Master of Science in Geophysics

at University of Bristol - Clifton Campus United Kingdom

Sociology is a well established discipline, as relevant to the study of 21st-century societies as it is to the sweeping changes of the Industrial Revolution.

Sociologists study society’s structures, forms of action, and cultural practices and they are uniquely placed to understand the changes of social life. This course provides the academic and professional support needed for you to develop your own sociological imagination.

The first year provides a solid grounding in sociology, followed by a greater choice of units linked to staff research interests in subsequent years. Recently, these units have covered subjects such as culture, ethnicity, class, migration, modern slavery, popular music, racism and science. There is a strong emphasis on research skills throughout, with compulsory units in the first two years.

Your third year is spent studying sociology abroad at an English-speaking university. The year abroad is an exciting opportunity to experience and study a different society and culture from a sociological perspective. Visit Global Opportunities to find out more about where you can study abroad.

In your final year in Bristol, you will conduct a piece of supervised sociological research on a topic of your choice that draws on your research skills.

Criminology is the scientific study of criminal behaviour, laws and justice. It is a multidisciplinary subject comprising elements of sociology, law, social and public policy, history, psychology and philosophy.

BSc Criminology at the University of Bristol is an exciting course that provides an opportunity to study criminology within a broader framework of policy studies.

By drawing on social harm perspectives, our courses examine conventionally defined crimes along with other problem activities or behaviours that may not be criminalised but still cause extensive harm to individuals and society. This provides you with a critical and informed understanding of crime and the criminal justice system, as well as wider social and economic questions.

In your first and second years you will take a range of mandatory units that provide a solid foundation in the subject and you will undertake training to develop your problem solving and research skills. You will also choose from a selection of optional units, including a work placement unit.

In your final year you can demonstrate what you have learned in a dissertation on a topic of your choice with the support of an academic supervisor.

The MSc in Nuclear Science and Engineering will prepare you for a career in industry or academia by providing a thorough grounding in the science and engineering that underpins today’s nuclear energy systems. It combines the strengths of our science and engineering faculties with an established program of nationally recognised industrial research through the Bristol-Oxford Nuclear Research Centre. The MSc offers a unique multidisciplinary experience and is a key part of the South West Nuclear Hub.

It has been developed and delivered in partnership with industry, including a focus on nuclear professionalism. After completing the program, you will be familiar with the nuclear industry and its unique safety culture, which will prepare you to enter the industry or continue in academia.

The MSc offers numerous opportunities to collaborate with partner institutions, such as Institute Polytechnique de Grenoble (INP), École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers (ENSAM), the Materials Ageing Institute (MAI) and Hitachi-GE Internships.

Jacobs and EDF Energy sponsor some of our research projects, giving students a bursary towards their study, as well as a three-month research project and a mentor.

The MSc Education Open Pathway allows you to design your own programme of study based on your areas of interest, rather than tying you in to a particular subject area. You can therefore pick and choose units from across the seven different specialist pathways as well as from our wider bank of optional units. For example, if your interests spanned both educational policy and the use of technology in education you might combine units from the Leadership and Policy Pathway with units from the Learning, Technology and Society Pathway.

A very diverse range of students take this pathway, attracted by the freedom that it offers. Many students are international drawn from a range of countries beyond Europe having recently completed their undergraduate studies. Many of these students nonetheless have some experience of teaching, volunteering or some other work experience in schools or education more broadly.

Other students, are more mature and returning to education after a longer period of work and so bring a wider wealth of experiences, yet wish to formalise their learning. All this diversity in backgrounds and experiences creates a rich learning environment and sharing of ideas among students and academics alike.

After completing the MSc, most students want to work in education in some form. But here too there is range in students’ goals and aspirations. Other students want to use the Masters year to develop their skills as educational researchers in order to go on to study for a PhD with us or elsewhere.

At a critical time for workers’ rights around the world, our LLM in Employment, Work and Equality Law offers you an opportunity to develop a deep understanding of relationships between law, regulation, policy and practice – and graduate to meet a growing demand for specialist lawyers with the knowledge and skills in this important field.

The LLM in Employment, Work and Equality has been well received by trade unions and NGOs as a distinctive programme that offers more than traditional courses in employment law. It provides an in-depth, intensive study of wide-ranging issues analysing domestic and international law, the role of human rights in regulating the labour market, the representative scope of trade unions, treatment of migrants at work and equality more generally.

Choosing our LLM in Employment, Work and Equality means you will be challenged and inspired by world-leading labour lawyers dedicated to progressive and innovative thinking around employment, work and equality law – with those teaching the course belonging to the Law School’s Centre for Law at Work.

This flexible MSc has been developed for teachers and other TESOL professionals, such as educational administrators, inspectors, materials or curriculum developers, assessment specialists and policy makers, as well as those planning to undertake doctoral study in TESOL or applied linguistics.

The programme particularly values the professional experience that participants bring to the course. It provides a learning context in which you can reflect on your professional practice, the policies and diverse contextual factors that frame it, the theoretical frameworks that inform it, and the research that exists or could be conducted to substantiate or refute intuitive judgments.

BSc Economics and Mathematics combines high-level mathematics with a technically rigorous economics programme that emphasises the use of mathematical tools, including econometrics.

Mandatory economics units develop your understanding of micro- and macro-economics, while the mathematics part of the degree builds your mathematical ability and allows you to explore applied topics that are particularly relevant to economics.

Having built a solid grounding in the fundamentals of both disciplines in your first year, the second and third years allow you to choose optional units to tailor your degree to your specific interests, including the option to complete an applied economics dissertation.

Previously, economics options have included Industrial Economics, International Economics and Macroeconomic Theory and Policy. Mathematics options have included Complex Networks, Financial Mathematics and Time Series Analysis.

Our intensive, one-year, MSc Management with a specialism in Project Management is for graduates from a wide range of subject backgrounds. It is not necessary to have any prior academic or practical experience in business or management. It will especially suit students pursuing management careers in manufacturing and production, consultancy, construction, product development or ICT.

Our MSc Management pathways provide an introduction to management followed by a detailed exploration of a specific area of management theory and practice, in this case Project Management. The program attracts students from around the globe and you will be part of a cohort with variety of backgrounds and interests. 

The MSc will develop an in-depth understanding of project management within a broad range of organisations. You will critically evaluate assumptions, methods, and procedures of project management, giving you a grounding in relevant frameworks that will develop your managerial thinking within project contexts.

We aim to guide, teach and develop analytical and confident critical thinkers. You will gain insight into the nature of management and digital business and will be armed with the knowledge to apply management theory to practice. Group work and presentations, often based on industry case studies, allow practical application of theory and develop the teamwork and communication skills expected in today's workplace.