Master of Science in Molecular Biosciences (Microbiology)

at University of Bath United Kingdom

Develop your knowledge of biomechanics, physiology and psychology. You will understand how humans function in sport, physical activity and health environments.

This degree has three core strands running throughout the course:

• Biomechanics will explore how humans create and control movement including athletes’ technique
• Physiology will cover the structure, function, regulation and performance of bodily systems
• Psychology will examine the role of thoughts, feelings and behaviours in sport and exercise settings

Through these core disciplines you'll apply your knowledge to sports performance and exercise participation and understand the relevance of sport and exercise science to current practice.

Use specialist facilities

As a student on one of our sport, exercise and health courses you'll have access to facilities that support your learning, including laboratories with specialist equipment and the latest technology, including:

• Applied Biomechanics Laboratory
• Applied Physiology Laboratory
• Biochemistry Laboratory
• Metabolic Research Laboratory
• A dedicated movement analysis suite

Year Abroad

You will have the opportunity to apply to study abroad at an approved partner institution. Your international experience will enhance your skills and prepare you for employment in the competitive global graduate market.

The study abroad option is currently available in Technical University of Munich (Germany) and Southern Cross University (Australia), and we continuously seek new partners to widen our study abroad offer.

Make sense of issues underpinning contemporary global challenges such as the impact of climate change and international inequalities.

On this degree you’ll combine the study of politics with an engagement in economic theory and practice. It will appeal if you’re interested in issues of global power, decision-making, democracy and inequality.

You’ll cover topics such as international politics, political ideologies and economic thought. You will explore a range of contemporary economic and political challenges facing national and international society, such as terrorism and climate change.

In your first year you'll focus on concepts and theories relating to both politics and international relations. You'll study economic theory and methodology, and explore contemporary political and economic systems.

In your second year you'll advance your knowledge in political and economic theory. You can focus your studies through optional units covering areas from global responses to international environmental crises, to the nature of UK Parliamentary politics. You'll also develop your skills in research design and methods.

You’ll carry out a year-long dissertation and select optional units relating to your interests in politics and economics, with themes such as financialisation, inter-state relations, and gender politics.

Placement Year

The placement year is an opportunity for you to use the theory you have learnt in a practical context. You will learn about an organization and its area of work. This is an excellent opportunity to test potential career paths. Sometimes permanent jobs are offered to our students.

You’ll develop skills such as teamwork, planning, problem-solving, decision making and project management. Employers value a year of professional work and you’ll gain an advantage in the job market.

Over the years we have built contacts with a large number of organizations that can provide the high standard of training we expect.

Prepare yourself for a career in specialist language work including translation, editing and précis-writing.

If you're interested in working as a professional linguist or working with the written word to provide translations and specialised language services, this course is an excellent option.

With a growing demand for highly trained speakers of English in the UK and abroad, this specialist master's will equip you to set up your own freelance business or work in-house for an international organisation or language service provider.

Unlike other courses of its kind, ours covers a wide variety of skills, including editing, revision, précis-writing and proofreading. Employers and agencies have told us they’re looking for these services, so having the right skills will place you in a strong position for securing work. You'll have the opportunity to gain skills in public service and commercial interpreting, and you will learn about setting up your own translation business.

In some cases, we can arrange external translation training. This may be in international organisations, such as the EU and UN, or an independent translation agency, and will give you first-hand experience of the workplace and valuable contacts for building your career.

The course is taught by qualified tutors. While some have worked for international organisations, others have developed their careers as freelance linguists. All bring extensive experience to the classroom to give students invaluable advice.

Explore the mechanisms of policymaking to understand the key dilemmas and challenges around social rights, equality and the distribution of resources.

On this course, you’ll learn about the social and political underpinnings of key policies affecting our lives. Understand the implications social policy has for questions of identity, political organisation, social justice and human rights.

You'll learn about the origins and transformations of the institution of the state and how it interacts with the economy and third sector in the UK and beyond. You'll relate these changes to societal, technological and economic developments in Britain and around the world.

Your first year will introduce you to social policy, sociology, and research methods, where you'll explore how social issues become constructed as policy problems. You'll learn about the major social, political and economic factors shaping equality and welfare in 21st century Britain. Through tutorials focused on developing key academic skills in these areas, you’ll also learn how to evaluate data and information to develop your own arguments tailored to different audiences.

In your second year you'll focus on key policy areas such as the family, poverty, social inequality and analysis of the policy process. You'll be able to choose from a range of social science options and explore international perspectives on social policy including European perspectives and examples from further afield. This will help you locate social policy debates critically within global policy challenges.

In your final year you’ll carry out a year-long, supervised dissertation in social policy, explore policy evaluation and study social protection and welfare reform, alongside options that allow you to undertake advanced analysis of specific policy areas.

Gain the benefits of studying across different scientific disciplines with the flexibility to shape your degree to your career aspirations.

This is the course for you if you love science and want to study more than one science subject at university. You can design your own degree to suit your interests and strengths. You’ll be able to take your existing scientific skills further, explore new areas and apply what you’ve learnt in practical and relevant ways.

Employers will value your ability to bring problem-solving skills from a variety of different angles. You’ll graduate with the breadth of knowledge and practical skills to prepare you for a career in industry or for postgraduate research.

If you decide your interests fit better within a single science, you may be able to transfer to biology, biochemistry, chemistry, pharmacology or physics after year one.

Take a first step towards a career in forensic psychology settings on this BPS accredited course, with a compulsory placement and focus on counselling skills.

This degree provides the background psychological knowledge, professional skills and relevant experience you need to move confidently into working psychologically within the legal, criminal and civil justice systems.

You will gain up-to-date knowledge of psychological theory and practices, and develop the insights and skills to carry out research and development projects in forensic services, looking at governance, ethical, organisational issues.

You will also be introduced to the foundation skills of forensic psychology practice and spend time developing basic skills in counselling that can be applied in a variety of forensic settings.

The counselling element of the course, and a year-long placement, will help you acquire skills and experience which, compared with other forensic psychology courses, can greatly enhance your employability prospects.

This course is for graduates in psychology, who are interested in progressing to careers in the forensic services as practitioners, researchers or managers. It is also for those currently working in the criminal justice or forensic mental health systems, wishing to learn more about the theory and practice behind forensic psychology.

Delve into the exciting field of health psychology on our BPS-accredited course, one of the only master's of this kind to include a compulsory 16-week placement.

Our MSc Health Psychology course is designed to give you a solid grounding in all the main areas of health psychology.

Taking a multidisciplinary approach to the subject, we look at how psychology can be used to help us better understand health and health behaviours. You'll study everything from preventing ill health to managing long-term conditions and developing effective healthcare provision.

You will gain hands-on experience of methods for conducting research in diverse research and healthcare settings before going on to apply those skills during the placement.

Placement Year

Choose Bath for one of the only BPS-accredited courses to offer a 16-week placement as an integral part of its master's. You'll be based in an academic, public health or health-related setting and will work on a piece of empirical research, using your knowledge of health psychology theories, models and approaches to tackle a particular issue in your placement setting.

As well as gaining invaluable experience, you'll see first-hand how health psychology can be applied in diverse contexts and ways. For example, you might be using research to inform policy around health promotion or disease prevention; or helping a service to use evidence-based models and approaches to develop more effective health interventions.

Deepen your knowledge of international relations and gain the skills to unpack and detect the causes and consequences of the world’s biggest challenges.

Current world developments - such as security threats, changes of leadership, the emergence of new powers and the evolving nature of the EU - present fresh challenges to governments, regions and the international system as a whole.

This course explores these issues in-depth, taking a close look at politics and policy-making of cybersecurity, security, diplomacy, and great and emerging powers, as well as the interplay of international power, order and institutions.

You'll gain the analytical skills to be able to unpack and detect the causes and consequences of specific political problems and the different political processes that have generated them.

This course attracts students from all over the world at different stages of their professional and academic lives, adding to the richness of debate and offering deep and diverse perspectives on this multi-faceted subject.

Studying at Bath provides you with the opportunity to work with researchers in international security, terrorism, foreign policy and the international political economy. Our staff have expertise in many relevant topics including intelligence, the global resurgence of religion, emerging powers and peace and conflict studies, they offer fresh and leading perspectives on these highly complex and evolving areas.

You'll leave with:

• A broad and informed perspective on current issues of international relations
• The strong analytical skills and theory-informed reasoning to be able to conduct political analysis and understand current challenges and developments
• A deep insight into the world of negotiation and diplomacy and how multilateral institutions operate in the domains of trade and security
• A strong foundation for international careers in administration, diplomacy, policy formation and research

This course is suited to those with an interest in contemporary world affairs and a degree in a relevant subject, such as international relations, politics, European studies, history, sociology, economics or languages. It’s a highly relevant course if you’re interested in, or already working in, public policy, diplomacy, government, think tanks, NGOs, business and industry, or education.

Develop an in-depth knowledge of the financial system. Use your quantitative skills and graduate ready for a career in finance or accounting.

This course is for graduates who have little or no business experience and want a finance or accounting-related career.

Receive a solid theoretical foundation in accounting and finance. You’ll learn to analyse financial decisions and the motivations of people making them, and how to apply this knowledge in the real world.

We bring in expertise from the University’s departments of Mathematical Sciences and Economics. This gives you access to a range of teaching and research experience.

Key benefits

• Our emphasis on technical and practical skills means you’ll leave prepared for a finance career
• Share your knowledge and experiences with students from all our finance courses. You'll also gain global insight working with students from all over the world
• Learn from three of the University’s leading teaching and research departments. We bring in expertise from Management, Mathematical Sciences and Economics
• Apply academic theory to a practical issue with an optional dissertation alternative. You'll get valuable experience working on a real problem
• Focus on the areas that interest you with a flexible course structure.

Vital in addressing global health and environmental challenges, biochemistry explores the chemical processes of living organisms at a molecular level.

Combine your interests in biology and chemistry by applying chemical knowledge and techniques to study biological processes. You’ll learn what’s happening inside cells, how they communicate with each other, and use this to predict how molecules will interact.

Tailor to your interests

In year one you’ll gain a broad grounding in biosciences to help work out where your interests lie. Then from year two, you'll choose optional units in specific areas, such as developmental biology, genomics, neuroscience, cancer biology and microbiology.

And to keep your options open further, you'll even have the flexibility to switch between our biology and biochemistry courses after the first year.

Placement Year

Going on placement gives you the opportunity to apply your skills and knowledge to a year working professionally. You’ll be employed full-time in a role to match your future career ambitions, broadening your experience and transferable skills. This could give you a competitive edge when applying for graduate jobs.

There is a wide range of placement opportunities available each year, from working in marketing for a pharmaceutical company to a lab-based role at a world-renowned research institute. We have links with some of industry's leading companies. Recent employers include Cancer Research UK, GlaxoSmithKline and Public Health England.