Tutorials are hour-long sessions that you undertake each week with your personal adviser and a small group of students. They give you the opportunity to get to know your personal adviser and your tutor group, while exploring interesting and topical aspects related to your degree discipline. Activities include discussions, presentations, community projects and group work, which help to hone your transferable skills such as oral and written communication, time management and teamwork. These skills will contribute enormously to your future employability.

Lectures are held in lecture theatres over the campus and the audience can vary from 20 to 500 students. The majority of lectures use the latest technologies to present material in the most effective way, and most have associated eLearning modules to enhance your learning and consolidate your understanding.

Practicals are designed to complement your lectures and other studies. Depending on your degree course,you will undertake between three and nine hours of practical work per week, carrying out supervised experiments in small groups in our well-equipped teaching labs. In your first and second years, you will develop your laboratory skills and become familiar with the latest experimental techniques in preparation for an independent project in your final year. Laboratory coursework marks accrue from practical exercises, experiments and reports.

eLearning is primarily delivered through the University’s virtual learning environment, which provides learning resources on demand when you need them. These resources include lecture notes, movies, animations, discussion boards, live classrooms, assessments, quizzes, practice problem sets, lecture podcasts and many other activities to assist your studies.

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Some of the units that prove most popular with our students are the field courses. Courses are currently held in several European locations, South Africa, and South and Central America. They offer you the chance to study organisms in a range of environments, from marine to freshwater, temperate to tropical.

Field courses

One of the most exciting parts of all final-year courses is the opportunity for you to carry out an independent in-depth research project.

Final year projects

The first-year examination is based predominantly on written papers containing multiple-choice questions (MCQs) and short-note questions. These are mostly one-hour papers, to which are added the results of coursework, electronic problem-based learning (eLearning) assignments and practical unit assessments. For most students, the latter form 20 of the 120 credits for the year and are based on exercises undertaken during the practicals, and on written reports prepared during independent study. Field courses are assessed via oral and written presentations, group-work and/or projects. You must obtain an overall pass in first-year unit examinations in order to proceed into the second year of study, although the marks do not contribute to the final degree classification.

Second-year examinations are primarily essay-based, but some contain short answer questions and MCQs. The assessment of many units also includes some coursework, such as essays and seminar write-ups. Field courses and practical units are assessed via oral and written presentations, group-work and/or projects. The second year contributes 25% towards your final degree mark and you are therefore expected to intensify your independent background reading for your degree.

If you undertake a placement (with industrial or professional experience), you require a mean mark of at least 60% in the first year. You complete a scientific report and undergo an oral examination on your research that contributes 10% to your overall degree mark.

Final year written examinations are mostly essay-based and two hours in duration; however, many units include marks for coursework essays and/or debates and oral presentation.

The culmination of the final year is the production of a report on an independently researched project. For most students, this counts for 40 credits of the 120 credits required for the final year.