Master of Science in Molecular Biosciences (Bioinformatics)

at University of Bath United Kingdom

Study life on all scales to find out where your interests lie, on this flexible and wide-ranging course.

Biology encompasses the study of life from molecules to ecosystems. It's an exciting area of study that has a significant impact on our daily lives and is vital to solving some of the world’s biggest challenges.

You'll gain a broad foundation of skills across areas such as evolution, ecology, biodiversity, genetics, cell biology and microbiology, equipping you with the knowledge for a range of careers in the biosciences and beyond.

Tailor to your interests

As the most flexible of our biosciences courses, from year two you'll get to choose from a wide variety of units. This gives you the option to either maintain breadth or specialise in specific areas, such as developmental biology, genomics, neuroscience, cancer biology or microbiology.

To keep your options open further, you'll even have the flexibility to switch between our biology and biochemistry courses after the first year.

Prepare yourself for a career in specialist language work including translation, editing and précis-writing.

If you're interested in working as a professional linguist or working with the written word to provide translations and specialised language services, this course is an excellent option.

With a growing demand for highly trained speakers of English in the UK and abroad, this specialist master's will equip you to set up your own freelance business or work in-house for an international organisation or language service provider.

Unlike other courses of its kind, ours covers a wide variety of skills, including editing, revision, précis-writing and proofreading. Employers and agencies have told us they’re looking for these services, so having the right skills will place you in a strong position for securing work. You'll have the opportunity to gain skills in public service and commercial interpreting, and you will learn about setting up your own translation business.

In some cases, we can arrange external translation training. This may be in international organisations, such as the EU and UN, or an independent translation agency, and will give you first-hand experience of the workplace and valuable contacts for building your career.

The course is taught by qualified tutors. While some have worked for international organisations, others have developed their careers as freelance linguists. All bring extensive experience to the classroom to give students invaluable advice.

Play a vital role in the discovery, development and testing of treatments to improve global health.

If you love lab work and are interested in health and disease but don't want to work in a patient-facing role, then this could be the course for you. Pharmacologists study the effects of drugs on the body – where they act, what they do, and their mechanism of action.

On the course, you’ll gain an integrated view of drug action linked to disease-related functions of the major organ systems. You’ll enhance your understanding of the fundamental principles of chemistry, biology and the physical sciences, and learn to apply these principles to specific problems in drug discovery.

Prepare yourself for a career in specialist language work including translation, editing and précis-writing.

If you're interested in working as a professional linguist or working with the written word to provide translations and specialised language services, this course is an excellent option.

With a growing demand for highly trained speakers of English in the UK and abroad, this specialist master's will equip you to set up your own freelance business or work in-house for an international organisation or language service provider.

Unlike other courses of its kind, ours covers a wide variety of skills, including editing, revision, précis-writing and proofreading. Employers and agencies have told us they’re looking for these services, so having the right skills will place you in a strong position for securing work. You'll have the opportunity to gain skills in public service and commercial interpreting, and you will learn about setting up your own translation business.

Learn the key business areas and understand how they operate in a global context. Spend 12 months abroad and gain practical international experience.

During the first year, you’ll study with BSc Management and BSc Management with Marketing students. You’ll benefit from learning in a diverse class with students who have different backgrounds and ambitions.

Customise your degree with optional units to choose from in Years 2 and 4.

Year Abroad

• In Year 3 you will go abroad for up to 12 months. You'll have the flexibility to choose a work placement, International Academic Exchange or a combination of both. We run exchanges with business schools in Asia, Europe, Australia and North and South America.

Explore the mechanisms of policymaking to understand the key dilemmas and challenges around social rights, equality and the distribution of resources.

On this course, you’ll learn about the social and political underpinnings of key policies affecting our lives. Understand the implications social policy has for questions of identity, political organisation, social justice and human rights.

You'll learn about the origins and transformations of the institution of the state and how it interacts with the economy and third sector in the UK and beyond. You'll relate these changes to societal, technological and economic developments in Britain and around the world.

Your first year will introduce you to social policy, sociology, and research methods, where you'll explore how social issues become constructed as policy problems. You'll learn about the major social, political and economic factors shaping equality and welfare in 21st century Britain. Through tutorials focused on developing key academic skills in these areas, you’ll also learn how to evaluate data and information to develop your own arguments tailored to different audiences.

In your second year you'll focus on key policy areas such as the family, poverty, social inequality and analysis of the policy process. You'll be able to choose from a range of social science options and explore international perspectives on social policy including European perspectives and examples from further afield. This will help you locate social policy debates critically within global policy challenges.

In your final year you’ll carry out a year-long, supervised dissertation in social policy, explore policy evaluation and study social protection and welfare reform, alongside options that allow you to undertake advanced analysis of specific policy areas.

Develop an in-depth knowledge of the financial system. Use your quantitative skills and graduate ready for a career in finance or accounting.

This course is for graduates who have little or no business experience and want a finance or accounting-related career.

Receive a solid theoretical foundation in accounting and finance. You’ll learn to analyse financial decisions and the motivations of people making them, and how to apply this knowledge in the real world.

We bring in expertise from the University’s departments of Mathematical Sciences and Economics. This gives you access to a range of teaching and research experience.

Key benefits

• Our emphasis on technical and practical skills means you’ll leave prepared for a finance career
• Share your knowledge and experiences with students from all our finance courses. You'll also gain global insight working with students from all over the world
• Learn from three of the University’s leading teaching and research departments. We bring in expertise from Management, Mathematical Sciences and Economics
• Apply academic theory to a practical issue with an optional dissertation alternative. You'll get valuable experience working on a real problem
• Focus on the areas that interest you with a flexible course structure.

Mathematics enables us to reason logically, to understand structure and to formulate scientific principles, whether from the physical, life or social sciences.

Choose this course to gain specialist knowledge in pure mathematics, applied mathematics and/or statistics.

Tailor to your interests

At the start of the course, you’ll gain a broad education in pure and applied mathematics, including programming and statistics. You’ll have the freedom to study a broader mathematical pathway or specialise in your favourite subject areas, enhancing your analytical thinking and appreciation of the beauty of mathematics.

All of our courses are flexible and allow for a wide choice of units after year one. You may be able to switch courses during the first year.

Placement Year

Going on placement gives you the opportunity to apply your skills and knowledge to a year working professionally. You’ll be employed full-time in a role to match your future career ambitions, broadening your experience and transferable skills. This could give you a competitive edge when applying for graduate jobs.

We have links with some of the industry’s leading companies. Recent placement employers include BAE Systems, EY, Office of National Statistics, JP Morgan and Deloitte.

In a world regularly rocked by major upheavals, this course offers you a solid grounding in political systems and ideas, and contemporary global challenges.

This degree combines the study of political theories and concepts with the study of global affairs. You will gain the knowledge and analytical skills required to understand and respond to contemporary international and domestic socio-political challenges, from political polarisation to climate change. The integrated study of politics and international relations allows you to tailor your degree to suit your interests.

In your first year you’ll study topics such as political theory and analysis, comparative political systems, international relations, international political economy and UK politics in a global context.

In your second year you'll delve further into political theory and analysis and advance your skills in research design and data analysis. You'll start to specialise, with themes such as conflict and security, foreign policy analysis, or the politics of environmental crisis.

In your final year you’ll carry out a year-long dissertation and select optional units relating to your interests, covering themes such as international economic crises, war and peace, gender politics, and contemporary critical theories.

Develop a deep understanding of the fundamental principles of physics, expand your knowledge with flexible options and get involved in our high-level research.

This is our broadest physics degree and gives you the opportunity to explore a wide range of areas in physics, from the nanoscale to the most energetic processes in the Universe.

As well as gaining a deep knowledge and understanding of physics, you’ll graduate with strong experimental, mathematical and computational expertise. You’ll gain powerful problem-solving, analytical and critical thinking skills, preparing you for careers in physics and many other fields as well.

Placement Year

As an MPhys student, you’ll be able to undertake a research placement in the final year of the course. You’ll spend six months (July to December) working in a research organisation of international standing, before returning to the University for the final semester. We have links with leading research organisations, including CERN, NTT Basic Research Laboratories (Japan), European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (France) and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

Year Abroad

Broaden your horizons by spending a year studying at a university abroad. You’ll experience another culture whilst studying a course that complements your studies at Bath.

We currently have links with universities in North America, Australasia, Asia and Europe, including Purdue University, the University of Queensland, National University Singapore and the University of Helsinki.