Geography BSc(Hons)

Course in brief

Our Geography BSc(Hons) focuses on the processes that create physical landscapes while incorporating elements of human geography featured on our BA(Hons) course to give you a broad foundation in the subject.

During the course, you will learn about the scientific and social contexts of real-world problems such as climate change and global sustainability, with the flexibility to shape your degree through optional modules.

The course focuses on employability, transferable skills and practical learning. Trips to Greece and Sicily help you develop your field skills, as well as our prime location in East Sussex which provides opportunities for local fieldwork; natural attractions include Seven Sisters and the South Downs, along with fresh-water rivers and both saline and semi-saline estuaries. The paid placement year allows you to build experience and a network of professional contacts.

If you achieve the required standard in year 2, you can choose to progress directly to the third year of the Geography MGeog and study towards a masters-level qualification.

Key facts

Location Brighton: Moulsecoomb

UCAS code F800

Full-time 3 years
With placement year 4 years

Book your open day place

Meet our students, see our accommodation and find out more about your course.

Entry requirements

The entry requirements listed here are our typical offer for this course if you wish to begin studying with us in 2017. They should be used as a general guide.

We operate a flexible admissions policy – this means that you could receive a lower conditional offer than the typical offer, informed by our assessment of your complementary non-academic achievements and experiences. For courses that require interview or portfolio review, this may also be considered in the level of any conditional offer that follows if your application is successful.

A-levels
BBB.

BTEC
DDM.

International Baccalaureate
30 points.

Access to HE Diploma
pass with 60 credits overall. Must include geography or environmental science. At least 45 credits at level 3, with 24 credits at merit or above.

GCSE (minimum grade C)
at least three subjects including English language and mathematics or a science.

Foundation degree/HND/HNC
may enable you to start the course in year 2.

For non-native speakers of English
IELTS 6.0 overall, with 6.0 in writing and a minimum of 5.5 in the other elements.

International equivalencies

International equivalencies by country

Albania
Algeria
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Belarus
Belgium
Bermuda
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Botswana
Brazil
Bulgaria
Burma (Myanmar)
Cameroon
Canada
Chile
China
Colombia
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Ecuador
Egypt
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Guyana
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kosovo
Kuwait
Latvia
Lebanon
Liechtenstein
Libya
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macedonia
Malaysia
Malawi
Malta
Mexico
Moldova
Montenegro
Morocco
Namibia
Nepal
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nigeria
Norway
Oman
Pakistan
Palestinian National Authority
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Romania
Russian Federation
Saudi Arabia
Serbia
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
South Africa
South Korea
Spain
Sri Lanka
Syria
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Tanzania
Thailand
Tunisia
Turkey
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United States
Uzbekistan
Venezuela
Vietnam
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe

We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

Visit our language institute

For English language preparation courses.

Visit our International College

For academic preparation courses.

Course in detail

Course structure

The course is structured to allow you to follow a broad pathway between physical and human geography, or to focus more narrowly on areas such as geomorphology, landscape change, environmental hazards and environmental management.

You’ll enjoy a number of field trips, including going to Greece during the first year to learn about earthquake zones, geomorphology, the analysis of water quality, rubbish management and the human impact on the environment.

Year 1

Year 1 covers the physical forces of landscape change, human interaction with the environment and socially divergent views of the world. It also includes an innovative career-planning element to equip you with the knowledge and skills needed to make realistic decisions about your future career.

Modules

Contemporary Human Geographies
Fundamentals of Physical Geography
An Introduction to Environmental Hazards
Global Environmental Issues and Management
Introduction to Fieldwork
Skills for Independent Learning
Discovering Geospatial Data
Data Presentation and Analysis for Geographers

Options:

Ancient Societies
Archaeolgical Practice 1: Survey
Introduction to Archaeology
Cities: An Introduction to Urban Geography
Citizenship for the Environment
Elements of Chemistry
Evolutionary Biology
Fundamentals of Geology
Igneous and Metamorphic Rocks
Interpreting Geological Maps
Introduction to Environmental Chemistry
Physiological Ecology
The Global Earth System
The Ocean Planet: An Introduction
Water in the Environment
Modern Languages: French, German, Italian or Spanish

Year 2

Year 2 vastly expands your number of options while grounding you in the research methods required for academic practice.

Community Engagement: Theory into Practice gives you the chance to do a work placement with a local organisation. It is an opportunity to put your knowledge and skills into practice and to gain insight into working life. If you perform well during your placement, you may return to university with a secure job offer.

Modules

Advanced Data Analysis
Geography Fieldwork, Sicily
Skills for Research and Careers

Options:

Societies of Early Europe
Human Environmental Dynamics during the Holocene: Geoarchaeology
Archaeolgical Practice 2: Excavation and Post Excavation
Human Origins and Evolution
Alternative and Renewable Energy
Behavioural and Evolutionary Ecology
Evolution and Diversity
Ecological Techniques
Environmental Microbiology
Introduction to Marine Biology and Ecology
Fundamentals of Analytical Chemistry
Earth Resources
Applied Palaeontology
Sedimentology
Introduction to Environmental Geochemistry
Water in the Landscape
Soil and Water Analysis
Ice Age Earth
Coastal and Aeolian Landscapes
Environmental Planning
Environmental Conservation and Management
Environmental Pollution Control
Environmental Hazards
Climate Change
Sustainable Development
Geographies of Everyday Life
Contemporary Rural Geographies
Geographies of Development
Introduction to GIS and Spatial Data
Introduction to Remote Sensing
Community Engagement: Actioning Sustsainable Development
Modern Languages: French, German or Spanish
Intercultural Awareness Module

Placement year

A placement year offers you a great opportunity to:

build knowledge of real-world businesses and organisations
develop existing skills and discover new ones
make contacts in industry and commerce
increase your confidence
improve your time management.

In recent years, our students have been successful in competing for nationally advertised positions with the Department for Energy and Climate Change, Transport for London, the Field Studies Council and the Atomic Weapons Establishment. Other students have secured placements with environmental firms and consultancies, a multi-national telecommunications company and a renewable energy research centre in Spain.

Final year

The only core module of your final year consists of an independent project, where you implement the research methods learned in the first two years to investigate an area of your choice.

Modules

Independent Project

Options:

The Archaeology of Roman Britain
Archaeological Heritage
The Humans of Ice Age Britain
Applied Ecology and Conservtion
Biogeography
Plant and Animal Interactions
Case Studies in Environmental Pollution
Advanced Analytical Methodology
Geohazards
Planetary Geology
Evolution and Fossil Record
Exploration Geology
Oceanography
Hydrogeology
Environmental Change in Low Lattitudes
Wetland Environments
Coastal Environments
Freshwater Processes and Ecosystems
Cold Environments: Process and Landsystems
Environmental Impact Assessment
Air Quality Management
Water and Health
Waste Management
Medical Geography
Political Ecology: Geographies of Environment and Development
Geographies of Genders, Sexes and Sexualities
Geographies of Sport and Leisure
Geographies of Disability and Impairment
Independent Study
Introduction to Remote Sensing
Applied Remote Sensing
Geographical Information System 2
Active Remote Sensing: Radar/Lidar in the Geosciences
Placement
Community Engagement: Actioning Sustainable Development
Modern Languages: French, German or Spanish
Intercultural Awareness Module
Translation Module

Why Brighton?

Innovative and relevant
The School of Environment and Technology has attracted over £7million of external research income in the last three years. The 2008 Research Assessment Exercise confirmed that 90 per cent of research submitted by the school was of international standing.

A leading professional university
Our courses host field trips both in the UK and overseas, giving you the opportunity to apply the theories that you have learned in class. Present destinations include Greece, North Africa, Sicily, Cyprus and South Africa.

Career-focused
We are one of only a few universities to ensure that students have a career-planning agreement in place at the start of their course. We will help you to develop the professional and transferable skills required for future career success.

Excellence in support and teaching
All of our courses are taught by a team of dedicated, friendly and approachable staff. To help you to settle into university life, we provide a skills-based module to give you advice and feedback in the first year and assign you a personal tutor for the duration of your studies. This is supported by pathway guidance from your course leader and general support from school-based Student Support and Guidance Tutors (SSGTs).

Facilities fit for the future
You will have access to professional-standard laboratories and facilities that support our teaching, research and consultancy in geology, hydraulics, physical geography, and environmental and public health.

Outstanding location
We are based in Brighton, a buzzing coastal city that adds an extra dimension to the university experience. Lying between the English Channel and the rolling chalk hills of the South Downs, Brighton offers many interesting and unique local sites of study.

Careers and employability

A degree in geography from Brighton could lead to work as a GIS officer, asset systems manager, environmental energy consultant, public health officer, teacher, insurance assessor or government administrator. It also prepares you for postgraduate research and study.

Employers of our graduates include Bristol City Council, the Japan Exchange & Teaching Programme (JET), Philip Morris International, The All England Lawn Tennis Club, Blue Arrow, DEBRA (an epidermolysis bullosa charity) and Southern Water.

Fees and funding

Your fees

UK/EU (full-time) 9,000 GBP

International (full-time) 13,800 GBP

If you choose to take the professional placement (sandwich) year offered on this course you will pay a reduced fee during this year. Our fee for the professional placement year is £1,000 for home students and £2,000 for international students. This fee may be subject to small increases, in line with inflation.

The fees listed here are for full-time courses beginning in the academic year 2016–17. Further tuition fees are payable for each subsequent year of study and are subject to an annual increase of no more than 5% or RPI (whichever is the greater). The annual increase for UK/EU students, who are subject to regulated fees, will increase no more than the statutory maximum fee. Further details regarding tuition fees are available from the university’s student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf).

The tuition fee you have to pay depends on a number of factors including the kind of course you take, and whether you study full- or part-time. If you are studying part-time you will normally be charged on a pro rata basis depending on the number of modules you take.

What's included in the fee?

When costs such as health or DBS checks, field trips or use of specialist materials are incurred as a mandatory requirement of the course they are included in your tuition fee.

You may incur additional costs depending on the optional modules or activities you choose. The cost of optional activities is not included in your tuition fee and you will need to meet this cost in addition to your fees. Before you apply check with the school that provides your course using the contact details in the Find out more tab (at the end of this page) for advice about what is included and what optional costs you could face so you can budget accordingly.

See our finance pages for advice about funding and scholarships as well as further information about fees and advice on international and island fee paying status.

Location and living here

Location

About Brighton

Brighton has been called the happiest place in the UK, and it’s easy to see why. With five miles of pebble beach, more than 300 pubs and a packed festival calendar, Brighton is the ideal place to spend your student years.

Arts and culture: The Royal Pavilion is the most famous landmark in Brighton, opening its doors to around 400,000 tourists every year. Right next door is the Brighton Dome, the south coast’s premier multi-arts venue, and the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, which holds a diverse collection of decorative arts, textiles and archaeological artefacts.

Festivals: The Brighton Festival is now the largest arts festival in England and a major milestone in the international cultural calendar. Meanwhile, The Great Escape has been established as the UK’s leading event for new music, with over 300 bands playing 30 venues across the city over three days.

Nightlife: Aside from the many nightclubs that line the city’s seafront, student favourites include The Haunt, Concorde 2 and Patterns, which attract leading bands and DJs from around the world. If you don’t feel like dancing, you can take your pick from the many hundreds of pubs and bars that dot the city centre.

Shopping: The quirky North Laine district houses Brighton’s finest collection of boutique shops and independent cafes, while the narrow, winding streets of the South Lanes house collections of jewellery and antiques. Churchill Square is the city’s main shopping centre and serves all of your high street needs.

Sports: Brighton’s seaside location offers the perfect opportunity to try paddle boarding, kayaking and windsurfing. Further into the city, The Level has a skate park for skateboarders and BMX riders to practise their skills.

Campus where this course is taught

Moulsecoomb campus

Just two miles north of Brighton city centre and the seafront, Moulsecoomb is the largest of our five campuses with more than 8,000 students. A wide variety of subjects are taught here, from engineering and product design to business and law.

Students benefit from many professional-standard facilities, including a flight simulator, design and digital media suites, and specialist research laboratories. The campus library, Aldrich, offers long opening hours and a diverse collection of books and journals for students from all subject areas.

Sports enthusiasts will enjoy our basketball and badminton courts, fitness suite and climbing wall. The campus is also a few minutes walk from the South Downs National Park, providing a great place to relax during the summer months.

Accommodation

Brighton

Our Brighton halls of residence are located across the city in Grand Parade, Moulsecoomb, Varley Park and Falmer.

Our Grand Parade campus is in central Brighton and has one hall of residence, Phoenix Brewery, within walking distance. We have around 300 rooms available in Phoenix Brewery, which are all ensuite and self-catered.

Moulsecoomb is two miles from the city centre and also has one hall of residence, Moulsecoomb Place, on campus. All accommodation in Moulsecoomb Place is catered, offering breakfast and an evening meal during term time. There are more than 150 rooms available here, with six to eight rooms per flat.

Varley Park offers the biggest choice of student accommodation with ten halls of residence. The site is four miles from Brighton centre but within walking distance of Falmer train station. You can also catch a free bus service to Grand Parade, Moulsecoomb and Falmer campuses, which is operated by local bus service The Big Lemon.

Falmer campus has two halls of residence: Great Wilkins and Paddock Field. Great Wilkins offers 150+ self-catered single rooms and one-bed couples flats, while Paddock Field offers 450+ catered and self-catered single rooms only. All rooms in Falmer are en-suite.

Aside from halls, you have the option of Unihomes, which we let out to our students on behalf of private landlords. The rent covers all utilities and includes £5,000 of contents insurance for your personal belongings.

You can also choose to join the many students who live away from campus in private rented accommodation. We have a list of high-quality, university-endorsed private sector accommodation and can help you find housemates to move in with.

If you have any questions about accommodation in Brighton, our accommodation team will be happy to help. You can contact them by email at accommodation@brighton.ac.uk or by telephone on 01273 644100.

Paddock Field

Moulsecoomb Place

Maps

Accommodation

University building

Moulsecoomb campus map

Unistats

Unistats and key information sets

Unistats is an organisation that collects specific data about university courses in the UK which enables you to compare information that is important in your decision-making when choosing a university. All universities publish Unistats data on their online course pages.

Wherever we can we have provided extra information here to help put the data into context so that it is as useful as possible when you are making decisions.

Programme specification

Programme specifications are the official university documents that describe each course in detail. They reflect the course as it is being taught to students who started their course in this academic year. They are updated every summer, and give a very detailed breakdown of what your course might look like.

Programme specification

Find out more

If you have a question about this course, our enquiries team will be happy to help.

01273 644644
enquiries@brighton.ac.uk

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Student views

Aimee Clark

"My time at the University of Brighton showed me why people say that university is the best time of your life.

"I am now seconded out to Transport for London through an environmental consultancy. I am working on workplace travel planning with central London businesses to reduce car use. The best bit about my job is doing something that is making a difference to carbon reduction."

Anthony Easthorpe

"Studying at the University of Brighton enabled me to develop a thorough understanding of key geographical theories, and the open-door policy adopted by tutors helped to create a relaxed environment.

"The wide range of modules and the ability to put learned techniques into practice in well-equipped laboratories and residential and overseas field trips further enriched the entire learning experience."