Program Overview

Our BSc Finance (including foundation year) is open to Home and EU students. It will be suitable for you if your academic qualifications do not yet meet our entrance requirements for the three-year version of this course and you want a programme that increases your subject knowledge as well as improves your academic skills.

This four-year course includes a foundation year (Year Zero) on the Essex Business School Pathway, followed by a further three years of study. During your Year Zero, you study four academic subjects relevant to your chosen course, preparing you for further study, as well as a compulsory English language and academic skills module.

You are an Essex student from day one, a member of our global community based at the most internationally diverse campus university in the UK.

After successful completion of Year Zero in our Essex Pathways Department, you progress to complete your course with Essex Business School.

This course prepares you for a fast-paced career in any area of finance.

You have access to our virtual trading floor, where you can trade multiple markets from a single screen with industry leading software, X_TRADER. You can also use real-world Bloomberg Market Data Feed (B-PIPE), within minutes of it being released, so you can practise making business decisions in the same way you might in the workplace.

The course examines international financial markets, as well as how finance shapes leadership, strategy and planning within organisations.

Topics may include:

• the pricing of securities in financial markets
• risk management
• corporate finance and financial decision making
• business economics
• quantitative methods
• financial modelling
• portfolio analysis

We use real-life examples to apply theory to practice and develop your capacity to analyse statistics. Ethics underpins all of our teaching, so you can graduate with the ability to make sound, responsible financial decisions for the benefit of organisations and their stakeholders.

Your first year ensures you receive a fully-rounded business education by introducing you to topics such as marketing, economics, management and accounting.

In your final year, you have the opportunity to put your knowledge into practice by completing an in depth, independent research project or dissertation. This gives you the chance to further develop vital employability skills in areas of research, project management and critical thinking.