Bachelor of Science in International Politics with Placement (Thick - Sandwich)

at Brunel University London United Kingdom

Handling large amounts of data efficiently and quickly is becoming an increasingly important aspect of computing; businesses need to understand trends in data which will allow them to make informed and timely decisions. Artificial intelligence (AI) and the techniques it embraces provide opportunities for this to happen and to make sense of big data.

Qualified graduates with the skills and ability in AI to take advantage of these opportunities are in great demand. Brunel’s Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) BSc, will expose you to the foundations, theory and practical aspects of computer science and AI.

You’ll gain a good understanding of computer science and a grasp of the important elements of a computer system. You’ll also learn how to build different types of software, from web-based systems to mobile solutions.

By specialising in AI you’ll develop a range of techniques which can be applied in software to solve complex problems. AI is inherent in modern games, financial trading systems and medical systems and enhances the software solutions in each of these areas.

You’ll be confident in your knowledge of the nature, diversity and limitations of software artefacts (or programs) that display apparently intelligent behaviour, understand a range of machine learning paradigms, and be able to apply them to the production of innovative and useful artefacts.

Our course is designed for flexibility, so if you’re not sure which route you want to go, you can select modules and specialise gradually during your time with us. You can transfer between Computer Science and Business Computing up to the start of Level 2, then, should you wish, to choose a specialism up to the start of Level 3.

We know that when you graduate, you’ll be working on large projects. That’s why one third of each year of our programmes is project-based. On Levels 1 and 2, you’ll build a software solution in a team, and in your final year you’ll carry out an individual project. You’ll also have the opportunity to showcase your projects at the annual Made in Brunel (Software Innovation) event, with awards presented by the likes of Cisco, Sky and Xerox.

As part of your degree course, you’ll have the chance to take a year-long work placement between your second year and third year. We’ll support you in finding that all-important paid professional experience, in the UK or abroad. The feedback we’ve received is that those who have taken a placement are much more likely to find a job for which their degree was a formal requirement as it gives you a competitive advantage. Recent graduates have gone on to work for well-known names such as Accenture, Toshiba, Microsoft, British Airways, O2, and Barclays.

Our programmes are accredited by the British Computer Society, the Chartered Institute for IT, for the purposes of fully meeting the academic requirement for registration as a Chartered IT Professional (CITP), and on behalf of the Engineering Council, for the purposes of fully meeting the academic requirement for Incorporated Engineer (IEng) and partially meeting the academic requirement for a Chartered Engineer (CEng). 

The accreditation also allows you to apply for professional membership of the BCS after you have successfully completed your degree.

The department has been awarded an Athena SWAN Bronze, recognising our dedication to the advancement of gender equality in STEM subjects. We now have an ongoing three-year action plan to further implement strategies and improve our practices. As part of this endeavour, Brunel’s Women in Engineering and Computing mentoring scheme provides our female students with invaluable help and support from the industry.

As the amount of digital information increases, major institutions in sectors such as finance and medicine rely on robust structures that can grow and adapt. By specialising in software engineering, you’ll focus on how to build high quality systems which will be easier to maintain and develop as the requirements of the system change and available technologies evolve. The techniques involved include testing, service-oriented architectures, and refactoring.

On the Computer Science (Software Engineering) BSc degree course, you’ll also learn how to build different types of software, from web-based systems to mobile solutions. In the final year you’ll take compulsory modules in advanced computer science and choose optional modules that interest you in a variety of compelling areas.

In addition, you’ll acquire in-depth knowledge of algorithms, design, programming and testing techniques. By the end of the course, you’ll have confidence in your knowledge of common system and network architectures and system development approaches, requirements capture, design methods, models, tools, and techniques.

You’ll become well-versed in implementing and testing systems and software maintenance. Key to this course is cultivating a reflective approach to project management issues arising from team-based software development.

This specialist degree course allows you to display an in-depth knowledge of the management, organisation and execution of large-scale software design and development activities including reuse and integration. All our degrees emphasise acquiring knowledge and skills to develop your new understanding creatively and professionally. Although this is an academic degree, the course balances theory with real-world practice in information and computer management.

Our course is designed for flexibility, so if you’re not sure which route you want to go, you can select modules and specialise gradually during your time with us. You can transfer between Computer Science and Business Computing up to the start of Level 2, then, should you wish, to choose a specialism up to the start of Level 3.

We know that when you graduate, you’ll be working on large projects. That’s why one third of each year of our programmes is project-based. On Levels 1 and 2, you’ll build a software solution in a team, and in your final year you’ll carry out an individual project. You’ll also have the opportunity to showcase your projects at the annual  Made in Brunel (Software Innovation) event, with awards presented by the likes of Cisco, Sky and Xerox.

As part of your degree course, you’ll have the chance to take a year-long work placement between your second year and third year. We’ll support you in finding that all-important paid professional experience, in the UK or abroad. The feedback we’ve received is that those who have taken a placement are much more likely to find a job for which their degree was a formal requirement as it gives you a competitive advantage. Recent graduates have gone on to work for well-known names such as Accenture, Toshiba, Microsoft, British Airways, O2, and Barclays.

Our programmes are accredited by the British Computer Society, the Chartered Institute for IT, for the purposes of fully meeting the academic requirement for registration as a Chartered IT Professional (CITP), and on behalf of the Engineering Council, for the purposes of fully meeting the academic requirement for Incorporated Engineer (IEng) and partially meeting the academic requirement for a Chartered Engineer (CEng). 

The accreditation also allows you to apply for professional membership of the BCS after you have successfully completed your degree.

The department has been awarded an Athena SWAN Bronze, recognising our dedication to the advancement of gender equality in STEM subjects. We now have an ongoing three-year action plan to further implement strategies and improve our practices. As part of this endeavour, Brunel’s  Women in Engineering and Computing mentoring scheme provides our female students with invaluable help and support from the industry.

If you have a passion for theatre and would like to learn how to bring your ideas to life on stage, Brunel’s Theatre course will equip you with specialist skills in a range of performance genres while you grow your knowledge of theatre history and theory.

Blended learning is a feature of the course which includes a mix of theatre making practical classes together with theoretically focussed content to help inform your artistic choices.

Alongside developing your analytical and study skills, you’ll discover ways of expressing yourself and building your confidence along the way.

The course has compulsory modules and numerous optional modules that you can choose from within the Theatre degree. You can opt for a wide selection of modules on the main degree or focus your studies through a specialised degree pathway in Acting, Musical Theatre or Physical Theatre.

Please click below for more information on modules offered throughout the course for each pathway.

Theatre BA pathway module table
You will be supported by a personal tutor who is also your academic seminar tutor and you will be taught by staff who are cutting edge academics and industry specialists. You’ll learn in our Antonin Artaud Performance Centre which includes a main theatre and two studio theatres, in addition to a suite of rehearsal and recording studios.

As we’re close to central London, we regularly organise trips to see productions at places such as the Barbican, the National Theatre, the Royal Court, and Sadler’s Wells and participate in workshops with ground-breaking theatre companies all as part of your course.

In order to understand the deeper workings of the human mind and to recognise why we are who we are, it is important to look closely at two of the most fundamental and powerful influences on behaviour - culture and evolution.

As part of the Psychology, Culture and Evolution MSc you will delve into evolutionary and cross-cultural psychology, analysing how an external influence can create an internal choice or characteristic within individuals. You will look at personal relationships and how we choose a mate, morality and belief systems such as how we conclude our standing on politics and religion, and conflict and cooperation and how inequality can become a source of social conflict.

This master's programme will give you the analytical research skills, knowledge and expertise you'll need to pursue a PhD in fields such as cross-cultural psychology, evolutionary psychology, anthropology, behavioural ecology, human ethology, comparative sociology, and multicultural and cross-cultural counselling.

This conversion course has been tailored to provide you with a firm foundation in the core areas of psychology as defined by the British Psychological Society (BPS). These include biological, cognitive, social, developmental, social psychology, individual differences and statistics and research methods.

You’ll also develop analytic expertise and research skills, creating a solid basis for further advanced study within the discipline (e.g. PhD, ClinPsyD, DEdPsy).

Our academic experts use a wide variety of teaching methods including lectures, seminars and self-directed learning to provide you with a comprehensive learning experience. You’re fully supported throughout the whole degree process including having a personal tutor and receiving one-to-one specialist academic supervision to complete the empirical research project that will demonstrate your depth of knowledge of a specialist area in psychology.

You’ll qualify for membership of the BPS – a mark of quality and an essential entry qualification for postgraduate professional training in psychology to practise as a health professional.
This course is now available to study fully online, which means you can earn your conversion master’s from wherever you live and work. Studying online, you’ll still benefit from connecting to fellow students, professionals, and academics worldwide, through our innovative online learning platform.  

Who has political power? Why do they have it? To whom are they accountable? Is violent protest ever justified? If these questions evoke a response in you and raise more questions in turn, politics is the degree for you.

Politics is an exciting and dynamic subject, simulating debate and offering insight into how the ever-changing world around us works. It’s also a degree that can demonstrate your intellectual acumen and understanding of world affairs, which will be an asset in many fields of work.

The broad-based nature of the course at Brunel means you will be studying a wide breadth of modules from British politics to US foreign policy and political change. But you’ll not only be learning about politics – you’ll be analysing politics using the tools of political science to help deepen your understanding and critical thinking.

Opt for a placement year and you'll gain work experience that is highly valued by employers. Brunel students have secured placements in the Environmental Audit Committee, the House of Commons, Directorate of Gender Affairs, HM Treasury and the Competition Commission, to name only a few.

You can also opt to take part of your degree abroad in one of our partner universities in Europe, or participate in an exchange programme to China or the USA to study politics in a different part of the world whilst experiencing a new culture.

Brunel is a dynamic university choice for your politics course. You’ll be taught by politics experts who are often called on to comment on radio and television. The Brunel campus has hosted the filming of BBC’s Question Time and is a political hub during local and national elections.

Brunel politics graduates enter diverse careers. Many of our former students go into politics and the civil service and some are currently at GCHQ and military intelligence. Others work in the public and private sector like the NHS, international banks, business consultancy, law, NGOs and the media. Whichever route you chose, a politics degree with Brunel will set you up for a successful future.

If studies of the mind and mental health interest you, this socially and culturally focused course may provide a rich alternative to more scientific studies in psychology and psychiatry.

Study this course and you will investigate psychological and psychiatric issues from an anthropological perspective, addressing issues at the forefront of debates in social policy, morality, personal identity, and mental health.

By considering cases from around the world you’ll explore how person, consciousness, and experience are shaped through cultural practices and political realities.

Examining world ethnography (including the UK), you’ll learn about selfhood, emotion, personality, and understandings of ‘madness’ and mental illness in cultural context.

Brunel students come from varied professional and academic backgrounds, many taking time out for professional development. If you haven’t studied anthropology before, you’ll be offered introductory modules in anthropological theory to help prepare you for the rest of the course.

Anthropology at Brunel is well-known for its focus on ethnographic fieldwork and you will be expected to get out of the library and undertake your own, original research – whether in the UK or overseas – and to present your findings in a dissertation.

Your fieldwork can be taken anywhere in the world, locally, previous students have explored psychic training, Pentecostal churches, and mental health charities, and internationally, students have explored subjects like funerals in Iran, Amazon neoshamanism, and autism programmes in Belgium.

Mathematics is a fundamental subject that is critical to our understanding of the world. Through the study of mathematics you’ll advance your problem solving skills, develop your reasoning and increase your analytical thinking. This is why mathematics forms a basis to so many careers. Yes – it is a discipline in its own right, but it is also the thinking behind countless commercial, industrial and technological activities. Mathematical models underpin engineering, the applied sciences, computing and many aspects of management today.

Follow the four-year ‘Professional Placement’ degree programme and you‘ll benefit from our extensive experience in helping students to find well-paid work placements with blue-chip companies. Our sandwich students find that their mathematical and transferable skills are in demand in many sectors, both in the UK and abroad.

Areas recently offering placements include: accountancy, aviation, banking, defence, finance, insurance, IT (software development, network management and design), management (public and private sector), marketing and telecommunications.

The Financial Mathematics BSc covers the application of mathematical methods to financial problems so if you’re looking to work in the fast-moving world of finance or commerce then this is the course for you. Two thirds of the course content focuses on developing your mathematical knowledge and skills. The rest of the course covers financial markets, corporate investment and finance.

This programme will meet the educational requirements of the Chartered Mathematician designation, awarded by the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, when it is followed by subsequent training and experience in employment to obtain equivalent competences to those specified by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) for taught master's degrees.

Do you want to work in an industry which creates moments of temporary escapism on stage or on screen for captivated audiences? If so, the Film Production and Theatre BA at Brunel is the course for you. You will be able to combine your love for the theatre with your passion for films and turn your creativity into a fantastic fulfilling career.

Your degree will give you a thorough understanding of film by combining the production with the theory of visual digital media. Delve into practical film and video-making, scriptwriting, filming and editing, whilst honing your critical analysis and research skills to develop a comprehensive understanding of how the film and TV industries work.

As well as learning film production skills you will also have the opportunity study a wide variety of theatre-related specialisms ranging from acting, applied drama, digital performance, directing, musical theatre, physical theatre and playwriting. This course will prepare you to pursue a wide range of careers in the theatre and entertainment industries and beyond.

The course will allow you to bring your ideas, thoughts and inspirations to the screen. By using the fantastic editing suites with up-to-date production software including Avid with accredited training facilities for Final Cut Pro 10 you will be able to bring your creations to life.

During your degree, you will be able to immerse yourself in one of the cultural capitals of the world. Being so close to London will give you easy access to the city’s rich and diverse culture and theatre events. You will have the opportunity to go on theatre visits and take part in workshops with cutting edge theatre companies as part of your course. Past theatre trips have included productions in the West End, The Barbican, The National Theatre, Royal Court, Sadler’s Wells and many others.

As well as enhancing your learning by attending screenings at the British Film Institute, the Institute of Contemporary Arts and other cinemas across the capital, you will also be eligible to enter our annual Brunel University Film Festival (BUFF) with categories including Best Fiction, Best Non-Fiction and Best Overall Film. This will allow you put what you have learnt into practice.

Learn with confidence knowing that you are taught by cutting edge academics and industry specialists who are some of the best in the UK. You’ll benefit from their in-depth knowledge and passion for what they teach as well as their first-hand experience of what it takes to break into the film and theatre industries. Many have published work in the field, so some of the books on your reading list may be written by those teaching you.

Gain an insight into life after your studies by putting your learning into practice by opting for a one-year work placement. You will graduate with valuable work experience to enhance your employment prospects and will be able to develop an understanding the working world within the film or theatre industry. We have excellent links with a wide range of notable external organisations, so you will have the opportunity to apply for high quality placements across London.

Previous students have undertaken placement at many prestigious venues including The Pinewood Group, Fremantle Media, Objective Productions, Mousetrap Theatre Company, Finsborough Theatre, Grieg City Academy and the Unicorn Theatre.

You will graduate with the confidence to be a creative and imaginative cultural producer with solid knowledge of film and theatre processes and practical experience which will put you in good stead for your future career.

We all understand that disease and poor health can stop people from living long and fulfilling lives. Through the skills learnt on this course, you could be one of the many professionals working towards improving the health of individuals and entire societies.

On this course you’ll develop the skills to change and influence health policy at a local, national and global level. As science and research progresses, you’ll learn to use these developments to draw your own research conclusions and to address areas of health to really make a difference in society.

You’ll look at local issues such as the effects of the Heathrow expansion on public health and international topics like obesity or contagious viruses. You’ll be at the forefront in developing or improving existing approaches in policy to solve these challenges.

This course covers many aspects of health in its broadest sense including health promotion and public health; health care law and ethics; health and social policy and health service research.

You’ll learn the skills to support individuals, families and communities in their environment whether through public health campaigns, government initiatives or advice on a one-to-one basis. You’ll graduate from this course equipped with the skills to become a key driver for societal change.

This course is also available online, giving you a unique learning experience, allowing you to build connections with like-minded professionals worldwide. Find out more about the Public Health and Health Promotion MSc Online.