Master of Science in Gemmology

at Birmingham City University - City Centre Campus United Kingdom

Our BA (Hons) Garment Technology degree course nurtures and encourages you to develop a professional and enquiring attitude within technical aspects of clothing production, and an ability to become confident and self-motivated in your chosen practice.

This course has excellent links to international fashion brands, including Burberry, Karen Millen and George at Asda.

The staff team have industry experience within computer-aided design (CAD), pattern cutting, fashion history and design, and have worked alongside many internationally recognised brands. You will learn to work with the Gerber pattern cutting and design system, widely used in the industry alongside supportive staff who are well placed to inspire and shape your future careers.

By studying MSc Mechanical Engineering course you will engineer a better future.  A highly-respected course, our course will enhance your strategic management and leadership capabilities. The course builds on sustainable futures and the Government's STEM agenda, helping you to gain the knowledge and attributes needed to thrive in this ever-changing industry, and you'll work on industry-standard complex analytical tools such as Matlab/Simulink, CATIA, Ansys and ADAMS Mechanisms.

You will work collaboratively with tutors, practitioners, theorists and designers, equipping you with everything you need launch your career. In the UK, companies such as Jaguar Land Rover, BMW and Honda all require a constant supply of highly-skilled engineers, and our course will ensure you have a fully rounded experience in mechanical engineering.

Professional Placement option

The Professional Placement option will allow you to complete a credit-bearing, 20-week Professional Placement as an integral part of your Master’s Degree. The purpose of the Professional Placement is to improve your employability skills which will, through the placement experience, allow you to evidence your professional skills, attitudes and behaviours at the point of entry to the postgraduate job market.  Furthermore, by completing the Professional Placement, you will be able to develop and enhance your understanding of the professional work environment, relevant to your chosen field of study, and reflect critically on your own professional skills development within the workplace.

BA (Hons) Fashion Imaging will enable you to become highly creative, innovative and employable fashion imagemakers. By effectively embracing new and traditional technologies with an open and experimental approach, you will learn how to create exciting and challenging fashion imagery.

Want to study event management in Birmingham? Our BA (Hons) Event, Venue and Experience Management degree allows you to take a year-long placement in industry.

Over the past decade there has been a surge of careers in the global leisure sector that require best-in-class event, venue and guest experience managers.

This innovative and on-trend course will give you the skills, experience and insights to develop a career in the growing area of event management alongside a qualification from the CMI.

What's covered in this course?

Combining theory and practical application the course will draw heavily from practicing event, venue and experience leaders to cover multiple aspects such as marketing, project management, design, operations, analytics, digitization, experiential and client management. Where appropriate to the individual topics covered during the course, implications for sustainability will be identified that relate to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Building upon the insights and close business connections that Birmingham City Business School has made through its Academy of Multi-Unit Leadership (with over 600 graduate managers from industry-leading event and leisure organisations) this undergraduate course will provide the academic expertise and contacts to help you develop an exciting professional future. President of Genting UK, Paul Willcock, describes the course as ‘an exciting and innovative degree that provides exceptionally strong pathways into our industry'.

Our BSc (Hons) Financial Economics degree prepares you for a career in the financial sector as a financial economist, analyst, planner, investment analyst, or in a similar role.

Our degree provides both sound theoretical knowledge and technical skills which are highly sought-after by employers. This degree is built on core principles of economics, which are then applied to financial markets and institutions.

The course uses a unique pluralist approach that will empower you to understand competing economic ideas, think critically and apply your knowledge in your daily life and in your future workplace. Our degree is highly flexible, and apart from studying core economics subjects, you will be able to select optional modules which are most suitable for your own learning needs and career goals.

You will be able to benefit from unique set of modules, for example: Date Intelligence, Financial Modelling, Investment and Portfolio Management, Real Estate Economics and Financial Bubbles, as well as a capstone Business Advice or Economics Research Project. Moreover, you will learn advanced methods of quantitative analysis, econometrics, and IT skills using relevant industry-specific software to assist you to become a job-ready graduate.

You will be taught by industry-experienced academics who bring real world practical knowledge to the classroom. You will be able to work on life client projects with our Business Advice Centre that will give your exposure to challenges and issues faced by businesses and a chance to develop successful solutions. You will be right in the hub of the vibrant city and be surrounded by other likeminded students on a variety of economics, business, finance and accounting degrees.

During your studies you will benefit from international exposure on different levels. All modules delivered within this course contains teaching material based on international data; thus, your knowledge and expertise will not be limited by the UK alone. Our course is delivered by a multinational team of experts.

Our BSc (Hons) Financial Economics degree is highly applied and we pay special attention to developing your transferable skills that will prepare you for a wide range of careers both in public and private sector, providing you with a range of options depending on your career aspirations.

This course will create graduates with a sound understanding of the theory and practice of AI in industry. As a conversion course we will assume all students are starting fresh with no experience of computer programming and little experience of using mathematics or statistics in their undergraduate programs or in work.

What's covered in this course?

We will begin by creating a foundation in programming and mathematics upon which we will build the expertise in several key areas of artificial intelligence, going from your first Python code and basic algebra right through to Deep Learning. The core applied areas of data science that will be taught will include:

• Data Visualisation and Interpretation - Analysis that can’t be properly interpreted, explained and understood is a waste of time from a commercial point of view. We will teach you how to generate attractive and interpretable visualizations and tell the story of whatever data you’re working with to a range of audiences.
• Image Analysis - Machine learning has shown incredible results recently in understanding the themes of images and video which are being applied in a range of commercial settings; from security and driverless cars, to online clothes shopping.
• Natural Language Processing - Being able to understand speech and text is one of the cornerstones of artificial intelligence systems. Chatbots built on AI are appearing all over the internet, but more than this technology giants are searching for ways that machines can have detailed conversations with one-another and to be able to read and understand text documents.
• Time Series - Dealing with dynamic data is vital to AI systems in finance, AI and defence; whether predicting the future of stock prices to predicting patient outcomes in ICU and how a virus outbreak will permeate through a population.

Professional Placement option

The Professional Placement option will allow you to complete a credit-bearing, 20-week Professional Placement as an integral part of your Master’s Degree. The purpose of the Professional Placement is to improve your employability skills which will, through the placement experience, allow you to evidence your professional skills, attitudes and behaviours at the point of entry to the postgraduate job market. Furthermore, by completing the Professional Placement, you will be able to develop and enhance your understanding of the professional work environment, relevant to your chosen field of study, and reflect critically on your own professional skills development within the workplace.

You will be responsible for finding and securing your own placement. The University, however, will draw on its extensive network of local, regional and national employers to support you in finding a suitable placement to complement your chosen area of study. You will also benefit from support sessions delivered by Careers+ as well as advice and guidance from your School.

The MSc Building Surveying program with Facilities Management is designed to respond to the dynamic demands for sustainable management of the existing built environment and is accredited by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

What's covered in this course?

The course is founded on the principal that participants intend to attain membership of the RICS. The program, therefore, embraces the values of the RICS and reflects the requirements of the professional body in terms of core technical and professional skills and attributes. All students are expected to be student or graduate members of the RICS.

The Building Surveying course content and delivery is underpinned by the need to respond to the RICS Strategic Foresight 2030 report, including incorporation of the seven strategic pillars for the future within learning, teaching and assessment.

The course will provide you with a broad but solid foundation in the fundamentals of organising, managing, and designing work to existing buildings. It seeks to provide you with the knowledge and skills to meet the challenges presented by the globally evolving built environment marketplace.

This course focuses on developing and expanding the knowledge, understanding and ability of practitioners to respond to the challenges of the 21st century. You will receive a rigorous grounding in the advanced skills needed to operate at a high level in industry and become competent in the solving the problems and challenges you will face. You will also be able to add value to your decisions through a thorough analytical approach and be able to better implement them as a competent building surveyor.

The course encompasses the entirety of the property life cycle, allowing you to appreciate how decisions made in one aspect of a property’s development and use can have a significant impact later on in the life cycle.

Our Human Resource Management (HRM) degree equips you with the tools you need to develop the high-performing workforce and innovative teams demanded by business.

This course teaches you about the importance of motivating and managing people within a business, showing you the link between successful performance and the people you employ.

Drawing upon all aspects of people management enables you not only to gain the building blocks of knowledge and understanding but also a high degree of professional competence in the field of people management and development.

Reflecting on the current evolution of the HR profession and looking ahead into the near future, you will be provided with progressive opportunities to experience the use of digital technology and advanced technologies in some of the main functions of HRM: immersive realities for Recruiting and Selection, Training and Development, Onboarding, Performance Management to name a few.

The course is accredited by the relevant professional body, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), demonstrating the high-quality provision of our course. It has been designed to meet the core knowledge and core behaviours of the CIPD Profession Map and incorporates the core curriculum requirements of that organisation such that when you successfully graduate from the course will have full exemption from the academic component of associate membership of the CIPD.

You will keep up-to-date with the latest issues and innovations in human resources, supported by your lecturers who have experience of working with some of the biggest names in business, in manufacturing, retail, services, hospitality or management consultancy. Guest speakers, from industry and academia, will be invited to provide expert input at both module and course level.

The BA Video Game Art undergraduate degree course responds to the growing demand for skilled, team-orientated, reflexive graduate professionals ready to succeed.

Interactive entertainment and video games development are key sectors for contemporary culture, economic growth and employment locally in the Midlands, nationally and globally.

This accelerated two-year course gives you a guaranteed video game development placement in our in-house studio, which will take place over the summer term of the course. The workplace simulation approach of our department (School of Games, Film and Animation) has been championed by the influential 2009 Livingstone Next Gen Report, which cited us as a national best practice example for developing new talent for the games industry.

The BA (Hons) English degree course combines the creative and the critical, the personal and the social, the historical and the contemporary.

In the School of English, you will be taught by respected academics and practitioners offering a diverse range of modules in literary studies, linguistics, creative writing and drama. Your degree will allow you to tailor your studies to your individual interests and career aspirations with both a local and global outlook.

What's covered in this course?

English as a discipline continues to be relevant to the lives we lead and is central to a wide range of contemporary and social contexts. It is this fact on which the School has built its philosophy and approach to English as a subject, which has interdisciplinary reach beyond its own boundaries.

Identifying how language works in practice, engaging with multiple forms of communication, examining how language and literature engage with societies and cultures past and present, and the place of English in a global context, are all vital aspects in understanding how the discipline connects with the wider world, enabling you to focus on the production, interpretation and negotiation of meaning and to understand the world from a variety of perspectives.

You will benefit from student-focused and research-informed teaching in a friendly and supportive learning environment where you will be taught by respected academics and expert practitioners who foster a community of experimentation, innovation and inclusivity.

Our graduates are characterized by their extensive subject knowledge, critical thinking and intellectual curiosity, reflected in the skills and abilities that enables them to adapt to a wide range of career paths and employment opportunities.

The School is committed to contributing to the cultural life of Birmingham and the wider West Midlands. We do this through working closely with partner colleges and schools, by maintaining close links with cultural institutions such as the Birmingham and Midland Institute (BMI) and Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BMAG), and by working with agencies such as Writing West Midlands. In all of this we seek to widen participation and provide opportunities for the community to engage with the discipline and the University.