A Flexible Modular Structure
Our undergraduate programmes produce graduates well equipped to enter employment in awide range of careers and professions.
The School offers a number of different degree programmes, including Bachelor of Science undergraduate degrees (BSc) and undergraduate Integrated Master’s programmes (MSci). In addition the University offers Foundation Year programmes for those without an appropriate A-level background. These can lead to a BSc Honours degree in four years.
The three-year BSc programmes have been designed to provide you with a comprehensive and rigorous education in all aspects of the discipline concerned and are ideal for those seeking to enter work or a specialist MSc course following graduation.
Four-year undergraduate Master's degrees
The four-year Masters provide a more in-depth approach to all our disciplines with advanced training in research skills and are particularly suitable if you are seeking to enter a research orientated career in industry or academia.
Four of our Master’s programmes incorporate periods of study abroad, and top-performing students currently study at one of several elite American universities in Year 3. Current partnership institutions include Pennsylvania State University, the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, the University of Washington and The University of Miami. The four-year Master of Oceanography with French degree involves Year 3 being spent studying oceanography at the University of Bordeaux in France.
Programme Structure
Whichever degree programme you choose, you will study a number of core subjects during your first two years. These provide sound preparation for the final part of your degree. Thereafter, in Year 3 and Year 4 there is opportunity for individual choice and freedom to select from an extensive range of specialised optional modules. All of our degree programmes have a modular structure, and you will build a programme of study consisting of compulsory and optional modules. Constraints on the selection of modules are kept to a minimum and with the wide range of modules on offer within the School and across the University; it allows you to build up a flexible study programme, tailored to your specific needs and interests.
We offer modules covering an extensive range of subjects, including both theory-based modules and others that emphasise applied aspects in the contemporary world. There are formal lectures and fieldwork in most modules with associated laboratory classes, which provide an invaluable opportunity to extend your scientific understanding by discussion and analysis with both lecturers and postgraduate students who are trained as demonstrators. Our delivery of transferable skills (e.g. in communication, information technology, etc.) is strongly emphasised and is viewed nationally as an example of best practise.
All of our undergraduate Master’s programmes incorporate a substantial amount of independent (and group) project work, which will involve you in high-level quantitative investigations as well as advanced key skills training. All final year students, regardless of degree, undertake a research or mapping project. You will be trained to make independent observations either through fieldwork or laboratory research, using either traditional skills or innovative instrumentation, to reach independent conclusions from your own results.
The research projects undertaken by our undergraduate Master’s students form an integral part of the research output of the School and many have been published subsequently in international peer-reviewed scientific journals.
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