History and cooperation partners of the Popular Music and Media degree programme

The idea for the institution of such a degree programme was developed by members of the Music subject area at Paderborn University and the Detmold/Paderborn Musicology Seminar. The transdisciplinary degree programme was offered for the first time in the winter semester 2002/2003 and was designed from the outset as a cooperation project between different departments in order to be able to deal with the fields considered important for the subject context in an equally professional manner.

The Bachelor's and Master's programmes in "Popular Music and Media" are run by the Music subject area at Paderborn University. The permanent cooperation partners of the Music subject area include

and, belonging to the Paderborn University in each case

In addition to these institutional cooperation partners, the Department of Music regularly engages renowned experts from fields such as music management, music journalism, music law and artistic practice for teaching assignments and guest lectures.

This enables students to benefit from the experience of experts. In addition, there are many opportunities to actively test themselves in various fields of music and media practice. An internship or optional semester abroad has been installed in the Bachelor's programme for this purpose. In addition, projects and excursions are regularly carried out under the guidance of lecturers, in which students can get involved according to their interests - be it in the field of press relations, acquisition, organisation/management or artistic practice. Successful examples of this include seminars on artist coaching, the AStA summer festival and the Zwischenmiete series.

In addition, various institutions offer opportunities to acquire practical music and media knowledge and skills. These include the university's own Information and Media Centre (IMT) with an extensive range of practical media courses, the campus radio station L'Unico, an in-house recording studio, various ensembles and bands, the studio stage and the Centre for Language Teaching with regular courses. The Open Stages organised by the Popular Music and Media and Music Teaching Departments also offer space for musical practice.

Students on the Master's programme also have regular opportunities to test themselves in the various pop music cultural application areas. In addition to the above-mentioned fields of music and media practice, special attention is paid to academic practice. Master's students are involved in the organisation and implementation of guest lectures, symposia, research projects and excursions in Germany and abroad.

Within the four successful (re-)accreditation procedures of the Bachelor's and Master's programmes to date, the experts emphasised the successful integration into the university concept ("University of the Information Society") with an outstanding profile, the strong professional orientation and the high esteem in which the degree programmes are held by the students. Since 2008, students on both the Bachelor's and Master's programmes have been offered the opportunity to sharpen their profile in a targeted manner, either with a business or cultural studies focus.

Further information on the course content and admission requirements can be found on the subpages of this section.