Intended Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of their programmes undergraduate students should have:

• a detailed theoretical knowledge, based on a firm foundation, of the appropriate areas of biological sciences developed within an environment of excellent research and scholarship;
• attained appropriate subject-specific and transferable skills in preparation for further study or employment either within or outside science;
• acquired practical laboratory skills in well-equipped teaching laboratories under the instruction of appropriate staff;
• the ability to evaluate biological scientific material and to answer questions through theoretical analysis, hypothesis, experimentation and data analysis;
• developed skills, where appropriate, of fieldwork at sites away from the University in the UK and/or Continental Europe; learned to appreciate the influence of environmental factors on biological systems;
• acquired additional training in mathematics at a level appropriate to the analysis of biological data;
• where appropriate, acquired a suitable training in chemistry sufficient to enable them to study modern biological sciences;
• either become actively involved in laboratory or field-based research in a research group within the School or associated institutions under the supervision of an expert in the relevant area OR have applied their theoretical and practical knowledge to one of a variety of situations ranging from: the development of computer-based teaching programmes for universities, to designing biology programmes for schools; to furthering the public understanding and communication of science; to preparing and presenting a business plan for an enterprising biotechnology project;
• the ability to search the relevant literature both in written and electronic form and to assimilate and evaluate critically the information obtained;
• developed the ability to write a substantial scientific report based on either a literature survey or results obtained from a research project;