Counselling Skills and Criminology
Entry requirements
A level
Access to HE Diploma, to include 45 credits at level 3, 30 of which must be at Merit
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
Leaving Certificate - Higher Level (Ireland) (first awarded in 2017)
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
Scottish Higher
T Level
UCAS Tariff
About this course
A Combined Honours degree at Chester gives you the opportunity to study two subjects. You will spend a fairly even amount of time studying each subject area, with possible opportunities to declare a major – minor towards the end of your studies.
**Counselling Skills**
Enhance your ability to communicate and gain highly developed embedded counselling skills to help others in a wide range of people-related employment contexts.
This course will give you the opportunity to develop practical counselling skills which can be used in a range of professional settings. You will evaluate the theories underpinning the skills and the contexts in which they are used, and enhance your self-awareness and capacity for ethical, empathic and reflective practice. You will develop valuable communication skills, knowledge and experience transferrable to a range of workplace and helping situations, as well as your multicultural competence and understanding. You will explore a wide variety of workplace contexts where counselling skills are used, carry out research and develop a critical understanding of different therapeutic approaches.
Chester has a long-established national reputation for the provision of counselling education. We are linked to a cutting-edge research community and the course is delivered by practitioners and researchers who draw on their own professional and academic expertise. The teaching is largely experiential with a strong practical component, and this is enhanced by guest lecturers who bring in knowledge and skills from the wider professional and academic community.
**Criminology**
Prepare yourself for a career in one of the largest growing areas of employment as you explore the relationship between society, the individual, crime, punishment and victimisation.
On this dynamic and diverse course, you will gain an extensive understanding of a range of case studies, and learn how criminology can help us examine the various harms, crimes and injustices that occur domestically and internationally. Explore the relationship between criminological theories and criminal justice policies and practices. Learn about explanations for crime and antisocial behaviour, and how the police and courts deal with such matters. You will study the role of punishment and the secure estate, and investigate crimes of the powerless and crimes of the powerful. The issue of human rights is integral to our analyses.
Through our wide-ranging backgrounds and expertise, and in ensuring a rich interdisciplinary approach, we work to expand your criminological and victimological imagination. We encourage you to engage in independent learning and thought, and we equip you with the skills needed to find, retrieve and analyse an array of materials, such as expert-led research, personal testimonies and documentaries. Across the Department we have an emphasis on being student-centred. This includes students being assigned a Personal Academic Tutor (PAT) and highlighted drop-in times for you to visit lecturers.
Modules
For the latest example of curriculum availability on this degree programme please refer to the University of Chester's Website.
Assessment methods
For Counselling Skills we use a range of assessment methods, including: reflective writing; critical reports; case studies; and essays and evaluations of recorded helping sessions. There are no exams.
For Criminology assessments place emphasis on real-world scenarios and practical skill development with assessments fostering skills that are highly valuable for graduate careers. Examples of assessments include inquiry submissions, a podcast transcript, storyboard, poster, presentations, and essays. The University has a wide range of support available to help you excel in new and diverse forms of assessment.
Tuition fees
Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:
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)
Counselling, psychotherapy and occupational therapy
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.
Counselling, psychotherapy and occupational therapy
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
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.
£18k
£21k
£24k
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.
Counselling, psychotherapy and occupational therapy
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
£24k
£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.
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.
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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.
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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