Course summary

Our four-year BA History and Criminology (including foundation year), will be suitable for you if your academic qualifications do not yet meet our entrance requirements for the three-year version of this course and you want a programme that increases your subject knowledge as well as improves your academic skills in order to support your academic performance. This four-year course includes a foundation year, followed by a further three years of study. During your foundation year, you study three academic subjects relevant to your chosen course as well as a compulsory academic skills module, with additional English language for non-English speakers. You are an Essex student from day one, a member of our global community based at the most internationally diverse campus university in the UK. After successful completion of foundation year in our Essex Pathways Department, you progress to complete your BA History and Criminology degree. When starting year one, you are encouraged to consider the ways in which history, histories of crime and the discipline of criminology overlap and influence each other. Criminologists engage with some of the most pressing issues, decisions and dilemmas facing societies today. In doing Criminology, you explore the nature of crime, criminal justice and punishment within wider social contexts and study an exciting range of topics, from the impact of computer games on crime, to terrorism and illegal migration, to policing and controlling society. As a student of history, you discover the early modern and modern periods, and explore challenging questions concerning the impact of political, social and cultural change on individuals, social groups, and regions. In doing this degree, you have the flexibility to choose from a wide range of optional modules about subjects close to home and further afield.