Finance with a Foundation Year
UCAS Code: N30F
Bachelor of Science (with Honours) - BSc (Hons)
Entry requirements
Sorry, no information to show
About this course
The BSc Finance course with Foundation Year, is designed for students interested in a career in the financial field, such as investment banking or financial trading. Through blending theory, empirical evidence and practical application, you will build strong a financial foundation and develop essential transferable skills allowing you to analyse and critically evaluate real-world financial market issues and concepts. Course content is accredited by a number of professional industry bodies, including the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute (CFA).
The foundation year is taught at The College, on Bay Campus. Located next to the School of Management, The College is the University’s pathway provider and offers a unique learning environment; designed to fully prepare you for the final three years of your degree. Small lecture and seminar classes, state-of-the-art facilities and world-class teaching help you to realise your full academic potential.
Accounting and Finance at Swansea University is currently recognised as one of the best departments in the UK for producing the highest degree results in comparison to entry requirements – we are ranked within the Top 15 in the UK for Value Added (Guardian University Guide, 2020).
As a student of our Accounting and Finance department within the School of Management at Swansea University, you can expect to receive excellent teaching, driven by our world-class academic team of staff and state-of-the-art Bay Campus facilities.
The years following your Foundation Year are accredited by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) and the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute.
**We guarantee that you will be made a conditional offer for a course at Swansea University. Subject requirements will apply. Please come along to our next Open Day or get in touch for further information.**
Modules
For the full programme structure and module breakdown, please visit the School's web pages at http://www.swansea.ac.uk/som/. The Foundation Year (Year 0) gives you the opportunity to build your knowledge in finance and offers a high level of support through small lecture and seminar classes.
Years 1 – 3 will be taught at the School of Management, which is adjacent to The College. All of our undergraduate courses combine a range of compulsory modules that students must study in their first year. Later years then allow significant freedom to pick optional modules, which hone in on your developing interests and specialisation.
Assessment methods
For details on each module’s assessment criteria, please consult the Module Catalogue within the School's web pages at http://www.swansea.ac.uk/som/. Typically, each module includes a written examination after the taught elements have been completed (so a 15 credit module taken in the first semester will be examined in December, a 15 credit module taken in the second semester will be examined in April) and coursework or continuous assessment consisting of a number of assignments. Assignments may be individual assignments, group assignments, presentations or business reports, for example. Students thus have every opportunity to develop key-skills in the use of Information Technology to gather, coordinate and present information, and also their confidence in presentation. Typically continuous assessment might count for approximately 30% of the total mark, with examinations weighted at 70% but the proportion can vary considerably between modules.
The Uni
Bay Campus
School of Management
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.
Finance
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.
Business and management
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
Over 2,000 students graduated with a degree in finance in 2015, and a sign of the strength of the finance industry, numbers are on the up. Over half of finance graduates go into the finance industry, with accountancy and financial advice roles particularly popular. It's also quite common for finance graduates to go into jobs which require you to take more training and gain professional qualifications — finance graduates who take further study are more likely to be studying accountancy than finance. About a third of graduates start their careers in London - but Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham are other popular locations for finance graduates to work.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Business and management
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£20k
£25k
£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.
Explore these similar courses...








This is what the university has told Ucas about the criteria they expect applicants to satisfy; some may be compulsory, others may be preferable.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
This is the percentage of applicants to this course who received an offer last year, through Ucas.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
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.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
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.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
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).
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.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
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