Aside from its value to your own personal self-development, a postgraduate degree also gives you the opportunity to earmark time to investigate the area of drama, theatre or the performing arts that is of most interest to you. In addition, because of the depth of specialist knowledge achieved at postgraduate level of study, a higher degree has enormous value in giving you access to the knowledge needed to extend the boundaries of traditional performance, and to be able to make a significant difference to tomorrow's cultural arena. You can play a part in helping future generations understand the contribution by the performing arts to the UK's cultural, social and economic well being.

However, you'll find that your one-year of study passes remarkably fast. This means that you really need to research thoroughly which course, institution culture and tutor will best suit you.

For example, you may want a course that gives you the chance to stage numerous public performances. Therefore, you should check how many performances you are going to realise during your year of study and ask if they will be to the general public or an invited audience (at Central our performance-based postgraduates realise productions in a variety of modes to different audiences).

You should definitely find out what background your tutors have (ie how much professional hands-on experience they have and how many years of experience they have of teaching). Our tutors have a strong pedigree of professional-level performance as well as a robust academic track record. A good tutor can be much more than just a tutor, and if well matched to your style of training, he/she can become your mentor and be truly inspirational to your future development as a performer or academic.

You should also decide how much tuition you need at this stage in your development. Remember, postgraduate degrees can be appropriate for people who already have experience as a professional and wish to pursue a concept for a performance in an education environment. Alternatively, they can meet the needs of people with a knowledge of their subject acquired through undergraduate studies that they wish to continue at a more specialist academic level.

You might also want to find out about the culture of the institution's Postgraduate faculty, which will indicate what sort of candidate the institution is looking to recruit both as staff and as postgraduate students. Central's postgraduate culture is driven by our key beliefs in the basis to good postgraduate study: 'learning by doing' (an experiential approach to learning); cross-course collaboration among students; research into chosen specialisms of study (through dissertation or forum discussion); working as 'reflective practitioners'. To increase the value of our postgraduate students' learning, we expect them to elect to respect these values.

Don't forget to think about how you will fund yourself and cover your fees. Although financial support is scarce for postgraduate studies there are one or two sources of funding you may wish to consider. To help our postgraduate applicants, Central lists some sources of postgraduate funding on its website www.cssd.ac.uk.