Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Politics, International Relations and History

at University of Hertfordshire - De Havilland Campus United Kingdom

What is it for sounds, gestures and marks on paper to have meaning? What are the various uses to which we can put language, and how does it manage to have the effects it has? How do we learn language? And how does the language we use reflect society, the nature of our thoughts, and what we take reality to be like?

Our BA Philosophy and English Language degree allows you to examine the nature of language, through two distinct approaches. You’ll develop a range of skills in analysing the structure of the English language and how it is used in a variety of situations, while exploring and challenging the assumptions about the nature of language, its limits and how it functions.

In your first year, alongside core linguistics modules, you’ll learn to think critically by examining how language may be used – and misused – in reasoning and persuasion. You’ll also study social and political philosophy, covering topics such as freedom of speech, and examine the nature of mind and reality.

All our philosophy lecturers are active researchers, so you’ll share the excitement of doing original work in a supportive and highly-rated academic community. Our Philosophy team is in the top 15 in the Guardian League Table 2019 and rates as one of the 100 best Philosophy departments worldwide in the 2017 QS rankings.

Our English language lecturers are research-active academics working in cutting-edge areas such as language and gender, formulaic language, corpus studies, bilingualism, bilingual processing and codeswitching.

Core modules in your second year focus on English grammar and the sounds of English. You can explore theories of how and why language developed and study language-related real-life problems such as plagiarism and crime investigation in forensic linguistics. In Philosophy, you may explore a wide variety of topics, including the option to learn some languages of logic.

One final-year option is corpus studies in English language, which will develop your research skills through your use of Sketch Engine, a text analysis tool that allows you to search vast samples of language, or corpora. In Philosophy, there is the option to study more advanced contemporary themes and theories in the philosophy of language, and also to take a module which focuses in particular on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s influential work on the nature of language.

• A flexible programme of study, allowing you to concentrate on areas you find especially interesting
• An exceptional academic team, conducting internationally renowned research
• Stimulating, innovative courses that allow you to make rewarding connections between two disciplines
• CV-building potential through extra-curricular activities

Modern media is becoming more and more influential in every aspect of our society, from politics and economics to the way we communicate with our closest friends. The way language is used varies for different media, but you can also look at how language reflects society, and how it changes over time.

Our BA English Language and Media degree introduces you to the scientific study of the English Language and allows you to examine human communication in different media contexts. You’ll explore the theory, historical contexts and modern practices that make up our global media landscape. You’ll examine the emergence of new media in an increasingly media-centric world, discovering the different ways the media communicates, how its industries are connected and how it influences us as individuals and societies.

In your first year you’ll be introduced to media communications in general as well as consider the relationship between media and society alongside core English Language modules. You’ll also explore the diversity of use of the English language including regional variants, pidgin and creole English, language and ethnicity, and slang and street English.

Core modules in your second year focus on English grammar and the sounds of English. You can explore theories of how and why language developed and study language-related real-life problems such as plagiarism and crime investigation in forensic linguistics. You’ll develop an in-depth knowledge of specialist areas such as public relations, advertising and digital media, as well as broader transferable skills like the ability to critically analyse media content.

In your final year you can follow modules in different topics, including child language and communication, clinical linguistics, gender and language, and formulaic language, informed by our academics’ own research specialisms. You’ll also have opportunities to work with fellow students to create media products, go on a work placement, hear from industry speakers and build a network of contacts.

Our Creative Writing course explores and develops your creative writing practice. We offer a stimulating and supportive place in which to explore your ideas, hone your craft and understand a wide variety of texts. Our creative writing modules are taught by lecturers who are themselves award-winning practitioners and who bridge the gap between creative and academic approaches to writing. They include:

• Poetry lecturer Dr Wayne Holloway-Smith, winner of the Poetry Society’s Geoffrey Dearmer Prize and Seamus Heaney Prize nominee.
• Fiction and Non Fiction writer, Dr Lorna Gibb, author of five books, winner of the Granta Memoir prize and shortlisted for the Sperber Biography prize in the US.
• Dramatists Simon Vinnicombe and Drew Pautz, with writing credits that include the whole gamut of scriptwriting, from work in current production as feature films to Eastenders to the Old Vic and Royal Court. They have international reputations with performances, in original and translated versions, in Canada, Europe and the United States.
• Fiction and non-fiction writer, Helen Gordon, a former editor of Granta, with two acclaimed books and numerous short publications.

Over the three years you can choose specialist creative writing modules in poetry, creative non-fiction, drama, short story writing and prose fiction. As well as fostering your own creative writing skill, you will study a huge range of different texts, both literary and commercial, to gain understanding of what makes a piece successful as well as have an overview of the industry marketplace.

Recent successes for our students include short stories published in Bandit and AnotherLenz magazines and poetry published in Rising and international magazine Poetry London.

In your first year, an underpinning core module, Becoming a Writer, will introduce you to genres and forms and examine the universalities of dialogue, plot and language. A second core module, Identity and Contemporary Writing, presents some of the most exciting new writing as a model for your own work, while optional modules enable you to specialise in writing for the screen, develop your critical skills with texts in different genres, or explore twentieth century culture and society.

Other core modules will develop your writing practice in creative non-fiction, short stories, poetry and writing for the stage, while a range of options will allow you to choose between literary analysis, 20th century English literature or writing a historical documentary.

For your final year, your particular creative interest can be channelled into a long piece of writing, which can be poetry, prose or drama. This work will be discussed and reviewed in tailored workshops that will allow you to both explore and develop your own voice. The third year also offers a wide range of core and option modules that look at different fiction genres, including fantasy, crime, horror and romance, as well as writing serial drama, late Victorian literature, and exploring the lives of women from a historical perspective.

Top reasons to study Creative Writing at the University of Hertfordshire:

• The opportunity to develop and explore your writing skill in an encouraging and supportive environment.
• A brilliant team of lecturers who are all recently published writers in their own field and can use their industry experience, as well as their academic skill and knowledge, to nurture your talent.
• A flexible course of study with a wide range of options to choose from, allowing you to focus on the topics that interest you most.
• Careers development helping you to understand the practicalities of how to get published.
• The chance to study at a University with a Gold Rating for Teaching.
• A dedicated (and free!) writing academy before the academic year starts to help with the return to learning, if you have been away from education.

All three of our model design courses share the same First Year, giving you an excellent introduction to model making, prop making, sculpture and special effects. Building on this foundation, you’ll learn to use a wide range of specialist materials and processes to create original sculptural characters, props and set dressings – including the option of developing stop-motion puppets or collaborating with special effects students.

In your second year you will explore a wide range of specialist materials and processes such as sculpting, moulding and casting that enable the creation of original characters, props and set dressings

In your Final Year you’ll work on major projects and create a professional portfolio to impress employers. Throughout your studies you’ll have access to traditional model-making equipment and cutting-edge prototyping technologies. This course is accredited by Creative Skillset, reflecting the highest standard of teaching and facilities.

Model Design Facilities

Our students’ work in a large airy purpose built studio (with individual spaces for every student), which is situated above an extensive workshop that contain a wide range of traditional and cutting edge technologies. Students are able to use a wide variety of equipment/machinery and state of the art rapid prototyping facilities: laser cutters, 3D printers, CNC milling and routing. Our students also use a well-equipped sculpture studio, which has excellent life drawing and modelling facilities, a plaster mould making area and industry standard extraction in the fiberglass/resin casting room. The sculpture workshops also provide excellent brazing, soldering and welding facilities for most types of metal fabrication and finishing. In addition to these dedicated workshop facilities, our students are taught a variety of computer aided design processes in both 2D and 3D packages in computer suites, which are situated close to the Model Design studio. Our students have access to all of the facilities across the school including excellent photographic equipment/studios and printing.

This is a unique combination of three interrelated degrees with a combined first year (Model, Character and Special Effects). The lecturing staff all have extensive subject knowledge gained from careers in the creative industries, hence students achieve professional standards in their work. We have excellent links with industry and provide placements on major movies at leading UK film studios.

• You will explore a wide range of specialist materials and processes such as sculpting, moulding and casting that enable the creation of original characters, props and set dressings.
• You can also combine designing and making characters with animation using stop motion armatures, or with animatronics (in collaboration with students on the special effects degree).
• You will develop skills in traditional workshop machinery and cutting-edge technologies and have access to specialist industry standard facilities for sculpting, mould making prop making and model making.
• Outstanding links with industry, which provide excellent work experience opportunities and live collaborative projects.
• Leading visiting lecturers teach part time alongside their full time work in creative industries
• Character and Creative Effects students achieve consistently high graduate employment rates

With a reputation for academic excellence, practical value and intellectual rigour, our BPS-accredited psychology degree is one of the most respected courses of its kind in the UK. This fascinating degree gives you a grounding in all major areas of psychology and our graduates are thoroughly prepared for employment, postgraduate research and professional training. Our Psychology department is one of the largest of any British university, offering a stimulating environment with high-profile, research-active staff and exceptionally well-equipped labs and computer facilities. In addition to covering core psychology topics, there are a number of specialist modules including individual differences, cyberpsychology, non-verbal behaviour, and forensic and clinical psychology.

One of a range of degrees from the taught Masters Programme at the School of Computer Science our course is especially designed for graduates of numerate subjects other than computer science. It is mostly taught separately from the other courses. It intensively covers a broad range of the key principles and techniques of computer science.

There is an emphasis on software development, in particular when applied to solving problems in other disciplines. Depending on the modules chosen, it can lead to a career in areas such as systems development, IT management, or the deployment of advanced applications in specific disciplines.

• This MSc is one of a range of advanced courses within our postgraduate masters programme in Computer Science, this particular course provides you with a specialism in software engineering.
• You will develop knowledge and skills in the models, methodologies, measures and tools that can be employed in software development considered as an engineering discipline.
• You will be taught by a highly-regarded and long-established computer science department with strong links to business.
• Half the research outputs in Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire have been rated at world-leading or internationally excellent in the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014.

You’ll be introduced to Linguistics, the scientific study of everything to do with language, from its structure and how it develops in children, to the ways it reflects society, how it’s used, and how it changes over time. You’ll be taught by research-active academics working in cutting-edge areas such as language and gender, formulaic language, corpus studies, bilingualism, bilingual processing and codeswitching.

What links our work is our focus on the applied use of English language, from English Language teaching to the use of forensic linguistics in solving language-related real-life problems such as plagiarism and crime investigation, to speech and language therapy and the study of language disorders.

In your first year, alongside core linguistics modules, you’ll study language and mind, where you’ll analyse child speech transcripts and consider language acquisition. You’ll also explore the diversity of use of the English language including regional variants, pidgin and creole English, language and ethnicity, and slang and street English.

Core modules in your second year focus on English grammar and the sounds of English. You can explore theories of how and why language developed and take a language competencies module leading to a work placement.

In your final year you can develop your own interests in short projects, or follow modules in different topics, including child language and communication, clinical linguistics, gender and language, and formulaic language, informed by our academics’ own research specialisms.

One final year option is corpus studies in English language, which will develop your research skills through your use of Sketch Engine, a text analysis tool that allows you to search vast samples of language, or corpora. Want to know when the word ‘Brexit’ first appeared in print or when ‘backstop’ acquired a new meaning? Find out by delving into databases of billions of words, to pursue your own original research projects.

Indicative course structure

Discover the vital role economics plays in shaping policy in companies, institutions and governments. This course will give you solid knowledge of economics and a rigorous understanding of the quantitative methods economists use in their analyses. It will also enable you to apply economic principles to a wide variety of contemporary problems and use your quantitative skills in numerous professional situations when you graduate. The opportunity to study abroad or spend a year in industry will give you valuable experience and enhance your career prospects.

You can also study a language with this course. You can be awarded the degree ‘with language’ in the title if you choose to study a foreign language in all years of study.

• To receive a broad intellectual learning experience by studying economic issues within the wider political and social environment;
• to develop a critical understanding of the principles of economic theory;
• for an appreciation of different approaches to economic problems and their relevance for real life circumstances; 
• to develop the ability to apply the theories of economics to a range of decision making problems in business;
• to become equipped with a set of subject specific and transferable skills needed to pursue a successful career.

This course covers the three main disciplines of sport science: physiology (including nutrition), biomechanics and psychology. You’ll gain a fundamental understanding of physiology, anatomy, psychology, biomechanics, sports performance, biochemistry, nutrition, and strength and conditioning – and then apply your knowledge through practical classes and research. During your studies you’ll have many opportunities to use our state of-the art human performance labs, where you’ll learn to assess and improve sporting performance, as well as gain invaluable knowledge on the role exercise plays in improving health and wellbeing.

You’ll also develop the analytical, written and verbal skills expected by employers. The course is also aligned to  a vocational qualification accredited through the Register of Exercise Professionals (REPs) with the option after year one of becoming a qualified fitness instructor. Furthermore, this course is a National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) recognised undergraduate programme, allowing students to complete the Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist qualification near graduation.

Our excellent facilities ensure we can deliver a comprehensive programme of practical work to support lecture material. A focus on Personal Transferable Skills throughout the first and second year enables you to develop competence in a range of skill areas which will be of benefit professionally and personally and which are essential to success in a competitive employment market.

Other additional opportunities include

• Guest lecturers: e.g. GSK, HSV, Felicity Aston (first woman to walk the Antarctic solo)
• Work Experience: including local, national and international employers taking students for their work experience module in final year (e.g. football, rugby clubs, hospitals, other universities)
• Opportunities for students to support applied testing and research in the labs
• Opportunities to gain internationally recognised qualifications:
• Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (NSCA)
• ACSM Certified Exercise Physiologist

Astrophysics is the study of the physical processes that shape the structure and evolution of the universe. This course seeks to provide answers to fundamental questions about the origin and evolution of stars, planets and galaxies, as well as the universe itself. 

You’ll have the chance to study the cosmos in all its wonder, and gain a detailed physical understanding of how the universe works. The School’s vibrant research programme feeds into the course content and you’ll make extensive use of our superbly equipped observatory. You’ll also have the exciting opportunity to spend a year at a major astronomical research centre or an international observatory.

• On our Astrophysics BSc (Hons) degree you will study the cosmos in all its wonder, gaining a detailed physical understanding of how the Universe works. We put a lot of emphasis on understanding the physical and mathematical principles behind astrophysical phenomena.
• You will also gain considerable hand-on experience of astronomical observations at our dedicated teaching observatory, beginning your studies there only a few weeks after commencing your degree with us.
• During your second and third years you will specialise in more advanced Astrophysical topics, including the physics of the solar system and extrasolar planets, cosmology, and star formation and stellar evolution. We also offer a range of options in your final year, including learning how to plan space missions in Space Dynamics and the flight dynamics of rockets in Rocket Performance and Propulsion.
• You will also carry out a final year investigative project in a cutting-edge area of Astrophysics research. You will be closely supervised and guided by one of our experienced researchers in the Centre for Astrophysics Research. Previous projects have included mapping the Orion Nebula with our telescopes at Bayfordbury, studying planetary systems with the Herschel Space Observatory, and modeling high energy jets from galactic nuclei.
• If you’re continuing on our MPhys programme it’s possible to extend your project into your MPhys year. We also have an innovative strand of industrial projects supported by the Institute of Physics, that give you direct experience of working in industrial research.