Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Music (Optional Placement)

at University of Plymouth United Kingdom

Study in lively, purpose-built studios with creative students and award-winning staff. We help you forge your visual voice to succeed in today's fast-paced creative worlds. You set your work in a global context through inspiring overseas study trips. Take part in an International Exchange programme to broaden your cultural references and gain new contacts in the international illustration scene. Prepare to get noticed in the professional world with external commissions and competitions.

Key Features

• Be inspired by a varied studio-based culture and practise in our easy-access workshop facilities. Take part in everything from life and location drawing to printmaking and media exploration.
• Develop your Photoshop, Premiere, InDesign and Flash skills in digital workshops, and explore typography basics, bookbinding, creative writing and more.
• Gain invaluable knowledge, confidence and professional awareness by seizing work experience opportunities in years 2 and 3. This can range from simple studio visits to longer-term placements and collaboration, such as graduate Kate Mowbray’s placement as a Publishing Assistant with BBC History Magazine.
• Develop your personal visual ‘voice' and start getting noticed in the professional world by taking part in external commissions and competitions. Get an insight into the world of our award-winning students with freelance illustrator, Jack Teagle. 
• Define your illustrative direction within specific routes such as comic/graphic novels, children’s markets, printmaking, and design for animation/screen – or continue to explore within a broad range of practice. 
• Raise your profile and make new contacts by exhibiting your work at both our Degree Show and London graduate shows.
• Set your work in a global context through inspiring overseas study trips to places such as London, New York and Barcelona.
• Choose to take part in an International Exchange programme in your second year, broadening your cultural references and forging new contacts in the international illustration scene. Find out about recent student Alexander Lee’s experiences living and learning in Japan.
• Benefit from a varied visiting speaker programme of illustrators, commissioning editors, publishers and ex-graduates ready to share advice and insight to help shape your future career.
• Build up your analogue and digital portfolios and develop your professional profile and confidence, ensuring you’re ready for whatever future direction you wish to pursue, whether freelance, studio-based or within further education such as MA or PGCE courses. 
• Our National Student Survey (NSS) 2019 return show that 100% of students felt our staff were good at explaining things and 91% of students agreed staff made the subject interesting.

Explore the challenges of today’s global financial community and investigate how the stock market and international money markets work. Graduate equipped to pursue a career in finance, accounting or management anywhere in the world.

Develop a critical perspective of finance as an academic subject and learn how it contributes to practice in the real world of finance. Many students go on to study masters degrees in finance, accounting or management. This course is available with a January or September start.

Key Features

• Enhance and broaden your existing knowledge of accounting and finance and investigate the challenges of financial management in the international arena.
• Build the confidence you’ll need to meet the challenges of economic change and graduate ready to be a successful player in the world of international finance and accounting.
• Tailor the course to meet your career goals by choosing from a range of optional courses. These range from investment management and international trade to risk management and quantitative finance.
• Get invaluable training on important finance software such as Bloomberg and DataStream so that when you start your career you can contribute from day one.
• Take the opportunity to continue and further your studies to postgraduate level with our MSc Finance programme. Alternatively many students also go on to study at masters level at a range of top universities in the UK and around the world.
• You will get invaluable training on important finance software such as Bloomberg and DataStream so that when you start your career you can contribute from day one.

Around 70 per cent of our planet is ocean with an average depth of 3000m. To understand the biology of this vast area, we must also understand the oceans themselves. Marine biology and oceanography studies the biology and ecology of the marine realm, with a focus on offshore and deep-sea ecosystems, and the physical and chemical processes that shape them. Teaching uses both small and large research vessels, providing you with an unrivalled experience of open ocean marine biology.

You will develop a host of practical skills that will prepare you for your chosen career and make you attractive to employers. You will have the opportunity to gain the HSE PRO SCUBA qualification, for those with a suitable background in diving. You’ll also gain invaluable experience on a six or 12-month international placement during your third year, or working in a local host organisation alongside your studies.

Key Features

Understand the roles of democracy, freedom and security in the 21st century near the site of the 2021 G7 Summit. Our programme is not just about helping you understand politics and international relations; it's about building your critical thinking to empower you to be part of a change. Hone your skills with our unique practical assessments that immerse you in mock-ups of real-world scenarios. Our students have gone on to key policy and political roles locally and nationally.

Key Features

• We’re very proud of our National Student Survey (NSS) 2019 return showing overall satisfaction for 100% of our students. 100% of students agreed staff were good at explaining things and also that the course is intellectually stimulating.*
• Develop specific knowledge of the discipline of politics – understand the significance and nature of political processes, the variety of forms of government and the concepts that inform their operation.
• Engage with political institutions and processes to acquire a detailed knowledge of these systems and how they interact. You’ll use current affairs as case studies to bring broader principles to life.
• Take part in debates on contemporary international relations and have the opportunity to study a number of relevant themes and issues, which may include; international security, north-south international relations, international political economy, the United Nations, refugee studies, foreign policy, theory and area studies such as Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia.
• Learn from research-active staff, leading the way in their subjects. Members of the team are internationally renowned for their work on elections and electoral systems and ethnopolitics.
• Enhance your employability by taking part in extra-curricular events and talks organised by the student-run Politics and International Affairs society (PIASOC).
• Open doors to a wide range of career opportunities including journalism, advertising, teaching, non-governmental organisation work and academia.

Our MA Photography programme engages with contemporary practices in image-making, writing and curating through eco-critical and post-human perspectives.
This outward-facing programme prepares you for professional opportunities in the fields of exhibition, curation and publication. Intensive periods of studio-based workshops, symposia, lectures, online tutorials, and visits to studios, galleries and research centres provide the basis of the learning experience.

Key Features

 Explore the diverse and exciting subject of human geography. Geographers are fascinated by society and environment and examine how places are understood, imagined, used, shared and contested by different peoples. Geographers study the world at a range of scales, from the local to the global, and have a keen appreciation of how places are connected.

Be part of a rich discipline that engages with a vast range of philosophies and methodologies in its quest to understand people’s diverse relationships with the world.

Do you want a career in the archive sector? Join a new MA programme designed and taught in partnership with archival professionals, created to give you practical experience of the archive, from manuscripts to ?lm, sound and digital archives. Co-taught with The Box, Plymouth's new heritage centre, and with links to local archives and work-based learning, you also learn about current and practical management issues, the varied needs of users and how to communicate through outreach and marketing.

You can study MA Archival Practice full time over one year, or part time over two years.

Key Features

• Taught in partnership with The Box, Plymouth's new heritage centre, with archival professionals as core and optional module teachers and in the placement module.
• Work-based learning is a key feature of the MA.
• Digital skills are embedded in all modules.
• You develop links with local record of?ces and other archives which will be important for future employment in the archive and heritage sector.
• The core and optional modules meet practical and current needs (fund-raising, employment law, archival and digital skills) for a range of archive and related jobs.
• Designed to be an accredited, professional quali?cation aligned to the Archives and Records Association’s new competencies in core modules. Provisional accreditation for the programme is being sought

 Chemists plays a vital role in tackling key societal challenges, including sustainability, health, energy and protecting the environment. To ensure our graduates can apply their chemistry, our course places problem solving, communication, and project management at the core of what we do. Taught by world-class researchers, our students gain both the academic knowledge and practical laboratory skills needed to be a professional chemist in a wide range of careers.

Work and learn in our ISO 9001 certified laboratories, our unique offer to undergraduates to train in a regulated professional laboratory environment. Chemistry at Plymouth is ranked 14th in the Guardian University Guide 2021: top in the UK for ‘satisfied with feedback’, 2nd in both ‘satisfied with teaching’ and the ‘value-added score’, and 6th on ‘satisfied with the course’

Key Features

• Benefit from outstanding teaching - our degree is ranked 1st in the UK for academic support, 2nd for assessment and feedback and 4th for overall teaching quality (NSS, 2019).
• Equip yourself for successful employment in a competitive job market – our focus on practical, professional skills means you graduate primed to enter the workplace.
• Benefit from award-winning teaching in small groups and be inspired by staff who are world-leading researchers.
• Hone your practical problem solving skills in our newly-refurbished laboratories, kitted out with the latest analytical instrumentation.
• Our tutorial system ensures that you receive the support and guidance you need to reach your full potential.
• 70% of assessment is based on coursework.
• Experience chemistry in the real world and boost your employability by taking a placement, work-based project in your final year, or working alongside PhD and post-doctoral researchers in our high specification laboratories.
• Graduate with in-demand skills for a range of career paths, from research and development in the pharmaceutical industry and lab-based roles in the food and energy industries, to positions in the science, engineering, healthcare, environmental or technology sectors.
• Accredited by the Royal Society of Chemistry, the professional body representing chemistry in the UK.

Acquire a deep insight into modern theories of nature using powerful mathematical techniques. This degree will provide you with the necessary mathematical language to be able to describe, analyse and predict natural phenomena. Final year modules include classical and quantum mechanics, electrodynamics and relativity, fluid dynamics and partial differential equations. A particular highlight of the degree is the choice of project modules to explore aspects of modern physics in depth.

Key Features

• Study the foundation of modern theoretical physics in modules such as Classical and Quantum Mechanics, and Electrodynamics and Relativity.
• Learn from world-leading researchers in theoretical physics, who will show you how the mathematics you study underpins and connects directly to modern research topics at the frontiers of physics; your first year course in linear algebra, for example, is taught by a collaborator of a 2018 Nobel Prize winner.
• Carry out an in-depth final year project in theoretical physics on topics such as quantum computers, black holes, teleportation or the quark model, supervised by a leading academic: our theoretical physicists have research connections across the globe, including at CERN and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.    
• Learn high-level programming skills and master industry software including Python, R and parallel programming on a supercomputer.
• Increase your employability with an optional, paid, industry placement between the second and final years.
• Progress, like our previous graduates, into careers in research, work in the Met Office, GCHQ, finance, industry and medicine or postgraduate degrees in applied mathematics and theoretical physics.

Are you passionate about understanding animal behaviour and applying this knowledge to improve welfare? Do you want to explore the evolution of behaviour in a variety of species? Applying an understanding of animal needs and health, you consider the many aspects of animal welfare, including an examination of the legal and ethical frameworks that safeguard welfare. You also undertake practical work, conducting behavioural and welfare assessment studies, gaining the skills sought by employers.

In the 2019 National Student Survey, 100% expressed overall satisfaction with the course; 93% of students felt staff on this course were good at explaining things; 83% felt that the staff made the subject interesting and 93% found the course intellectually stimulating.

Key Features

• You will build a strong foundation in the fundamental science that underpins the study and understanding of behaviour and welfare - including ecology, evolution, microbiology, physiology, nutrition, health and disease. You will then build onto this with in-depth study of behaviour, welfare and their links in your second and final years of study.
• You will take part in residential field courses in South Devon and the Netherlands, allowing you to develop and apply the understanding you gain through lectures and to study animal behaviour in both wild and captive settings - the latter including zoos and agricultural settings.
• You will benefit from our collaborations with Dartmoor Zoo, Paignton Zoo, Newquay Zoo, the Donkey Sanctuary and National Marine Aquarium, which enable a number of field-trips throughout your course to look at captive animal behaviour, welfare, conservation and rehabilitation.
• You will have opportunity to boost your employability by taking a placement year between your second and final years of study, working in the industry, anywhere in the world - you can read more about this in the 'course details' section of this page.
• You can broaden your horizons by taking your second year at one of a range of universities overseas offered in our year abroad scheme.
• You will be supported pastorally and academically by a personal tutor throughout your studies, and will have regular 1:1 meetings to discuss your progress formally.
• You will interact with and be lectured by academic staff who are research-active and well regarded in their fields.
• You will undertake self-study throughout your course, using our well-equipped library and range of online scientific journals, as well as LABPlus, our unique laboratory and resource centre designed for science and engineering students, which will provide you with flexible workspace, computing facilities, specialist software and bioinformatic applications, access to microscopes, cameras and bespoke resources designed by academic staff to support specific modules as well as more general self-study.