This course is full for DipHE level for 2010 entry.
This course offers you an array of career destinations—including sport science support with elite athletes, working to improve the health of the community, as a gateway to teaching or postgraduate study, or enabling you to gain truly transferable skills that will help you onto a graduate recruitment scheme. These are just some examples of what our graduates are doing now. The course has biomechanics, physiology and psychology at its core, with vocational and practical skills, research and specialist modules that allow continued specialisation as the degree programme progresses.
This course teaches you the science of sport and exercise, using a very practical approach, underpinned by academic study. The modules allow you to have a focus on sport performance, or physical activity and health from the start of level 5 (year two).
Modules studied include Anatomy and Physiology, Sport and Exercise Biomechanics, Sport and Exercise Psychology, Research and Study Skills, Practical and Vocational Skills, Environmental Influences on Performance, Population Perspectives in Sport and Physical Activity Small-group teaching maximises your access to staff, resources and laboratories, allowing friendly and personal teaching and learning. All of the modules are underpinned with new research to ensure currency and topicality. Research is a strong theme culminating in the final year with a dissertation and a research conference at which both staff and students present their work.
The vocational aspect of the course includes a placement in a sport or physical activity setting—for instance, in a health and fitness centre, professional sports club, health development unit, sport development unit, or cardiac rehabilitation unit. Recently some of our placement students gained work experience with Glasgow Warriors and Newcastle Falcons rugby union teams. Our BA (Hons) Sport & Exercise Science was rated in the top 15 sport and exercise science courses in the country in a recent Guardian survey. Our staff have an active and rapidly developing research portfolio and our facilities| include a £2.5 million sports complex and a large, fully equipped physiology and biomechanics laboratory.
“The practical experience we gained was second to none. We were doing either practical or lab work really regularly. That made it much easier to understand the theory of what we were learning, and the staff were really friendly and approachable.”
A number of our graduates are now working as strength and conditioning coaches for elite football and rugby clubs. Many of our students also get the opportunity for full- or part-time employment where they completed their placement. The vocational relevance of the degree means you can work in sport science support, strength and conditioning, physical activity and health development, exercise referral, personal training or corporate fitness. Many students have also progressed to postgraduate study, primary and secondary teaching, physiotherapy or dietetics.