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Applied Criminology and Forensic Investigation

Entry requirements


A level

B,B,C

Access to HE Diploma

D:15,M:30

Please see website for information

Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)

DMM

Please see website for information

Entry Requirements: A typical offer would be BBC at A- Level or BTEC DMM or equivalent.

About this course


Course option

3years

Full-time | 2024

Subjects

Forensic science

Criminology

Policing

**Take a step towards a career that really makes a difference to people in a society where crime is a part of everyday life.**

Criminologists study criminalisation, criminal justice and the causes of crime. Forensic investigators are key players in investigating and solving crime. They often provide the evidence that ensures that offenders are brought to justice.

Studying these two subjects together gives you the opportunity to access a wide range of exciting, challenging and remarkable careers in the criminal justice sector.

This degree allows you to explore the nature, extent and causes of a range of crime types and the methods used to manage crime and criminal behaviour. You will do this by exploring key criminological and forensic theories and applying them to specific types of crime (e.g. violence, hate crime, terrorism, drug crime and sexual crime). The varied expertise of the teaching staff and our guest lecturers will allow you to explore these themes from a range of perspectives.

**Professional accreditation**
The Applied Criminology course adheres to and is guided by the Criminology Benchmark Statements, which define expectations as part of the UK Quality Code for Higher Education.

**Specialist facilities**
The Criminology team have access to the Canterbury Prison site as this is part of the University estate and our students are able to get involved in research and work in this area. In addition, the staff arrange visits and trips to allow students to experience a range of criminal justice settings where operationally possible.

The forensic facilities include a range of crime scenes, including cars, crime scene rooms, fire scenes and outside scenes and a forensic workshop and range of science laboratories. A wide range of forensic equipment is housed within these areas and the facilities and equipment used depends on whether you study Forensic Investigation as a single or combined honours degree.

We have a dedicated crime scene facility containing eight internal rooms and two outdoor scenes, a forensic workshop, five science laboratories, an incident room, a Hydra simulation centre and facilities to simulate courtroom scenarios, all with relevant equipment attached. One of our teaching rooms is an old courtroom, attached to the former Canterbury Prison.

**Location**
This course is run at our Canterbury Campus in Kent. Canterbury is just 50 miles south-east of London and less than an hour by high-speed train from St Pancras. Located on a UNESCO World Heritage Site the campus offers state-of-the-art buildings, right in the centre of a vibrant and world-famous cathedral city. You’ll benefit from a campus with excellent learning and teaching resources, music venues, a superb sports centre, a well-stocked bookshop and plenty of coffee bars and places to eat. A short walk away is Augustine House our award-winning library and home to a vast range of learning resources and student support teams.

**Modules**
For a list of core and likely optional modules, please visit our website.

Tuition fees

Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:

Channel Islands
£9,250
per year
England
£9,250
per year
Northern Ireland
£9,250
per year
Republic of Ireland
£9,250
per year
Scotland
£9,250
per year
Wales
£9,250
per year

The Uni


Course location:

Canterbury Christ Church University

Department:

School of Law, Criminal Justice and Policing

Read full university profile

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.

66%
Forensic science
72%
Criminology
64%
Policing

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.

Forensic and archaeological sciences

Teaching and learning

84%
Staff make the subject interesting
79%
Staff are good at explaining things
81%
Ideas and concepts are explored in-depth
82%
Opportunities to apply what I've learned

Assessment and feedback

Feedback on work has been timely
Feedback on work has been helpful
Staff are contactable when needed
Good advice available when making study choices

Resources and organisation

70%
Library resources
82%
IT resources
70%
Course specific equipment and facilities
53%
Course is well organised and has run smoothly

Student voice

Staff value students' opinions
Feel part of a community on my course

Who studies this subject and how do they get on?

97%
UK students
3%
International students
21%
Male students
79%
Female students
73%
2:1 or above
11%
First year drop out rate

Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)

D
D
C

Sociology

Teaching and learning

75%
Staff make the subject interesting
87%
Staff are good at explaining things
81%
Ideas and concepts are explored in-depth
69%
Opportunities to apply what I've learned

Assessment and feedback

Feedback on work has been timely
Feedback on work has been helpful
Staff are contactable when needed
Good advice available when making study choices

Resources and organisation

77%
Library resources
86%
IT resources
73%
Course specific equipment and facilities
65%
Course is well organised and has run smoothly

Student voice

Staff value students' opinions
Feel part of a community on my course

Who studies this subject and how do they get on?

98%
UK students
2%
International students
22%
Male students
78%
Female students
71%
2:1 or above
13%
First year drop out rate

Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)

C
D
D

Law

Teaching and learning

71%
Staff make the subject interesting
76%
Staff are good at explaining things
77%
Ideas and concepts are explored in-depth
68%
Opportunities to apply what I've learned

Assessment and feedback

Feedback on work has been timely
Feedback on work has been helpful
Staff are contactable when needed
Good advice available when making study choices

Resources and organisation

77%
Library resources
81%
IT resources
76%
Course specific equipment and facilities
48%
Course is well organised and has run smoothly

Student voice

Staff value students' opinions
Feel part of a community on my course

Who studies this subject and how do they get on?

98%
UK students
2%
International students
42%
Male students
58%
Female students
70%
2:1 or above
14%
First year drop out rate

Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)

D
C
D

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.

Forensic and archaeological sciences

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.

£17,888
low
Average annual salary
90%
low
Employed or in further education
38%
med
Employed in a role where degree was essential or beneficial

Top job areas of graduates

32%
Sales assistants and retail cashiers
6%
Secretarial and related occupations
6%
Customer service occupations

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.

£20,000
med
Average annual salary
93%
med
Employed or in further education
34%
low
Employed in a role where degree was essential or beneficial

Top job areas of graduates

17%
Sales assistants and retail cashiers
8%
Other elementary services occupations
7%
Other administrative occupations

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.

£19,656
med
Average annual salary
90%
low
Employed or in further education
40%
low
Employed in a role where degree was essential or beneficial

Top job areas of graduates

17%
Sales assistants and retail cashiers
15%
Protective service occupations
10%
Administrative occupations: records

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.

Forensic and archaeological sciences

The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.

£16k

£16k

£23k

£23k

£29k

£29k

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.

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.

£19k

£19k

£25k

£25k

£25k

£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.

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.

£26k

£26k

£26k

£26k

£29k

£29k

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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This is what the university has told Ucas about the criteria they expect applicants to satisfy; some may be compulsory, others may be preferable.

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This is the percentage of applicants to this course who received an offer last year, through Ucas.

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This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.

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Course location and department:

This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.

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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.

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

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.

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

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.

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

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

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

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