Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Photography with Placement Year

at Manchester Metropolitan University United Kingdom

From ancient civilizations and great empires, to terrible battles and the roots of our modern society, history is a vast landscape to explore and understand.

The past is part of our everyday lives, shaping our world profoundly. Study history and you won’t just learn about what happened in the past. You’ll develop a better understanding of the how and why of the events that make us who we are. In every period we study, our courses seek to develop different approaches and methods to understanding the past, embracing political, social, and cultural history. We foster the practice of history as an inclusive discipline, and recognise that powerful ideologies of race, gender and social status have shaped our past and our present. In other words – you won’t just discover the story, you’ll investigate and interpret its sources, impacts and meanings.

This degree program offers a roadmap for exploring the social and political landscape of human history. You’ll look at a huge variety of times and places – immersing yourself in wars, famine and poverty, charting technological leaps and social progress, and unearthing conspiracies, catastrophes and revolutions. And that’s just in your first year. In years two and three through your option unit choices, you'll have the opportunity to specialise and develop your interests further, and graduate with a degree title that reflects this: Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern, or American.

Staff researchers are constantly searching for new discoveries, fresh perspectives and unknown aspects of our history, bringing the past alive in the classroom. With this degree we give you the skills to understand the world and how this affects societal developments.

You may also have the opportunity to study abroad, including in the US, or spend your third year on placement in Britain or abroad.

Our LLM in Legal Practice at the Bar brings together the essential practical skills and knowledge from our Bar Training Course (BTC) and masters-level legal research skills that can help you stand out in a competitive jobs market.

Everything about the BTC element of the course is built to prepare you for life as a barrister. You'll work with other students in a mini chambers group, designed to mirror the real-life practices you'll face in a career at the bar. You’ll further prepare for the demands of the Bar with our innovative professional practice unit, under the mentorship of a practising barrister.

Meanwhile, the LLM advanced study element offers the chance for you to deepen your knowledge in a specialist area of the law.

You’ll learn from a team that includes seasoned barristers, solicitors and a deputy district judge, together with active researchers and scholars who produce impactful legal research in the UK and internationally.

Combined with the strong links we’ve built with the legal profession, both locally and across the Northern Circuit, this is a very professionally focused course. Put simply, if you want to get onto the path to practice, while building your legal research knowledge and skills, this is an ideal environment for developing the resilience, confidence and leadership you’ll need to thrive at the Bar or a related legal field.

MFA Painting provides a discipline-led environment in which to develop your practice in contemporary painting. Through a strong focus on your individual studio practice you will engage in the most significant current debates on painting and the histories from which they emerge. The MFA Painting will encourage you to question the boundaries of your practice, embracing current ideas of ‘expanded painting’ and painting being ‘beyond self’ alongside questions posed within the more typical parameters of the picture plane and modes of representation.

The world around us is changing – and our environmental science degree will help you understand how. You’ll learn the skills and knowledge to measure, model and assess environmental change and its impact. Developed with employers, including environmental agencies and private businesses, this is a program with real-world relevance, built around developing the techniques and expertise you’ll find in the workplace.

The course combines aspects of physical and life sciences, helping you build an understanding of environmental issues today. You’ll also gain a wide range of practical and analytical skills, working in the lab and the field. By the time you graduate, you’ll be able to collect, process and analyse data from a range of sources across different scientific disciplines – giving you the understanding to make informed recommendations in a professional context.

Placement options
All of our geography and environment degrees have been designed to be flexible. You can opt for the four-year placement degree route and spend Year 3 on a professional placement with a degree-related organisation.

Alternatively, if you opt for the four-year study overseas route, you will spend your third year in Europe, North America or Australia.

Our BEng (Hons) Mechanical Engineering degree provides a strong theoretical and practical foundation for those looking to open the door to one of the many career opportunities available to mechanical engineers. With project-based learning throughout, you’ll develop the transferable skills and multidisciplinary awareness that are highly valued in industry.

In your first year, you’ll get a grounding in the fundamental principles of applied mathematics and engineering sciences. What’s more, you’ll also get straight into the practical side of things, with a design-and-build challenge.

You’ll develop scientific and analytical skills as you study specialisms like solid and fluid mechanics, dynamics, thermodynamics and engineering mathematics. And with project work that’s rooted in our research and shaped around industry, you’ll learn how to apply those skills to real-world engineering.

This mechanical engineering degree is accredited by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) on behalf of the Engineering Council for the purposes of fully meeting the academic requirement for registration as an Incorporated Engineer and partly meeting the academic requirement for registration as a Chartered Engineer.

Placement options

All of our degrees offer the chance to spend a year getting a taste of professional life. If you choose to go down this route, your degree will take one year longer, with the third year spent working in industry. These optional placements not only give you the opportunity to develop your core skills and learn about how a business really operates in your industry, but also shows employers that you’re ready to get to work. We offer a range of services to help you find the right placement, including employer presentations, advice and placement fairs.

The world’s habitats are undergoing rapid transformation. The impacts of climate change are causing species extinction at an unprecedented rate. Conservation biology as a discipline looks at the science behind these changes – including the identification of ecosystems at risk, ways of conserving biodiversity, and the role of genetics and demography.

With our masters, you’ll tackle all that and more, gaining the knowledge and skills for a career at the forefront of conservation. You’ll explore the scientific background to species conservation and the factors driving extinction. You’ll also look at the sustainable use of resources and learn valuable statistical techniques for analysing ecological data. With a range of option units, you’ll be able to specialise in areas like species recovery and behavioural biology.

But this course is as much about practice as it is about theory. While the core units include a field course to Poland, Ecuador or Tanzania, your master's project also has a practical focus, demanding in-depth research before you present your findings.

Throughout, it all, you’ll be supported by experienced academics, who’ll bring their real-world expertise directly to the classroom as you prepare to make your own way in the world of conservation. And the international focus of this degree, it’s a career journey that could take you literally anywhere.

The global trend in the manipulation of nutrient intake to enhance performance and the health of exercising individuals has grown exponentially. Matching the physiological demands with relevant dietary needs is a fast-growing area of sport nutrition. All of these factors are creating a demand for dynamic, innovative nutrition graduates.

We’ve designed our sport and exercise nutrition course to address the increasing awareness of the impact of nutrition on sport and exercise performance and the growing need for employment in the area.

You’ll examine the complex relationships between diet, health, physical wellbeing and performance whilst also gaining experience in the skills required to work in the field of sport and exercise, such as providing specialist advice on healthy eating, conducting dietary surveys and being an advocate of change.

Our sport and exercise nutrition degree also provides the option of spending an extra year working in a partner organisation on placement.

This combined honours course will give you the practical language skills while also developing your understanding of the social and cultural environment in which it is spoken. You’ll also study units ranging from consultancy to enterprise, helping you find your calling in international business.

Business
This degree includes everything you could want from a business degree, from expertise in our research areas of sustainability, strategy, and enterprise to events like our leadership series of guest lectures.

Spanish
In both the private and public sectors, there is demand for professionals with strong language skills who can work in culturally diverse environments. Studying Spanish at Manchester Met will give you the opportunity to learn from native speakers. Our languages department have created their own multi-cultural community, including British, exchange and international students, along with foreign language assistants, allowing you to be absorbed into the everyday use of your chosen language.

We have been providing professional language courses for more than 30 years and our staff are nationally, and in many cases internationally, recognised experts in their field. Our strong local, national and global links will help to enhance your study and future employment opportunities.

If you take Spanish as a major or equal subject you will be required to spend your third year abroad in Spain or Latin America. If Spanish is your minor subject, the course will be three years with no study abroad.

Placement options
If you take Spanish as a major or equal subject you will have the opportunity to spend your third year in Spain or Latin America and we will assist you in choosing from a choice of partner universities where you can study. You will then return to Manchester Met for your fourth year.

If you major in Business all our courses offer four-year placement and exchange routes, where you have the opportunity to spend your third year studying overseas or on industrial placement working for a company, after which you will return to study for your final year. You can make a decision on whether to follow this route at the end of your first year of study.

Proficiency in modern languages can give you the competitive edge in the global jobs market. In both the private and public sectors, there is demand for professionals with strong language skills who can work in culturally diverse environments. We have created our own multicultural community, including British, exchange and international students, along with foreign language assistants, allowing you to be absorbed into the everyday use of foreign languages.

We have been providing professional language courses for more than 30 years. Our strong local, national and global links will help to enhance your study and future employment opportunities. If you study French as a major or equal subject you will be required to spend a year abroad. The experience of being immersed in another culture for several months is one our students find both beneficial and rewarding. They return having made new friends, experienced new places and having grown in confidence.

This course places language learning within the wider context of French studies including culture, society, literature, film and history. The language units emphasise communicating effectively and developing transferable skills such as translating, interpreting and interview techniques, with practical language classes embracing speaking, listening, reading and writing.

TESOL is a practical branch of applied linguistics and it will help you understand language learning and teaching approaches, as well as the English language itself. You will develop a new understanding of different types of communication and other cultures.

This course will help you improve your own fluency and accuracy in other languages. You will gain experience of how to help learners of all abilities to become fluent English speakers and you will be taught by highly qualified and experienced practitioners who have taught across the world. All of these skills will give you a head start if you decide to take a further qualification such as CELTA or Trinity Certificate TESOL.

Placement options

If you take French as a major or equal subject you will have the opportunity to spend your third year in France and we will assist you in choosing from a wide choice of partner universities or other approved organisations where you can study or work. After this, you will return to Manchester Met for your final year.

Drawing upon our internationally recognised research expertise in economic, social, political and cultural geography, our human geography course has been designed to let you understand the causes and potential solutions to some of the biggest challenges the world faces today. We’ll introduce you to theories and approaches to understand the relationship between society and space and help you make sense of geographical processes.

From past events to future developments and from local changes to global trends, you’ll build up a wide-ranging understanding of how our society interacts with our environment.

Study human geography at Manchester Met and you’ll get to grips with qualitative research techniques, not only learning the theories but also putting them into action – both in the city of Manchester and overseas. With a range of units on offer, you can follow specialist pathways in environmental sustainability and Geographical Information Systems through to your final year. If you take the four-year route for this program, you can spend a year either working on a placement or studying overseas before returning for your final year.

Placement options

• All of our geography degrees have been designed to be flexible. You can opt for the four-year placement degree route and spend Year 3 on a professional placement with a degree-related organisation.
• Alternatively, if you opt for the four-year study overseas route, you will spend your third year in Europe, North America or Australia, subject to national and international travel restrictions.