspires you. You will then develop an artistic, interdisciplinary concept and finally, you will take the time to try out the things you have learned in creating your essay and concept. You experiment with form, contents, artistic disciplines and the impact you want to make on your audience. In the second half, it's time to realise your project. Together with a team that you lead, you produce a performance in which you present your designed artistic product. This could be a concert or exhibition, or it could be a launch, fashion show, dance performance or installation, or even a whole new interdisciplinary form! To complete your graduation, you will write a future plan for your artistic practice with which you will be ready to face the professional field.

Supervision

Our commitment to you is that we’ll take active steps to challenge you, meet your learning needs, provide appropriate supervision throughout and help you reach the right level for professional practice. Instead of traditional classrooms, we make use of communities of learners, whose members inspire and stimulate each other and help each other out with feedback and ideas. You’ll learn to adopt inquisitive working practices, develop a vision on your place as a performer and make well-reasoned choices when it comes to elaborating, organising and realising your projects. This will help you track your progress and figure out your next steps. You’ll be coached by experienced lecturers, most of whom are also active in the professional field. This helps to blur the boundary between education and professional practice.

Throughout the year, we’ll organise a variety of field trips, training courses, workshops and guest lectures by professionals from all relevant areas to help you expand your professional network.

Career opportunities

Our graduates end up as artistic professionals in the cultural field. Some set up their own business, but most join a collective or a changing roster of partnerships. The main focus throughout this broad, interdisciplinary degree programme is on the creation of products for an audience. Graduates perform on stage, write songs, produce tracks, create short or full-length feature films or visuals, develop festivals, dress sets or host podcasts and websites where they present themselves or others. Sharing your story with the audience is the key to making an impact.

Master Up

With your Bachelor's degree you can apply for the Master of Arts in Fine Art and Design at the Frank Mohr Institute of Minerva Art Academy. 

Teachers

Admission requirements

In order to be admitted to the programme, it's essential that you already have some experience in a particular cultural field. For example, you sing in a band, design posters, create videos or are involved in organising a festival.  

Departing from this foundation, this bachelor's programme will help you discover what you're genuinely good at and in which direction you want to develop yourself further. Your personal development, personality and motivation will play a key role throughout the programme.  

Entry requirements

To enrol for the bachelor Popular Culture, you will need a national (home country) secondary school diploma or international secondary school qualification, such as an International Baccalaureate Diploma. It must have a level equivalent to the Dutch HAVO school diploma (General Secondary Education) or MBO-4 diploma, with NLQF/EQF level 4 or higher.  

If you want to know more about the value of your own diploma, you can also check the diploma comparison site of our national agency NUFFIC. 

Even with insufficient preliminary education, you may still be admitted to the Academy on the grounds of 'exceptional talent' and a good performance in a test. The test indicates whether or not you can function at a higher professional educational level. You must pay the costs of this test yourself. When you are accepted on the grounds of 'exceptional talent' you will receive an invitation to take the test. 

Application procedure

If you meet the entry requirements, you can enrol via Studielink. By doing this you register for the study programme and for the intake of the Academy of Popular Culture. 

For the 2025-2026 academic year (starting on 1 September 2025), admissions will take place on:

Thursday 27 March 2025 – portfolio deadline Wednesday 20 March 2025 
Thursday 24 April 2025 – portfolio deadline Wednesday 17 April 2025
Thursday 30 May 2025 – portfolio deadline Wednesday 16 May 2025
Thursday 27 June 2025 — portfolio deadline Wednesday 13 June 2025

1. After registration, you will receive a message from us with the request to upload your portfolio and appendices via “Osiris Toelating Minerva” (for content and design of this portfolio see instruction portfolio).

2. This portfolio contains your own artistic work with an explanation and a one-minute video (for content and criteria see Assignment One-minute film).

3. You ensure that your portfolio including the film assignment and audiovisual attachments are uploaded or submitted via Osiris before or on the final submission date.

4. You will eventually receive an invitation for an admission assessment (for the content and criteria of this assessment, read the admission assessment instruction).