Our Biological Sciences degree with Preliminary Year and Professional Training Year is a five-year course. The Preliminary Year covers key topics in Biology, Chemistry and Mathematics and leads to a BSc in any of the subjects offered by the School of Biosciences. The purpose of the Preliminary Year is to provide students who don’t have a sufficient background in science with the basis of scientific knowledge to enable them to thrive in the year one curriculum and beyond.

Our Biological Sciences course provides the greatest possible choice and flexibility allowing you to choose modules across virtually the whole range of subjects on offer at that School.  You can tailor the degree to your own interests as they develop, choosing to focus on a particular aspect of biology, such as organisms, ecology or the environment, or opting to study a wider range of topics.

We offer a wide choice of subjects across the biological, biomedical, biochemical, and biomolecular sciences including: animal and plant biology; microbiology; genetics; systems biology; ecology; disease; behaviour; neuroscience; cell biology and evolution. We also run a range of impressive field courses both within the UK and overseas.

Your third year is spent on a professional work placement related to your degree. Experience shows that this greatly enhances your subsequent employment prospects.

Although you may join the School on the BSc Biological Sciences programme, your degree title remains flexible up until Year 3.  You can choose to stcik with your original degree registration, or switch to another of our bioscience courses.  You can also choose to graduate with a more specialist degree title, including BSc Biological Sciences (Genetics) and BSc Biological Sciences (Zoology).

Your final degree title will depend on module selection in years two and three, and your Personal Tutor will guide you through the options available to you.  You may also have the option of switching to the four year MBiol integrated Master's degree (subject to academic progress and space availability).

This course will enable you to increase your scientific understanding, as well as developing both your academic skills (critical appraisal, evaluation and analysis of data) and practical, presentation and written skills.  Ultimately, we aim to produce graduates who are employable, well-informed, versatile and enthusiastic ambassadors for science.

The knowledge and skills that you develop during your Biological Sciences degree will make you employable in a broad range of biological careers including research, healthcare, publishing and teaching.  The skills acquired on the course are also an excellent grounding for many other career paths outside of science.  Alternatively you may wish to further your studies by pursuing a Master's degree or PhD.

Distinctive features

Our degrees are closely linked to the research interests of our staff, allowing you to experience the excitement of learning in an active research environment. We attract substantial external research funding and this will enable you to make use of the latest equipment, techniques and facilities in your project work. The School also maintains a permanently staffed Field Station in Borneo, as well as leading the University’s Sustainable Places and Water Research Institutes, allowing access to a wide range of exciting training opportunities.

Our degree programme offers a high degree of flexibility giving you the freedom to shape your academic experience. You can choose to specialise in a particular area or to maintain a wide breadth of learning and explore the interdisciplinary research that underpins much of the School’s success. 

"I found my Professional Training Year at the Institute of Zoology to be incredibly valuable. I was fortunate enough to be part of an active research project that placed me alongside world leading scientists. I gained vital experience in a range of research methods and in publishing peer-reviewed scientific articles, and it was a very rewarding experience to be able to apply what I had learnt throughout my degree and PTY to make a contribution to the scientific literature in a burgeoning field. My PTY has  greatly encouraged me to complete a PhD and pursue a career in science."  Owen Wright – Zoology