Bachelor of Science (Hons) in History and English Literature (with integrated placement year)

at Aston University United Kingdom

A unique combination of strategy, management consulting, and international business, our MSc Strategy and International Business can kick-start your career.
This course will equip you with the skills to analyze companies’ strategic situations and develop practical strategic solutions for complex commercial problems. You’ll learn the vital role middle managers play in implementing strategy and how you can make strategy work in practice.

Think you know about chemical engineering? Join our course here at Aston to learn how chemical engineers shape the world and get ready for a career in this exciting industry.

What you’ll learn
This course is designed to develop your engineering skills, in the context of a firm grounding in chemistry.?To ensure this, you will share your first year with chemists, giving you a good grounding in the subject before gaining a deeper insight into the industrial processes.

In later years you will specialize at a more advanced level in the core engineering topics as well as studying business, management, and sustainability, designed to further develop your problem-solving skills.?There will also be a focus on computer modeling skills with a strong emphasis on process simulation.

You have the option to spend a year on placement in the industry in your third year.?Many students take advantage of this option and find the experience extremely beneficial both for their development as an engineer and their final year performance.

Study the BSc (Hons) Politics and Sociology degree course at Aston University to get an in-depth understanding of some of the biggest political topics in the modern era, alongside social processes, social change, organizational dynamics, and inter-group relationships.

What you’ll learn
You’ll have the opportunity to explore major political topics going beyond the UK and Europe, covering North America, South Asia, China, Japan, or the emerging global powers. You will not only study the traditional subjects of the discipline, such as security, political economy, or democratization but also have the chance to delve into ethics, sports, gender, protests, or religion.

You will also learn about international politics, as well as investigating the forces which influence policy and give rise to conflicts between the achievement of economic, environmental, and social objectives.

The sociology strand of the course is about real-life experiences and how they relate to bigger social problems. We explore the social constraints we encounter in our everyday lives and how they are reinforced by class, race, religion, and gender. To understand how these issues perpetuate existing inequalities and unequal life chances, we analyze what impact official politics has on such processes, how politics is intertwined with the profit-making aims pursued by big corporations and how their combined interests dominate our social imaginations. We assess public policy responses and where they are problematic.

Understand some of the biggest debates in society and gain an in-depth knowledge of social processes, organizational dynamics, and inter-group relationships that could make a difference to society in a range of careers.

What you’ll learn
Sociology at Aston is about real-life experiences and how they relate to bigger social problems. We explore the social constraints we encounter in our everyday lives and how they are reinforced by class, race, religion, and gender. To understand how these issues perpetuate existing inequalities and unequal life chances, we analyze what impact official politics has on such processes, how politics is intertwined with the profit-making aims pursued by big corporations and how their combined interests dominate our social imaginations. We assess public policy responses and where they are problematic.

Our teaching is informed by our research. When learning about contemporary topics such as inequality, racism, health, migration, sexuality, identity, education, the media, crime, and climate change, you will be taught by experts in these fields. Our teaching is constantly updated in light of our research findings.

Study a BSc (Hons) Sociology and English Language degree course at Aston University to explore the English language, how it works in society and its role in the world today and learn about issues and policies affecting the world.

What you’ll learn
Our Sociology and English Language course will provide you with an in-depth understanding of social processes, inequalities, organizational dynamics, and inter-group relationships. To understand how these issues perpetuate existing inequalities and unequal life chances, we analyze how politics is intertwined with the profit-making aims pursued by big corporations and how their combined interests dominate our social imaginations.

Sociology will equip you with the knowledge and analytical skills that will enable you to think critically and work independently. This includes how to design a research project, collect empirical data, handle complex datasets (e.g., through applying coding techniques) and, most importantly, develop an advanced analytical mindset. This training will be essential for your final-year dissertation during which you will carry out your own individual research project. This experience will provide you with a skill set that is highly desired in a wide range of industries and areas of work.

Our Transport Management programme, which is part of the civil engineering and infrastructure cluster here at Aston, examines the economic, operational, societal and environmental issues related to the transport and distribution industries.

The skills you will gain are in high demand and, as a graduate, you will be able to work on developing and building transport solutions that are more efficient, more sustainable and future-proof.

What you’ll learn
Health and safety considerations are implicit throughout, and the science and mathematical skills behind infrastructure will underpin your studies. Gaining project management knowledge and building professional relationships are other key areas of your studies.

The course includes examples, illustrations, visits and case studies from the transport sector, with your studies incorporating all the relevant management skills: accounting, marketing, human resources and operations management. All are set within the context of the transport related industries, with a focus on including passenger and freight modes.

Study the Forensic Linguistics MA at Aston University, home of the world-leading Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics, to take your linguistics skills to the next level and improve the delivery of justice through the analysis of language.

What you’ll learn
The Forensic Linguistics MA course aims to expand your linguistic analysis skills and understanding so that you can apply them to forensic texts, and in forensic and legal contexts.

You will learn from some of the world’s leading academics in the field of forensic linguistics, based at our research institute - the Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics.

Digital electronics and computer systems are significant in commerce, industry and the home, and have an ever increasing impact on the way we work and live. To gain the competitive edge over its global rivals, British industry and commerce needs trained computer systems engineers with skills in both hardware and software who can assess, harness and influence the growth of information technology.

Our Electrical and Electronic Engineering MEng course is designed to stretch our top students and includes a 12 month industrial placement. It gives you the opportunity to study electronics and computer science more deeply than at BEng level while also gaining valuable industry experience.

What you’ll learn

The first two years of the MEng are taught alongside the BEng degree and you’ll gain a solid grounding in software engineering and computing systems, complemented by engineering expertise in digital electronics and telecommunications. To build a bridge between hardware and software specialists you’ll study computing and electronics with single honours students from the electronic engineering and computer science subject groups.?

In the second and final year, you’ll be able to choose options that enable you to specialise in preparation for your future career. These options include digital system design, telecommunications systems, optoelectronics and signal processing.

The final year is taught alongside our master's programmes and you can choose options from the stream that most interests you, including communications, sensing, computing or electrical power. You will also undertake an in-depth project, based on your areas of specialism.

Develop a breadth of business knowledge including the functions of management and science of decision-making. Whether you want a career at the forefront of a global operation, start-up, or not-for-profit organization, this degree could be for you.

What you’ll learn
You will gain a solid foundation in your first year across a breadth of business topics before shaping your second and final years to concentrate your study on particular specialisms. You can gain professional accreditations and exemptions in many of these career paths and you’ll also undertake a placement year to put your learning into practice.

There has never been a time where so much data has been available in conjunction with the tools to make the most of it. These tools constitute the field of data science. There has also never been a time with so many global challenges to tackle, from the shortage of resource and the impact we have on the environment to the strive to automate and optimise a variety of systems such as transport, energy, health and communication. There are almost limitless opportunities to use these tools in the various domains and applications for making real impact on industry, society and policy making.

This course is for you if you want to use your mathematical and numerical skills to embark on a career in data science and its application. During the course you will develop the necessary analytical and computational skills alongside an informed and critical appreciation of scientific and industrial developments in data.

What you’ll learn 

You will gain a thorough grounding in the fundamental concepts of data analytics to understand the data lifecycle, including problem formulation, data collection and cleaning, exploratory data analysis and visualisation, statistical inference and decision making. Additionally, you will have the chance to apply your knowledge in a research project on a subject of your choice.

You will be trained in a wide range of modern data science and analytics methods in the MSc in Data Analytics programme including the following modules:

Statistical Machine Learning, where you will be able to develop simple, but practical, statistical models for complex real-world data. The models can be used to automate decision making and predictions, such as detecting diseases or deciphering signals.

Algorithmic and Computational Mathematics that focuses on the in-depth study of key general algorithms, with their numerical implementation, which are the heart of data processing and modelling. This includes approximation techniques, interpolation, sampling, etc. that are practiced with hands-on coding.

Data Science Programming will teach you the use of Python and R for data analysis in scientific computing. You will learn how to use Python libraries such as: (i) NumPy and Pandas, for performing complex numerical analysis tasks; (ii) Scikit Learn, to build machine learning models; (iii) Matplotlib and R for 2D data visualisations and (iv) PyTorch, to develop deep learning applications.