Information for prospective taught postgraduates

The School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies (SPAIS) runs a varied portfolio of MSc programmes and welcomes students from a wide range of backgrounds to maintain a diverse student body and facilitate a stimulating learning environment.  With approximately 60 academic staff, eminent visiting professors, a wide range of extra curricular activities and around 200 Masters students, the School is an exciting place to study. We support a closely-knit staff-student community, and students have easy access to academics who all give teaching and supervision a high priority.

We are proud of the sustained high levels of achievement attained by our postgraduate students.  Based on the 2009-10 data, around 96% of our students receive the degree of MSc (14% with Distinction and 44% with Merit), 1% the Diploma, 3% the Certificate and 0% leave with no award of any kind.  Across all disciplines our programmes and student work are continuously monitored by senior scholars from other universities: these External Examiners report that they are of the highest quality.

 

International students are very welcome and benefit from our commitment to providing the support necessary to ensure high success rates combined with high academic standards.

The School hosts a number of prominent University Research Centres and active research groups, and takes pride in the link between its teaching and research in the fields of Development  European Politics, Gender, International Studies, Security, Ethnicity, Multiculturalism and Citizenship, Sociology and Cultural Theory. Based on this research expertise it offers a range of Masters degree programmes across four subject areas:

Within each of these, students take a number of ‘core’ units to establish the intellectual foundations of their chosen programme of study. Following this students then choose from a wide range of options from across the School, allowing each MSc /Diploma student to tailor their own learning experience according to their interests. Students taking an MSc also complete a dissertation on a topic related to their particular degree programme.

Drawing on its expertise and excellence in research, the School is able to offer  comprehensive teaching on the following programmes:


Sociology


Politics and International Relations


Development Studies

 

The 2013 Postgraduate prospectus is also a very useful source of information for prospective students