Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in International Relations / Spanish with Study Abroad

at Manchester Metropolitan University United Kingdom

Networked computers run our world. From homes to hospitals, airports to banks and all stops in between, everything is connected – but these systems are susceptible to infiltration and attack. On our MSc Cyber Security course, you’ll gain the expertise to become part of the defence.

By learning to design, implement and manage computer-based systems security on this master's, you’ll develop the skills and confidence to succeed in a wide range of cyber security roles. This could include security designer, ethical hacker, and digital forensics officer.

Starting with the fundamentals, you’ll gain a broad understanding of the different levels of computer and network security. You’ll then explore both the technical aspects and the logistics of planning and implementing network security management. And how to investigate systems after a breach.

You will also complete a master's project. While you’ll have plenty of support along the way, it’s a solo research project designed to develop confidence, autonomy and self-sufficiency – qualities that can take you far in the workplace.

We aim to train you to become a specialist in a field with opportunities in virtually every sector – with everything that means for your future career prospects.

BA (Hons) Criminology offers an exciting opportunity to study the cutting-edge discipline of criminology in the vibrant city of Manchester. It is aimed at students who want to study crime from a critical perspective, investigating the causes, patterns, consequences and responses in a social context.

The first year introduces you to the building blocks of criminology: key concepts and theories explaining crime, key institutions of the criminal justice system, crime policy, law and practice. You will receive training in a wide range of research methods during the first two years, to become equipped to undertake your own independent research project in the final year.

Our large, multi-disciplinary department believes in offering extensive optionality to study specific areas of criminology in depth. Throughout the degree, there is an emphasis on developing skills and experiences that are relevant to professional careers, including work experience, study-abroad schemes, and independent project work. In your final year, you have the option of moving onto the BSc route, which means receiving extensive quantitative methods training and graduating with a BSc title.

Games design offers a route into a form of entertainment that’s not only one of the world’s most popular but is also constantly evolving, innovating and redefining its own boundaries. In short, the games industry is an exciting place to be and our BSc (Hons) Games Design course can offer your route into it.

Throughout the course, you’ll find an activity-led approach focused on the practical processes of making games. So, with our support you’ll build up a strong portfolio of games and game-like artefacts. As you progress, you’ll have the chance to pursue the specialist areas of the discipline that interest you most, and with cutting-edge assessments like our ‘Game a Week’, you’ll also build up your abilities as a games designer. Then, in your final year, you’ll not only work solo on your own game, but also work on a large-scale game through a series of smaller projects within a simulated game studio.

The School of Digital Arts offers the perfect setting for that kind of collaboration. That’s because our innovative curriculum paves the way for the same cross-disciplinary teamwork you’ll find in the professional digital sector – by working with students in sound design, animation and media production as well as students from our Department of Computing and Mathematics. The result is an environment that fosters creativity and helps you build a varied, well-rounded skillset. And, because SODA is purpose built with industry-standard facilities, you’ll leave us equipped with industry-standard technical skills too.

As a Games Design student, you’ll find Manchester offers both the perfect backdrop for your studies and an ideal launching pad for your professional ambitions. It’s not only home to a rich heritage of games publishing, but today has the largest media and creative sector outside London. On our doorstep, you’ll find a globally recognised web and UX sector, as well as renowned CG, visual effects and VR/AR agencies and at MediaCityUK in Salford, the BBC’s digital and games teams. All in all, it provides a range of opportunities for a graduate ready to make a statement in the world of games development.

Product designers at Manchester Met explore why, examine how, and ask ‘what if?’ We are investigative and critically responsive to human and global needs, developing innovative design-led solutions that connect the consumer experience of products, systems and services. As a product design student, you will be creative with purpose, gaining critical understanding of the emergent issues affecting design across society and culture, learning how to be a designer of products that enhance functionality, interactions and relationships with people and the places we inhabit.

 You will develop essential skills in creative methods, research, design thinking, prototyping and design strategy, applying design intelligence to the creation of new product opportunities and solutions. You will discover how to design products that embrace both traditional and contemporary approaches to production and manufacturing, generating value through the application of materials, processes, and technologies. This course will enable you to produce innovative crafted design solutions and develop the creative and professional skills required to support a sustainable career in product design.

Product Design at Manchester Met builds on the success of our previous programme, BA Three Dimensional Design, which has produced influential and award-winning graduates including designer and architect Thomas Heatherwick, jeweller Ruth Tomlinson and ceramicist Joe Hartley.

This course is at the forefront of production design and manufacturing practices and brings together students from creative and technical backgrounds, to foster original approaches to product design for manufacture. It supports you to explore and develop personal design methodologies and philosophies, and locate these within a deep understanding of historical, contemporary and future design practices, and wider social and cultural contexts.

You will undertake core units, delivered by production design specialists, consisting of design theory and practice lectures, material and manufacturing workshops, group seminars, individual tutorials, live external projects, and research study trips. Practical design development is supported by extensive hand and machine workshops for wood, metal, ceramics, glass and plastics, and digital workshops for laser cutting and large scale CNC routing.

Optional units facilitate innovative cross-disciplinary opportunities, supporting the development of collaborative working with students from within the material making and manufacturing cluster of MA/MSc/MFA Craft and MA/MSc/MFA Textile, and across the wider postgraduate design community. There are cross-faculty options to study within the faculty of “Science and Engineering”, acquiring advanced 3D CAD skills for industrial production, and utilising the latest advanced 3D printing processes. The Manchester Metropolitan Business School option addresses commercial aspects of design, enabling students to locate their ambitions within a defined financial model.

You will able to explore and challenge all aspects of product design, embracing opportunities for innovation across markets and production levels, from one-off making and batch fabrication, to flexible digital manufacture and high volume industrial production.

Study a software engineering degree with us and you’ll build the essential skills you need to work with software systems – opening the door to a range of career opportunities. You’ll cover all aspects of the software engineering process, with a focus on the methodical approach to robust, error-free software design and development.

In your first year, you’ll start with the core principles of computer architecture, databases, web design and programming. You’ll then begin to specialise, with areas of study like software design and development processes, full-stack web development and advanced programming.

As you progress you’ll develop knowledge of cloud computing, full-stack web development, software testing, as well as advanced development skills in a range of programming languages. You’ll also tackle team-based projects and a large-scale software project in your final year. This will help you to build vital project management skills, as well as giving you a sound understanding of the role of software development tools within the software life cycle.

Our BSc (Hons) Software Engineering, BSc (Hons) Computer Science and BSc (Hons) Applied Computing degrees share a common first year, allowing you to switch between these courses at the end of your first year.

Placement options

The full-time four year placement route provides the opportunity to go on a placement for at least 36 weeks, where you’ll get a taste of professional life. A placement not only gives you the opportunity to develop your core skills and experience, but also shows employers that you’re ready to get to work. We offer a wide range of services to help you find the right placement, including employer presentations, advice and fairs. But it’s also up to you – the more proactive you are about applying for placements, the better. This may be subject to national lockdown restrictions.

BA (Hons) Interior Design is concerned with the occupation of space, how it is used and importantly, how it is experienced. We promote the understanding and subsequent remodelling of existing spaces, in order to create meaningful interventions.

This course views interior design as a distinct, rigorous practice. Through architectural and design interventions, we engage with collaborative and creative ventures to enhance human interaction with their environment. This can be applied at an architectural scale whilst appreciating the detail and fabrication of objects, surfaces and materials.

The core elements of the course are taught by practising designers and architects, touching on all aspects of interior design such as interior architecture, exhibition design, event /set design or object/element design.

The course advocates the synthesis of this ideology as a creative, rigorous and intellectual process. We value ideas, invention and practical resolution in the creation of new, and often unconventional interior identities. We can create experiential, experimental or functional spaces. We shape environments, generate identities, question programs, detail objects, design or specify materials and furniture.

Placement options

Professionalism is embedded in all aspects of the course through visits from respected professional critics from industry, Live projects and Unit X. Students are also supported and encouraged to seek self-directed work experience in vacation periods. Students have undertaken work experience in Manchester for companies such as Stephenson-Bell, Ian Simpson Architects, Start Judge Gill and Sheppard Robson, and in London for Imagination, Johnson-Naylor, Conran+Partners, Casson-Mann, Virgile+Stone to name a few. Many enterprising students use the vacation to seek work experience abroad and opportunities have arisen in Japan (Klein-Dytham) and Dubai (Paul Bishop Design), Australia and the US.

The innovative BSc (Hons) Fashion Business and Management is responding to the needs of the rapidly evolving global fashion industry where the customer is steering businesses to think and act smarter.

By joining the BSc (Hons) Fashion Business and Management, you will take a journey that will put you at the forefront of current thinking within the fashion industry and prepare you to excel as a graduate and a future leader. Successful companies are putting their customer at the heart of the brand. Marketing, buying, merchandising, data insight, digital channels and in store have to work together to design a service to bring about a total customer experience.  This requires fashion graduates with the vision, entreprenuerial thinking, business management and marketing skillsets to be successful within this vibrant industry.

By completing the program students will also be awarded the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) Diploma in Management and Leadership, a business standard, valued by employers in the UK and Internationally.

Our BSc (Hons) Pharmaceutical Chemistry degree not only offers a firm grounding in general chemistry, research methods and laboratory techniques, but also provides the specialist skills and understanding you’ll need to pursue a future in pharmaceutical chemistry. We’ve developed the course with the pharmaceutical industry in mind – ensuring that our curriculum covers all the skills and strengths that employers demand, and that our placements offer the practical experience on which you can build a career.

You’ll focus on areas like drug testing, drug efficacy, computer-based drug design and the quality control of pharmaceuticals – equipping you for a role in the drug discovery industry.

Our pharmaceutical chemistry degree also provides the option of spending an extra year expanding your horizons, working on a placement in industry. This is subject to national and international travel restrictions.

Placement options

The four-year placement route gives you the opportunity of spending your third year on an industrial placement. The Department offers help with finding a suitable placement and experience has shown that placements can lead to improved performance in the final year and improved employment prospects after graduation.

BA (Hons) Filmmaking is a practice-based course giving you the creative freedom to develop your voice through the dynamic language of film.

Our learning environment incorporates a unique mix of digital art and film school philosophies, empowering you to express your ideas and stories through narrative fiction, documentary, artists’ moving image and new media. You will specialise in original ideas from unique perspectives, with the potential for your work to be screened in international venues.

Studying at the School of Digital Arts means learning beyond the usual limits. You’ll be part of a vibrant creative community that spans a range of disciplines, from photography and animation, to music and sound design. It’s an environment designed for collaboration – a place where you can push the boundaries of filmmaking, explore the directions that interest you most and develop a broad skill set made for today’s digital arts and media sector. Here, you’ll have access to a vast range of specialist resources and purpose-built facilities, as well as a wealth of opportunities for developing your professional skills, from work experience placements and industry competitions to guest lectures and collaborations with organisations.

The UK film and television industry is a global success story and Manchester is the perfect place to write your own chapter. It’s a major media city, second only to London. The likes of the BBC and ITV are on our doorstep at MediaCityUK, while the city is also home to a thriving, bustling digital production sector, from innovative start-ups to established production companies. For today, that means you’ll have the chance to work on live industry projects – developing practical skills and valuable experience. For tomorrow, that means you’ll graduate in one of the most exciting cities in Europe for starting a career in the creative and digital industries.