Program Overview

At Bath Spa University many of our undergraduate programmes can be combined, so you don’t have to limit yourself to one subject. If you choose to study a combined award then in Year One you’ll start by studying both subjects in equal depth, then from Year Two you can choose whether to continue with an equally joint course, or a Major/Minor route.

Law

This programme meets the needs of students planning careers in the legal sector as well as those pursing other professions or further study.

If you are an aspiring lawyer, the programme is specifically designed to help prepare you for the SRA’s Solicitors Qualifying Examinations, as well as meeting Bar Standards Board and CILEX requirements. If you’re instead focussing on non-legal routes or have not yet committed to a career choice, module options in complementary subjects, along with specific skills articulation allows you to explore themes you find most engaging, enhances your employability and encourages interdisciplinarity. We’ll also encourage you to take periods away from University on a professional practice placement.

The programme is highly applied. In the first year, you will have the opportunity to build foundations of knowledge and skills which you will be encouraged to develop and refine in your second and third years. In the first and second years you will also have the opportunity to reflect on your development and the extent to which you are meeting programme-level objectives so that, in your final year, you focus your efforts to maximise your return on your studies and your employability.

Whatever your goals and choices, you will join a collegiate academic community that champions lifelong learning, supported by research-and practice-informed teaching.

Politics

The study of Politics in combination with your main subject enables you to enhance or supplement your insights and understanding of, for example, the ways in which politics and economics interact at national, regional and global levels; the application of modern political thought to a wide range of current issues and challenges; the varied visions of politics located both in the past and in the present; the ideas (or ideals) and history of radical politics, and the shaping of the modern world

This programme will support you in becoming an imaginative, critical and independent thinker. We want you to be inventive, thoughtful, and fully aware of the changing narratives of the ‘new’ political world that surrounds us. How does this relate to the emergence of different forms of political activity, as older models of participation are challenged by community activism? How will the use and impact of social media, and the shifting connections between the local and the global, change the ways in which we engage politically? What do we really mean, when we say we are not ‘interested in politics’, when this takes so many forms and is expressed in so many ways?

The focus of the programme is on contemporary change, movements and action, but this informed and underpinned by an exploration of the historical and philosophical contexts in which political thought and response take place, and by the social, environmental and cultural impact of all these.

You will be able to develop new skills and expertise through your studies, and to apply these to your main subject. Our Politics modules have been carefully designed to work in combination with other areas of study, and to encourage you to look across and between the boundaries of otherwise distinct disciplines.