Master of Arts in International Social Welfare and Social Development

at University of Bedfordshire - Luton Campus United Kingdom

Find your specialism and become the writer of your dreams with our innovative, skill-building course which encourages you to experiment with different modes and genres across a range of media platforms. Our small cohort sizes mean you benefit from personal, tailored support.

Explore writing in a way you may not have experienced before, from from the speculative genres of horror, fantasy, and science fiction, to scriptwriting and performance poetry. Your academic team are all experienced writers who will encourage you to find where your aptitudes and enthusiasms lie, helping you to develop your own writing practice and style.

This course benefits from a close relationship with other creative courses such as media, art and design, journalism, and computer games development so you work in an atmosphere of collaborative, artistic energy. You also have many opportunities to share your work, including in our annual published anthology of student writing and open-mic nights.

Graduates from the course have gone on to successful careers in a range of fields, from published authors of fantasy writing and innovative poetry to editorial roles, from professional YouTubers to Creative Writing lecturers.

Why choose this course?

• We are a student-centred course where the emphasis is placed on your development as a writer
• Belong to a vibrant and diverse writing community and have the freedom to focus on the aspects of writing that interest you
• Optional pathways in genre fiction, innovative forms, and screenwriting, taught by writers from those areas, and the opportunity to collaborate with Computer Games and Illustration students to develop games and graphic novel projects
• Meet with writers and other industry professionals
• Focus on your professional development and your future after completing the degree

More than ever before our lives are defined by the spaces in which we live, work and play, and interior architects are ground-breakers when it comes to creating experimental, imaginative and stimulating environments. This course will fire your imagination while giving you the skills and knowledge you need to follow this exciting career path.

Nowadays, people actively want the spaces they inhabit to serve their needs, reflect their personality, and offer ergonomic and environmental innovation. On this course, you explore the relationship between interior spaces, architectural forms and human experience and interaction, considering such aspects as space planning, scale, structure, colour, texture, lighting, branding and user experience.

The remit of a professional interior architect is wide so, while studying, you are encouraged to develop unique proposals for a range of environments, from bars, restaurants and theatres to workplaces, retail spaces and exhibitions. You focus on a number of commission areas including refurbishment, film and exhibition design, and virtual environments.

Where possible, design briefs are collaborative, with real sites, real clients and opportunities to network with professional practitioners, building your practical skills and giving you valuable experience in preparation for a career in the field.

Why choose this course?

• Develop a creative and critical understanding of building structure and fabric while studying the design of interior environments in urban, suburban and rural contexts
• Be able to interpret the different ways in which people, activities and places relate to and with each other
• Learn about the latest innovations used to solve contemporary design problems
• Explore specific specialist areas of the field such as anthropometrics, ergonomics, environmental control and sustainability, and orthographic representation
• Benefit from project-based teaching that covers 2D and 3D computer-aided design, digital image creation and manipulation, and video production and editing
• You have the option to take the course over four years and include a fee-free professional placement (see below) which will give you relevant experience, build your CV and offer networking opportunities for the future

Computer Science is a complex and wide-ranging subject, and includes the study of computation theory, the design of systems and artificial intelligence.

This course shares its first stage with our other related BSc degrees to give you a foundation in the subject while providing a platform for specialist study in the second and third stages.

You will concentrate on essential areas such as systems architecture and security, acquire practical programming, modelling and software development skills before focusing on a chosen specialist area for your final stage project.

Why choose this course?
MSc in Computer Science is an ideal course for computing graduates who want to continue studying computing technology but are looking to explore a wide area in computer science without the need to focus (solely) on one particular subject at this stage. The course is therefore ideal for those students who want to keep their career options open. A range of topics from Networking and Data Modelling to Smart Technologies will be studied which will equip you to fully understand the application of computing technology in real-world situations. You will also do a MSc final project to demonstrate a deep and systematic understanding of a selected area within computer science, including theoretical and methodological approaches issues at the forefront of research or professional practice in that area.

This course responds to the growing market demand for graduates who aim to work with the information and organisation needs of businesses.

Students will gain understanding of information and organisation structures in a business as well as skills of using existing software required for designing and developing information systems.

Students will also obtain skills and ability to interact with business analysts, computer programmers, and software engineers. Graduates are expected to be able to obtain knowledge and understanding of Business Processes and their applications.

Why choose this course?

• Learn how IT plays an essential role in supporting the strategic, operational and tactical needs of domestic and international business
• Study the importance of IT systems to business analysis and intelligence
• Develop your knowledge of system analysis and design, modern database practices, decision support systems and data mining
• Gain a thorough understanding of project, finance and virtual management techniques
• Explore the entrepreneurial possibilities of IT, and discover how the needs of business can offer an enormous range of opportunities
• Challenge your preconceptions of what makes a business successful, and refocus your ambition
• Benefit from a series of talks and guidance offered by inspirational speakers and leaders from a range of business sectors

 This course gives you an advanced understanding of molecular and computational biologies as well as the microbiological techniques at the forefront of technological developments in the field. It opens the door to a career in the biotechnology and allied industries.

Modern biotechnology is a hugely complex subject, drawing from a range of fields and technologies. On this course, you learn the latest new technologies in key areas; gain insights into how they are used in the global biotechnology industry; and discover how microbes can be used on an industrial scale to benefit humankind.

You also hone your research skills with a laboratory-based project in one of five taught areas: molecular biology; computational biology; applied microbiology; analytical biology; and biomaterials.

Why choose this course?

• Study the latest developments in applied microbiology and computational biology in high-quality, broad-based classes taught by dedicated staff with research experience in specialist subject areas
• Explore the latest technologies in molecular biology and the industrial processes that are used to exploit microbes for specific products and applications
• Develop the ability to use information from relevant sources, and independently and critically evaluate current research and advanced scholarship
• Gain the ability to use assured, accurate and fluent language to present your work, and learn to develop graphs and images that clearly illustrate complex points
• Benefit from a wide knowledge base and the key transferable skills that will give you the opportunity to take your career to new heights
• Take the part-time pathway option to better fit study around your work and family commitments

This inter-disciplinary course combines international relations, gender and peacekeeping with cultural studies, and addresses the need for intercultural expertise in all global situations.

Focusing on employability, you will understand the growth of NGOs, the importance of the UN, globalisation of industry and multi-cultural communities made up of economic migrants and refugees.

This integrated course prepares you to work within a wide range of economic, technological, demographic and social justice concerns.

There are six entry points through the year. This allows you to start when it is most suitable.

Why choose this course?

• Study at a pace that suits your work-life balance – choose a one year full-time course, or extend your learning part-time.
• Explore options in public relations, intercultural communication and international marketing
• Gain real insight into peacekeeping and security though studying with experienced academics and practitioners including a Clinical Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies with experience in peacekeeping as a military officer
• Benefit from a course that combines core international relations units, gender and peacekeeping with cultural studies, focusing on the importance of intercultural competence in international situations.
• Develop the skills needed to work internationally and engage in international issues in political, economic or business areas as both politics and culture integrate to shape economic, technological, demographic and social justice concerns.
• Learn using our employability practice-based approach incorporating real business to develop your strengths and skills in this area.

This course is integrative, blending accounting and business finance theory to solve problems faced by managers on a daily basis. You will also further develop the necessary quantitative, research, and presentation skills required for successful career in business or further academic study.

Your studies will be enhanced by the integration of theory and practice into those situations where vital financial decisions have to be made.

Why choose this course?

• Benefit from a wide range of teaching experiences such as lectures, seminars, and workshops, fieldwork, practice weeks, external visits, on-line activities, individual and group work tasks and invited guest speakers from the tourism and aviation industry.
• Learn through a range of integrated, project based activities which will set the tourism and aviation industry in the context of business.
• Investigate the sensitive and positive effects cultures have on tourism and aviation. In your final year, we start to elaborate on the sustainable aspects of international tourism.
• Benefit from teaching informed by research and professional practice that our tutors draw upon to illustrate current issues in the tourism and aviation industry globally.

The study of finance is key to understanding how businesses operate, governments exercise policies and countries operate and compete with each other.

This course will provide you with an intimate knowledge of the structural issues economies are facing and the way they are being realised in today’s economics affairs through the dominance of financial institutions.

Through blended learning you will study the theoretical background and work with industry on real business problems to develop the personal and professional skills you need to be a key player in this global, knowledge-based economy

Why choose this course?

• Study the related areas of economics, financial markets and portfolio management, accounting and finance and strategic management
• Gain advanced knowledge of financial organisations and institutions, as well as of government policies and the critical capabilities to apply theory to complex issues
• Explore your enterprise, creativity and independence – the skills required by employers - through your dissertation unit
• Develop your employability by undertaking a work placement with the opportunity to work on a live project
• Benefit from studying with a Business School that has partners across the world enabling you to examine the cross-culture perspectives essential to organisations in the global markets

How can we understand, intervene and promote health and wellbeing across the course of life? Health psychology works to answer this question, looking towards the interaction of psychological, social and biological factors to understand health and illness.

Health psychology moves away from the medicalisation of health and illness. Instead, on this course, you take a more whole-person approach to understanding health and illness, studying social issues and aspects such as obesity, lifestyle and stress. Taught by an academic team actively involved in research in the field, you benefit from their up-to-the-minute knowledge and research skills.

This course forms stage one of the training you need to become a chartered psychologist member of the Division of Health Psychology within the British Psychological Society.

Why choose this course?

• Gain new insights into the theory and practice of health psychology
• Learn to show how the links between scientific theory and practice can guide the collection and interpretation of empirical data
• Develop a systematic understanding and critical awareness of current problems in the field
• Gain confident knowledge of qualitative and quantitative research methods which will allow you to perform complex data analysis, interpretation, evaluation and synthesis
• Develop your competence in a range of techniques including multivariate analyses
• Benefit from a strong sense of personal responsibility and professionalism that will enable you to practise or conduct research within ethical guidelines

The MSc International Finance and Banking is designed to enable you to become a more effective and enterprising manager in a range of financial organisations in a knowledge-based global economy.

Finance and Banking as a study area is distinct from Accounting in that it is interdisciplinary and draws upon a wide range of soft and hard sciences.

Thus at post graduate level the study must be integrative, blending economic, mathematical and financial theory with analytical approaches to solving complex problems and implementing solutions.

Finance must also be treated as international in context to ensure relevance in the global economy.

The course aims to enable you to critically analyse the role of banking within international financial markets.

Attention is also placed on developing a contemporary empirical understanding of the behaviour of international financial markets that is particularly relevant for the aspects of international banking, alongside providing you with the ICT and research skills required by employers in this highly competitive banking sector.

It is specially designed for those seeking a management career in the international banking system, international corporations or in capital markets.