Bachelor of Science (Hons) in International Relations with Politics

at University of Plymouth United Kingdom

This course focuses on tackling real-world industrial challenges through the development of bespoke and innovative products, services and experiences in the context of the Industry 4.0 agenda. Develop your ideas into businesses in the digital sector, working with a range of industry partners, academic staff, and new facilities for Digital Fabrication and Immersive Media

Key Features

International shipping is a vital industry. Whether moving coffee or computers, professional international shipping managers make difficult decisions. The global shipping industry is responsible for the carriage of the vast majority of the world's trade, which provides the lifeblood of the global economy. Our focused top-up degree provides the bridge from your previous academic qualifications or work experience, giving you the skills needed to enter a dynamic, global and growing industry.

You’ll cover environmental issues and the latest regulations and governance, and develop a range of business and management skills to help you launch your logistics career. This course is available with a January or September start.

Key Features

• Bridge the gap from your previous academic qualifications or work experience and acquire the specialist knowledge that will help you to join this rapidly growing industry. This one year, full-time course is an additional top-up degree.
• Benefit from our International Shipping & Logistics Group’s associations with a number of commercial and international maritime organisations including the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers, The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport and The Nautical Institute.
• Develop the critical thinking, communication and problem solving skills that enable professional international shipping managers to succeed.
• Learn to view the supply chain and logistics industry with a distinctly contemporary eye – sustainability and environmental issues are embedded in all our modules, increasing your employability and better preparing you for the challenges that climate change presents the industry.
• Examine the latest regulatory and governance in ports, shipping and supply chains – so you’ll graduate with a solid grounding in both the practicalities and the legalities of international shipping.
• Benefit from studying a shipping-related course in a city with a rich maritime tradition and history.
• Immerse yourself in the industry through regular field trips to regulatory organisations, shipbrokers and ports. Take advantage of our programme of visiting speakers, and gain insider knowledge and important networking contacts.

Are you ready to make your mark in the legal world? Our academically challenging law degree will prepare you for a successful career. With a strong focus on developing skills in the workplace, we’ll ground you in the fundamentals of law so you can set your sights high.

Key Features

• Get ahead with a programme designed to help you stand out with employers, whatever your career goals.
• Have flexibility and choice in what you study: the first two years include traditional subjects, such as Criminal Law and Tort, alongside learning dispute resolution skills and a range of optional modules. In your final year you have lots of choice so can tailor your degree to your interests and career ambitions. Our optional modules include legal subjects such as Family, Employment, Environmental, Intellectual Property, Business, Immigration, Human Rights, and Cybercrime.
• Study modules with emphasis on developing your legal and employability skills as well as professional practice.
• Gain valuable, professional experience by participating in our award-winning, pro-bono Law Clinic. Here you work under the guidance of legal practitioners, with real clients making a real difference in the community, without taking time out of your studies. You can do this for credit towards your degree or as a volunteer.
• Join our outstanding Student Law Society, which offers networking opportunities and organises competitions. Our students have excelled in winning national client interviewing and mooting competitions.
• Benefit from excellent research-informed and practice-led teaching by highly qualified staff, including legal practitioners. We have internationally renowned researchers in areas such as the environment, marine protection, immigration and intellectual property. We give policy advice, regionally and nationally, and work for change. We publish an on-line journal, the Plymouth Law Review, with contributions from both staff and students.
• Be part of a supportive community and learning environment, with a dedicated personal tutor system and strong alumni links.

90% of world trade is carried by sea, with a navigation and maritime science degree you can become a professional in this exciting and vital industry. Our graduates go on to careers in the shore-based maritime sector and, for those who follow the accredited route, to become a Ships Officer. Our degrees are accredited by the Maritime & Coastguard Agency and the Merchant Navy Training Board. You will study an exciting programme that develops the skills sought by employers across the sector.

You can increase your employability with an optional one-year industrial placement in a relevant maritime business or, if sponsored, work at sea towards the professional qualification of Officer of the Watch. We embed our full mission bridge simulator and sailing vessel in the teaching of this challenging applied degree. By studying with us, you will develop the skills required to join the next generation of leaders in the maritime sector.

Key Features

• Lay strong foundations for your successful career in the maritime sector. Our students go on to work in a diverse range of maritime industries. Whether you aspire to be a professional navigator, a marine manager or yacht racer, the world’s oceans could literally unfold before your eyes. 
• Distinguish yourself with a degree that’s accredited by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, as well as the Merchant Navy Training Board*.
• Immerse yourself in the latest technology; we've equipped our Marine Navigation Centre with an advanced full mission ship simulator and the latest in electronic charts.
• Develop your 'sea-sense' with hands-on experience on our dedicated 13 metre sail and navigation training vessel 'Take The Helm' on Plymouth Sound. If qualified and approved, you'll be able to skipper the vessel yourself.
• Ensure you have the practical, communication and problem-solving skills employers are looking for. With a mixture of lectures, tutorials, and practicals featuring group and individual problem-based learning.
• Many of our students gain sponsorship from shipping companies or training providers. In many cases sponsorship becomes available to students already on our programme.  
• Students may also receive funding towards tuition fees and living expenses from the sponsoring company, greatly reducing costs. They go to sea as trainee officers to gain practical experience from a seagoing placement year.

Take a fresh look at childhood. Exploring the theory and reality of children’s early years from many points of view, this innovative course will help you find your niche in this competitive sector and graduate with a clear view of where your career is going. Investigate issues through the lenses of sociology, social psychology, history, and philosophy.

Work directly with young children and their families during the Work Based Learning module or choose the option of gaining professional recognition of your practice. Our Work Based Learning Plus module enables you to meet Early Years Educator standards and be counted in the ratios in an early years setting through relevant assessed practice experience.

Key Features

• Explore the relationships between play and learning in your own studies as well as in child development
• Expand your options beyond traditional teaching and open up further career opportunities in education, social care, community work, psychology, management and research.
• See for yourself how theories and policies are applied in practice by visiting a wide range of provision for children and families.
• Learn on the job during the work-based learning placement.  You will gain the practical skills employers are looking for.
• Take a broader view of children’s development by studying the subject in practical, historical and international contexts.
• Develop essential skills through a variety of coursework-based assessments – from essays, surveys and child observations to group presentations and video commentaries.
• Learn from experienced lecturers and tutors who are actively engaged in national and international research projects.
• Make the most of the opportunities presented by being part of a department that has strong links with universities in Europe, Canada, Africa and the USA and through the International Students’ Exchange Programme.

Geography explores the relationships between people, places and the environment. Our diverse degree has a strong emphasis on applied skills and career development. You can choose to specialise or maintain a broad range of interests, and an optional placement year offers work experience. You learn from expert, accessible, supportive staff who are skilled researchers in their field. Plymouth is the ideal setting as a vibrant urban environment surrounded by iconic rural and coastal landscapes.

Our geography degrees make the most of geography’s strengths in tackling head on the biggest global challenges we face. Modules have been designed to address many of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals – developed by the UN as the 'blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all' – all of our degrees are fully accredited by the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).

Key Features

• Our newly designed curriculum places sustainability challenges at the centre, with modules designed to help address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
• Choose from a range of human and/or physical geography choice modules so that you determine your degree pathway. 
• Our supportive staff are expert researchers and many are world leaders in their field.
• Teaching is innovative and student-centred. You will learn through lectures, seminars, practicals, national and international residential fieldwork, tutorials and one-to-one dissertation support. 
• Learn to use Geographical Information Systems to analyse and communicate complex spatial data. 
• Take advantage of a wide range of study abroad possibilities in Europe, North America and Australia. 
• Experience a valuable work placement programme, opening up a range of career opportunities such as consultancy, policy development and management, teaching, planning and conservation.
• LABplus is a unique open access laboratory and resource centre designed for students studying science and engineering courses. The lab provides a flexible workspace, computing facilities, specialist software, access to microscopes, microscope cameras and bespoke resources. 
• We’re very proud of our National Student Survey (NSS) 2020 return which shows student satisfaction overall at 96 per cent for human geography. 
• Benefit from our unique location, in the heart of the historical city of Plymouth, bordered by Dartmoor National Park as well as the Tamar Valley and South Hams Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Devon and Cornwall have glorious beaches, coasts, rivers and estuaries.

Prepare yourself for a management role within the international procurement and supply chain sectors with this flexible qualification. Take advantage of opportunities to study abroad and stand out to employers with a qualification accredited by the accredited by the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport and recognised by the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers and The Nautical Institute. You’ll also benefit from a high profile visiting speakers programme.

Whether you want to be a financial forecaster, a researcher or even a future leader of industry, our lively and involving economics courses prepare you for success. Develop the ability to analyse economic information through theoretical and practical research-based modules, and gain essential analytical and numerical skills. We also offer a range of named economics courses with slightly different emphases aimed at those with firm career aspirations.

Key Features

• All of our named awards share a core syllabus, stressing the integration of theory and evidence in economic analysis and research.
• Engage with current and past students with our Economics Society, and hear talks from visiting academics and professionals.
• We are one of a small number of institutions with a modern computer suite containing dedicated Bloomberg terminals giving you access to financial data and information.
• Join the Devon Junior Chamber and receive training and professional mentoring.
• Apply your skills in a work environment and take our optional placement year.
• Think sustainably – in your final year you may choose to take modules covering environmental and resource economics, analysing the issue of environmental and resource scarcity and the possible policy responses to market failure.

Geography explores the relationships between people, places and the environment. Our diverse degree has a strong emphasis on applied skills and career development. You can choose to specialise or maintain a broad range of interests, and an optional placement year offers work experience. You learn from expert, accessible, supportive staff who are skilled researchers in their field. Plymouth is the ideal setting as a vibrant urban environment surrounded by iconic rural and coastal landscapes.

Our geography degrees make the most of geography’s strengths in tackling head on the biggest global challenges we face. Modules have been designed to address many of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals – developed by the UN as the 'blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all' – all of our degrees are fully accredited by the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).

Key Features

• Our newly designed curriculum places sustainability challenges at the centre, with modules designed to help address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
• Choose from a range of physical and/or human geography choice modules so that you determine your degree pathway.
• Our supportive staff are expert researchers and many are world leaders in their field.
• Teaching is innovative and student-centred. You will learn through lectures, seminars, practicals, national and international residential fieldwork, tutorials and one-to-one dissertation support.
• Learn to use Geographical Information Systems to analyse and communicate complex spatial data.
• Take the opportunity to spend your second year studying abroad in Europe, Canada, Australia, USA or elsewhere through our bilateral and ISEP exchange programmes.
• Study on a course designed with a focus on employability and applied geography, supporting a range of career opportunities such as environmental consultancy, conservation and biogeography, earth science and hazard management, expedition work, and catchment management.
• Experience a valuable work placement programme, opening up a range of career opportunities.
• LABplus is a unique open access laboratory and resource centre designed for students studying science and engineering courses. The lab provides a flexible workspace, computing facilities, specialist software, access to microscopes, microscope cameras and bespoke resources.
• Benefit from our unique location, in the heart of the historical city of Plymouth, bordered by Dartmoor National Park as well as the Tamar Valley and South Hams Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Devon and Cornwall have glorious beaches, coasts, rivers and estuaries.Choose from a range of human, physical and environmental geography modules – our stimulating programme of geographical studies includes theory and practical elements.

Do you have a passion to understand and protect life in our seas? This course offers an integrated approach to understanding the oceanographic processes that support life in our oceans, how marine ecosystems function and how marine activities can be managed sustainably. You’ll learn about the policy structures designed to protect marine ecosystems and our oceans, and be primed with the skills and enthusiasm to confidently start a job in marine conservation management and scientific research.

You will gain specialist skills including ecological survey methods and quantitative data analysis, and qualitative skills related to stakeholder data collection such as structured interviews and questionnaires. You’ll develop your range of practical skills with our own fully-equipped fleet of boats, a £4.65 million Marine Station used as a base for fieldwork afloat, and industry standard oceanographic and surveying equipment.

Key Features

• In the 2019 National Student Survey, 100 per cent expressed overall satisfaction with the course; 100 per cent of students felt staff on this course were good at explaining things; 100 per cent felt that the staff made the subject interesting and 100 per cent found the course intellectually stimulating.*
• Gain specialist skills including ecological survey methods and quantitative data analysis, and qualitative skills related to stakeholder data collection such as structured interviews and questionnaires. 
• Prepare for careers in marine conservation and other marine industries such as environmental consultancy and the marine energy sector.
• Draw on expert staff involved in internationally-leading research including managing protected populations and marine protected areas (MPAs), marine and coastal governance, marine ecosystem services and economics, and society and the sea. 
• Develop your range of practical skills with our own fully-equipped fleet of boats, a new £4.65 million Marine Station used as a base for fieldwork afloat, and industry standard oceanographic and surveying equipment.
• Option to take the industry-recognised professional diving qualification (HSE Professional SCUBA) alongside your degree and an optional dedicated scientific diving module to provide training and qualification for diving-based research projects and employment (limited places and additional costs apply).
• Experience an overseas field course that is aimed at integrating ocean science and marine conservation knowledge and understanding across the different sub-disciplines to address real-world issues.