Criminology and Law with Foundation Year
Buckinghamshire New University
UCAS Code: CLFY | Bachelor of Science (with Honours) - BSc (Hons)
About this course
This course includes an additional foundation year at the start of the course which helps prepare you for full time undergraduate study at BSc level. It is a 4 year course and available to you if you didn't quite meet the entry requirements or want longer to prepare for full time study. At the end of the foundation year you will begin to study the 3 year degree plan, and you will qualify with the same degree award at the end of the course.
This course has a shared first year across multiple specialisms, after your first year if you want to study a different specialism you can choose to change to one of these: Criminology or Criminology & Forensics.
**Why study at Buckinghamshire New University?**
Throughout your time with us we’ll support you on the route to your chosen career. We’ll help you to develop crucial skills, encouraging you to become enterprising, employable and a good leader. If you are interested in a range of topics related to crime, BNU gives you a unique opportunity to identify your career goals and set out a clear path to achieving them.
In addition, we have one the best student communities around, our student union is ranked 2nd in the UK (NSS 2022) so you will have no trouble feeling at home here. Our university is close to London (30 minutes) so the capital is on your doorstep, this is perfect if you want to commute to university while remaining close to friends and family.
In addition to all the great benefits to studying at BNU, your course has some great benefits too, such as a passionate teaching team made up of former industry professionals, great facilities and staff links to professional organisations that keep us current and up to date with the latest research and statistics.
**What facilities can I use?**
Our criminology programme has a wealth of opportunities for you to get stuck into thanks to our diverse range of facilities. You can get access to a simulated crime scene and learn how to collect forensic evidence or have the opportunity to test your own theories and get to grips with VR, police interviews and more. We have a full range of facilities that can help prepare you for whatever career you choose to pursue within criminology.
Our library is packed with all the information you need for your assessments and there’s plenty of room to knuckle down for some quiet study. Whilst studying with us you will also use our AppsAnywhere web service.
**What will I study?**
You will be able to combine the study of criminology with the study of law. This specialism will give you the opportunity to critically examine legal aspects of the criminal justice system, as well as continue the study of some of the core criminology modules. It is perfect for you if you are particularly interested in law and the legal aspects of the study of criminology.
**Career Prospects**
Throughout your time with us we’ll support you on the route to your chosen career. We’ll help you to develop crucial skills, encouraging you to become enterprising, employable and good leaders. We also help you find employment after graduation. Have a look at our Careers and Employability pages to find out more.
Our Criminology programme is a springboard for entry into probation and related roles in the criminal justice system, whether that’s in the police, the court, probation, prison or crime related research organisation. Some of the careers you could pursue include:
- probation services
- national security
- police force
- cybercrime and prevention
- criminal justice
- law and forensics
Graduates can also choose to study for a postgraduate course at BNU.
Modules
Foundation Year**
**Core**
Preparing for Success: Knowledge and Creativity
Preparing for Success: Self Development and Responsibility
Inquiry Based Learning
Ways of learning about the social world
**Year one**
**Core**
Crime, Criminology and Criminal Justice
Making Sense of Society Policy and Society Media
Communication and Society Punishment
Justice and Victims
**Opportunity Modules**
2x 10 credit year one Opportunity modules
**Year two**
**Core** Crime Harm and Power in Late Modernity
Employability and Professional Development Contemporary Social Research
**Optional Modules**
Human Rights and Social Justice Employment Law Child and Family Law
**Year three**
**Core**
Comparative Criminal Justice Policy
Dissertation
Intellectual property law
Contemporary legal issues
**Optional Modules**
Cybercrime
Disability, Mental Health and the Criminal Justice System
Environment and social justice radicalisation
Assessment methods
Criminology is a subject that focuses on various scientific and philosophical theories regarding crime. Your course examines a diverse range of scenarios which you may encounter working in a criminal justice or a related organisation by drawing upon information from different sources in which both crime and social life are debated. Assessments vary according to modules and are designed to test your understanding of the modules. Some of the ways you will be assessed include: reports exams presentations workshops
Tuition fees
Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:
Extra funding
Buckinghamshire New University offers a range of bursaries and scholarships. For more information, please visit https://www.bucks.ac.uk/study/fees-and-funding/financial-support-bursaries-and-scholarships
The Uni
Buckinghamshire New University
School of Human and Social Sciences
What students say
We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.
How do students rate their degree experience?
The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Sociology
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
Law
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Sociology
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
We have quite a lot of sociology graduates, although numbers fell last year. But graduates still do pretty well. Most sociology graduates go straight into work when they complete their degrees, and a lot of graduates go into jobs in social professions such as recruitment, education, community and youth work, and housing. An important option for a sociology graduate is social work - and we're short of people willing to take this challenging but rewarding career. Sociology is a flexible degree and you can find graduates from the subject in pretty much every reasonable job — obviously, you don't find many doctors or engineers, but you do find them in finance, the media, healthcare, marketing and even IT. Sociology graduates taking further study often branch out into other qualifications, like teaching, law, psychology, HR and even maths, so don’t think a sociology degree restricts you to just one set of options.
Law
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
Law graduates tend to go into the legal industry, and they usually take similar routes. Jobs are competitive — often very competitive - but starting salaries are good and high fliers can earn serious money - starting on over £24k in London on average. Be aware though - some careers, especially as barristers, can take a while to get into, and the industry is changing as the Internet, automation and economic change all have an effect, If you want to qualify to practise law, you need to take a professional qualification — many law graduates then go on to law school. If you want to go into work, then a lot of law graduates take trainee or paralegal roles and some do leave the law altogether, often for jobs in management, finance and the police force. A small proportion of law graduates also move into another field for further study. Management, accountancy and teaching are all popular for these career changers, so if you do take a law degree and decide it’s not for you, there are options.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Sociology
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£21k
£26k
£27k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
Law
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£22k
£25k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
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Higher entry requirements
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Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF):
We've received this information from the Department for Education, via Ucas. This is how the university as a whole has been rated for its quality of teaching: gold silver or bronze. Note, not all universities have taken part in the TEF.
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This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).
This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.
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This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), for undergraduate students only.
You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.
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Post-six month graduation stats:
This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.
It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.
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Graduate field commentary:
The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show
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The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
