Politics (Joint Honours)

The University places emphasis on enabling students to develop the independent learning capabilities that will equip you for lifelong learning and future employment, as well as academic achievement.  A mixture of independent study, teaching and academic support through the personal academic tutoring system enables you to reflect on progress and build up a profile of skills, achievements and experiences that will enable you to flourish and be successful.

Teaching

You are taught through a combination of lectures, seminars, tutorials and directed study.

The Module Resource Lists will support your teaching and learning. You will have direct access to e-books, online journals, websites, newspapers, data, as well as media recommended by the tutors. Throughout your degree, our Politics Academic Liaison Librarian will offer friendly guidance and support specific to each student.

In addition, meetings with personal academic tutors are scheduled on at least 4 occasions in the first year and three occasions in each of the other years of a course. You have an opportunity to book one-to-one tutorials with the lecturers on all modules (to discuss approaches to forthcoming assignments, for example).

Contact time

In a typical week you will have around 9-12 contact hours of teaching.  The precise contact hours will depend on the optional modules selected and in the final year you will normally have slightly less contact time in order to work on your independent study (dissertation).

Typically class contact time will be structured around:

• Lectures
• Seminars/Group work  

Independent self-study

In addition to the contact time, you are expected to undertake around 24 hours of personal self-study per week.  Typically, this will involve directed reading in preparation for the following week’s seminars and independent researching and writing upcoming assessments.

Independent learning is supported by a range of excellent learning facilities, including the Hive and library resources, the virtual learning environment, and extensive electronic learning resources (E-Books, E-Journals, newspapers, visual media, etc.).

Teaching staff

You will be taught by a highly qualified and experienced teaching team whose expertise and knowledge are closely matched to the content of the modules on the course. The team includes:

Dr Luke Devine
Dr Neil Fleming
Dr Simon Hardy
Dr Paddy McNally
Dr David Storey
Dr Wendy Toon
Mike Webb

Most teaching is directly related to the research and publications of the lecturers, and most course lecturers have a higher education teaching qualification or are Fellows of the Higher Education Academy. You can learn more about the staff by visiting our staff profiles.  

Assessment

The course provides opportunities to test understanding and learning informally through the completion of practice or ‘formative’ assignments.  Each module has one or more formal or ‘summative’ assessments which are graded and count towards the overall module grade.

Assessment methods include essays, source analyses, oral presentations, examinations, dissertation, literature reviews, learning journals, projects.

The precise assessment requirements for an individual student in an academic year will vary according to the mandatory and optional modules taken, but a typical formal summative assessment pattern for each year of the course is:

Year 1
Coursework (e.g. essays, document analyses, etc.)  95%
Examinations 5%

Year 2
Coursework (e.g. essays, document analyses, etc.)  90%
Examinations 10%

Year 3
Coursework (e.g. essays, document analyses, dissertation, etc.)  95%
Examinations 5%

Feedback

You will receive feedback on practice assessments and on formal assessments undertaken by coursework. You will also receive feedback on draft chapters of your dissertation. Feedback on examination performance is available upon request from the module leader. Feedback is intended to support learning and you are encouraged to discuss it with personal academic tutors and module tutors as appropriate.

We aim to provide you with feedback on formal course work assessments within 20 working days of hand-in.

Employability

In the second year of your Politics course, you will engage in subject-related work experience through the Politics Work Project (POLP 2105) module. You will spend time each week working within an organisation such as the local council, a political party (or MP) or a campaign group. Following your placement, you will then write a reflective assignment about your experience.

In addition, volunteering opportunities with local and regional organisations are regularly publicised to students. You will also receive regular careers advice from our Careers & Employability Service throughout your degree.

Graduates of University of Worcester have gone on to work in many different sectors including

• Political parties
• Teaching
• The police
• The probation service
• Housing
• The civil service
• Local government and planning
• Pressure groups
• Think-tanks
• Voluntary organisations
• Charities
• The media
• Journalism
• Social work.

Your BA (Hons) Politics degree will enable you to show employers your adaptability and multi-disciplinary subject knowledge of domestic and international politics. You will also develop transferable skills in written and verbal communication, research and data analysis, through interpreting a range of sources and perspectives. BA (Hons) Politics will also prepare you for further postgraduate study.