Bachelor of Arts (Hons) Joint Honours in History and International Relations

at Manchester Metropolitan University United Kingdom

Interested in being an influencer in a major corporation? Or mentoring people to overcome challenging situations at work? Or perhaps you want to coach leaders of charities and public organizations?

Business psychology is an emerging topic in the working world. Performance, excellence, talent management, mental health – they’re not just buzzwords, they’re driving a new approach to doing business.

This unique course lets you combine your interests in human behaviour and business operations. You don’t need any psychology or business knowledge when you join us – just curiosity and a willingness to learn. We’ll go over everything from scratch, introducing you to the business environment, and helping you develop the academic and professional skills you’ll need to succeed.

With the rapidly changing nature of social and digital media, content needs to be designed strategically, engagingly and at pace.

Our BA (Hons) Future Media Production offers the skills and understanding to work at the forefront of the creative and digital sectors. It’s a course that will equip you with the tools to design, create, manipulate and deliver engaging digital media content for a wide range of audiences.

The course brings together key aspects of contemporary professional media practice, learning beyond the narrow confines of any single discipline. As such, you’ll learn alongside and collaborate with artists and designers across a range of exciting projects – laying the foundations for industry networking, technical and creative skills that will prove vital for a professional future in the creative media industries.

As a student at the School of Digital Arts you will work in an environment that is purpose-built for today’s fast-moving creative and digital sectors – offering boundary-breaking, cross-disciplinary learning that reflects modern project-based working practices. It’s a place that offers the opportunity to discover your passions and explore your role through collaboration within our dynamic creative community of animators, sound designers, filmmakers, games developers and more. And, just as it’s home to a cutting-edge creative community, it has the facilities to match. This means that you can develop industry-standard skills for creating content across the latest digital platforms.  

Just as SODA offers the perfect place as a creative student, Manchester provides the ideal setting. It’s a globally renowned and intensely creative city, second only to London as a hub for the UK’s media and creative sectors. The nearby MediaCityUK is home to major media and television businesses including the BBC and ITV, along with a host of independent operators, while the city also hosts a substantial animation, film and digital/tech sector. For students, it makes this a city for learning industry-relevant knowledge and workplace-ready skills. For budding creative media professionals, it makes the city a starting point for building a network, gaining experience and embarking on a career in the media, games and digital tech industries.

Placement options

SODA Placement Year
As part of your studies with SODA, you will have the chance to take a year working on placement within the industry. During your year, you will spend at least 36 weeks working within an organisation in the industry, developing workplace skills, practical understanding and genuine industry experience.

The MArch is a lively student-centered environment, where peer-to-peer learning, practice-based research and live events projects connect students, expert academics, design professionals and wider communities. During the MArch, you will develop, expand and refine your design and theoretical skills whilst creating a portfolio that will enable you to find employment in a leading architecture practice.

Data can provide insights to shape decision-making, power scientific innovation, improve business operations or inform government policy. But it takes state-of-the-art statistical and computational methods to unlock that power. Our MSc Data Science course lets you master those methods.

On this data science masters, we’ll equip you with the knowledge and skills to acquire, curate, manage and analyse data for solving real-world problems. You will gain essential, transferable computational and statistical thinking skills to create and deploy data-driven products and knowledge. And you’ll look at ways to solve challenges in a range of potential, data-rich, application domains, such as health, climate, transportation and sales.

You will have the flexibility to set the direction for your postgraduate studies with a master's project of your own design. While you’ll have the one-to-one support of your supervisor, it’s a solo project – as much about developing computing skills as it is about building confidence and autonomy, vital skills for the workplace.

We’ll help you put the technical skills into a real-world, professional context – helping you communicate your findings in the workplace, and address any of the legal or ethical questions that come with data processing.

By bringing management theory into the practical world, our Sports Business Management degree will help foster the understanding and ability you’ll need for a career in the sport, recreation and leisure industries. Throughout the program, we’ll encourage you to think creatively, bringing your own ideas to tackle real-life business challenges, from running recruitment campaigns and managing events to developing a marketing strategy and conducting market research.

With guest lectures from industry experts and field trips to sports clubs, you’ll meet plenty of professionals working in the sector. And with our connections across sport, we’re ready to help you gain vital experience. You can volunteer for organisations or events in the area, or spend a year studying abroad or working on an industry placement – developing your skills and boosting your career prospects.

Once you've graduated, you’ll have everything you need to chart your future in the business of sport – following in the footsteps of some of our other graduates, working for organisations including BBC Sport, England Netball, and British Swimming.

Philosophy is about making sense of ourselves and the world around us. It’s about asking and trying to answer the most fundamental theoretical and practical questions - from trying to understand the nature of consciousness, to whether current political institutions enable political freedom.

On BA (Hons) Philosophy you’ll consider ground-breaking philosophical theories from figures like Socrates, Kant and Nietzsche, to more contemporary thinkers such as Frantz Fanon, Hannah Arendt and Judith Butler. You’ll explore theories about the meaning of life, the nature of reality, who we are as individuals and society, and how these theories have shaped our ideas about humankind. And along the way, you’ll find your philosophical voice and develop a rich set of analytical and critical skills invaluable for your future – with the power to influence others and drive change.

As a philosophy student you will be joining a hub of research-active philosophers with local, national and international impact, with many of them being invited to present at major international conferences and workshops. Our staff work across key areas including History of Philosophy, critical social theories, Philosophy of Art, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Education, History and Philosophy of Science and much more – with this expertise behind us, we can give you a rounded, balanced understanding of the subject.

English and journalism have long been a strong partnership. Today, with the multimedia element, our Joint Honours Degree puts a modern spin on this most enduring of relationships.

This exciting course offers the chance to bring the former together with an up-to-the-minute, multimedia version of the latter, reflecting the demands of the modern media environment.

Today’s journalists are expected to operate across broadcast, print and online networks. With a broad range of units, we’ll give you all the skills you need to compete in this fast-moving world. You’ll learn from accomplished reporters and editors, drawing on extensive newsroom experience to give you industry-relevant understanding and insights.

You’ll also build a set of complementary skills through our range of English units, including critical and cultural theories, and textual analysis. Then when you get to your final year, you’ll have the chance to put those skills into practice – by tackling a substantial piece of project work, whether a portfolio of journalism or an extended piece of critical writing.

Along the way, you may have opportunities to study abroad and, if you wish, to do your third year as a placement - in Britain or abroad. You will be based in a lively department that is staffed by internationally renowned writers and critics, and there's a strong research culture, creating a learning environment that is both supportive and intellectually challenging.

Manchester has one of the biggest digital and creative sectors in the UK. With MediaCityUK, home to the BBC and ITV, it’s an ideal place for an ambitious journalist to build a network, gain experience and boost your career prospects.

Placement options
Placement opportunities may be available both in the UK and abroad, in a wide variety of roles.

Our dedicated placement team has developed excellent links with various industries. You will be offered support through a preparation program of activities, including guidance on selection procedures, working overseas, CV preparation, interview and selection techniques.

In today’s digital world there are more ways than ever to reach out to consumers.

Finding creative solutions to advertising challenges is a sought-after skill. It’s not only about crafting attention-grabbing images and slogans. Your campaigns need to be grounded in advertising theory.

This course will ensure you have the strategic knowledge to support your creative thinking. And, with a range of options for placements and internships, you’ll be well on your way to an exciting career.

A perfect mix
You’ll explore every element of the advertising spectrum, from traditional print-based materials to digital media.

This course blends commercial, theoretical and creative units to give you the edge when you start work. Although it’s academically challenging, the practical nature of the course means you’ll be ready to create effective campaigns in various formats and media.

Learn about today’s advertising challenges and discover how to build brands. Specialise further with one of our option units to develop the skills you need for a career you’re passionate about.

Real-world skills
Your lecturers have experienced advertising experts, sharing real examples to bring the theory to life. With our enviable network, we bring in some of the industry’s leading figures as guest lecturers.

Test your new knowledge on units like the live client brief. Or, spend a year in industry to gain vital experience with real-life projects. Blend your creative skills with strategic awareness to create campaigns that get results.

Optional internship year

If you choose to take the optional internship year, you will do this once you successfully complete your taught units. Internships take place over 36-48 weeks – you will be supported by our Placement Office, who have extensive contacts with local employers and over 25 years of experience of helping students to find placements.

The Placement Office advertise a variety of opportunities, support and advise on the application and recruitment process and continue to support you whilst you are away from the University.

BSc Criminology and Sociology with Quantitative Methods offers exciting opportunities for you to combine the study of the cutting-edge disciplines of criminology and sociology in the vibrant city of Manchester, whilst gaining extensive quantitative skills. Joint Honours students are based in one department, the Department of Sociology, which teaches both specialisms.

The BSc Criminology and Sociology with Quantitative Methods course is aimed at students who are interested in both disciplines and want to study the causes, patterns, consequences and responses to crime by situating them in the wider context of society, as well as develop a specialism in quantitative research methods. The first year introduces you to the building blocks of criminology and sociology: key sociological and criminological theories, social divisions and problems, the criminal justice system, crime policy and practice, and key social transformations such as digital culture. You will receive training in a wide range of research methods, both qualitative and quantitative, during the first two years. In the final year, you will focus on quantitative methods for designing, implementing and analysing social and criminological research, and will complete an independent project.

Take on new and emerging markets in an international context. On this course, we'll help you to develop vital skills in international business management.

As well as ethical and global management, you’ll also refine your expertise by exploring the political economy and how it can affect global trade.

You can tailor the course to concentrate on areas that you find most interesting by selecting an option unit from a range of business specialisms.

We’ll also help you understand working practices from different territories and build the skills you need to effectively manage people from different cultures and backgrounds.

Optional internship year

When you have successfully completed your taught units, you will have the opportunity to undertake a 36-48 week internship. You will be supported by our Placement Office, who have extensive contacts with the industry and over 25 years of experience of helping students to find placements.

The Placement Office advertise a variety of opportunities, support and advise on the application and recruitment process and continue to support you whilst you are away from the University.