4-Term Pathway - Foundation Certificate in Social Sciences - Continue to Bachelor of Arts (Honours) - Criminology

For students who've finished high school but don’t meet the entry requirements for university, a Foundation Certificate can help them gain entry to an undergraduate degree. After completing this pathway option students qualify for progression to the 1st year of an undergraduate degree at the University of Essex.

A student’s course length is determined mainly by their English language level (UKVI IELTS score). Students on all course lengths take a set of common or similar modules to gain a solid base of skills for university. Students taking a course longer than 2 terms, will take additional modules designed to improve one or more of their English language level, academic skills, and basic knowledge of particular subjects.

Bachelor of Arts (Honours) - Criminology

Criminologists engage with some of the most pressing issues, decisions and dilemmas facing societies today. On this course students explore the nature of crime, criminal justice and punishment within wider social contexts.

As students of criminology, they experience a lively, informal environment with many possibilities to pursue their own interests. The flexible course means that students can study an exciting range of topics, from the impact of computer games on crime, to terrorism and illegal migration, to policing and controlling society.

They are a large and friendly department, offering a range and diversity of research interests, with staff members who are committed to teaching, research and publication. They have leading international experts in the areas of:

• Organized crime, surveillance and counter-terrorism • Environmental harm • Visual criminology • Social history and crime

Students will receive training in criminological methods – how to design a survey, conduct an interview, and use quantitative analysis from basic statistics to big data – in order to ask the difficult questions, and will also have the opportunity to complete a supervised dissertation on a topic that inspires them. The BA Criminology is run by the Department of Sociology, which is rated top 10 in the UK for research quality (REF 2014).