Year 1
This introduces the study of key business topics.
Students start to develop business, investigation and project skills in a further module devoted to a range of business-related activities such as developing a business plan for a new start-up. There are five core modules and a choice of further business, economics or language optional module. The modules work together to build your knowledge and develop key skills and techniques.
Year 2
The second year sees the Business and Marketing degrees separate and students build towards their specialist areas, though half of the modules remain common. Investigative and key business skills are developed further and integrated across the entire second year as well as forming a basis for the third year. The importance of international aspects of business is highlighted. The Business and Management degrees focus on the management of operations and information systems and offer optional modules in areas such as accounting, marketing, entrepreneurship and business law.
Year 3
All of our degrees offer you the option of spending your third year gaining practical experience on a placement. Placement years are a great way to develop your employment marketability and to engage with employers early in their recruitment pipeline. A placement requires a minimum of forty weeks of work experience and the placement begins in the summer following completion of the second year, and this then becomes the third year of a four-year degree. This allows you to really explore and understand your job and to find out if the career or company is for you.
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You will develop your practical skills, confidence and maturity.
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You can focus on a specific career path - many employers recruit graduates from their placement programme.
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You will be able to contextualise your studies better, be more mature in your attitude to work,
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You may decide to draw on your working experiences and access a more fulfilling dissertation research subject.
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You will gain invaluable job search and graduate research skills by engaging in the competitive placement recruitment process.
To ensure you are getting the most out of your experience, we support your placement in a number of ways:
- First Year Workshops and Bootcamps tohelp you to develop your Placement Strategy and to identify and develop those skills and competencies that will be critical to ensure that you are attractive to potential placement employers. These typically involve Employers, Placement Mentors and representatives from Colleges, Societies and the Volunteering Community in Durham.
- Second Year Workshops and Bootcamps support you through the placement application process and allow you to develop into a supportive student group to travel along the road of gaining a placement together. They enable you to get to know those students who will return with you in the fourth year. Workshops typically involve employers, and former placement students.
- The DUBS Placement Programme includes a series of employer-led events which take place throughout term 1 and 2 and is open to all first year and second year placement students. The skills sessions and networking events allow you to develop essential employability skills as well as providing valuable insight into the recruitment process.
- Placement Mentors: We have a mentorship scheme whereby former placement students share their experiences of the application process and placement with first and second year students and those out on placement. If you become a placement mentor on your return to University you can continue to develop your interpersonal skills and slide back into your University life with another key role which may well develop a new sense of belonging as well as another valuable contribution to your CV.
- Placement Tutors: Whilst you are on placement you are assigned an academic tutor who will visit you, liaise with your employer and ensure you gain the most from your experience.
The Placement Year fees are set annually by the University. For the definitive amount of the Placement Year tuition fee payable please contact our Placement Team.
*The offer of a place on a ‘with Placement Year’ degree does not imply that Durham University Business School guarantees to find the student a placement. The Business School, in association with the University, will assist students in finding and applying for placements, but it is the responsibility of the student to apply for and to obtain a placement (which is subject to approval by the Business School). In the event that a student is unable to obtain a placement, transfer to the equivalent ‘non-placement’ programme is guaranteed provided the student is eligible to transfer on academic grounds. Due to visa requirements, we recommend that international students interested in the Placement Year as part of their degree apply for this programme when making their application to us via UCAS. This will prevent students having to change their visa in situ at University, and avoid the fee of a new visa.
Year 4
Central to Year 4 is the Dissertation which is a double module. The other core module is Strategic Management which brings together student knowledge, experience and skills from all three years to look at how organisations develop their strategy. The Dissertation, Strategic Management and a further three optional modules allow you considerable opportunities to focus your studies on areas of special interest and to engage more closely with the School’s research groups through seminars and guest speaker programmes.
