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University of Chester

UCAS Code: MC98 | Bachelor of Science (with Honours) - BSc (Hons)

Entry requirements

A level

B,C,C-B,B,C

Applicants must also have GCSE Maths at grade C/4 or above and GCSE English at grade C/4 or above.

Access to HE Diploma, to include 45 credits at level 3, 30 of which must be at Merit. Applicants must also have GCSE Maths at grade C/4 or above and GCSE English at grade C/4 or above.

International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme

28

Leaving Certificate - Higher Level (Ireland) (first awarded in 2017)

H3,H3,H3,H3,H4

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

DMM

Applicants must also have GCSE Maths at grade C/4 or above and GCSE English at grade C/4 or above.

Scottish Higher

B,B,B,B

T Level

M

UCAS Tariff

112

Applicants must also have GCSE Maths at grade C/4 or above and GCSE English at grade C/4 or above.

About this course

Course option

3years

Full-time | 2025

Subjects

Criminology

Psychology

Looking to pursue a career that makes a difference? Our Criminology and Psychology degree at the University of Chester offers a unique blend of disciplines that will equip you with the knowledge and skills to tackle society's most pressing issues.

Explore the intersection of crime, psychology and society. Delve into theories, policies and real-world case studies to gain a deep understanding of the factors that contribute to criminal behaviour.

This course develops socially aware students who learn criminology from an interdisciplinary and international perspective. You will handle and interpret evidence, engage with debates about positive social change, and develop an understanding of criminal justice in society. You'll also develop integrity in your real world application of the discipline, which will be assessed through varying means ensuring you become a reflective learner.

You will evolve into a reflective academic and researcher with an active voice, and will approach real world problems relevant to psychology, criminology and criminal justice with cultural awareness and sensitivity. At the end of the course, you'll be able to apply your transferable skills to a range of employment roles and opportunities. 

Our experienced team come from a range of backgrounds and will guide you through a dynamic and diverse curriculum, ensuring you're well-prepared for a rewarding career.

Modules

This course promotes the strengths and best interests of students to prepare you to enter into the real world of criminology and criminal justice. This course develops socially aware students who learn criminology from an interdisciplinary and international perspective. You will explore theoretical and practical understandings of crime, harm and victimisation applying knowledge and building understanding of the criminal justice system and journey. There is a clear social justice focus throughout which critically reviews media landscapes and their impacts to society. We critically reflect upon marginalised communities including how stereotypes and representations can lead to disproportionately that exists within criminal justice settings. There is an exploration of experiences of punishments and injustices which are considered in a context of promoting social change. You will develop an active voice as a reflective academic and researcher with cultural awareness and sensitivity in responding to real world problems relevant to criminology and criminal justice. By the end of their course, they can articulate their varying attributes relevant to a range of employment roles and opportunities.

The information listed in this section is an overview of the academic content of the course that will take the form of either core or option modules and should be used as a guide. We review the content of our courses regularly, making changes where necessary to improve your experience and graduate prospects. If during a review process, course content is significantly changed, we will contact you to notify you of these changes if you receive an offer from us.

Assessment methods

This course is delivered in three terms of ten weeks each. In each term you will study 40 credits comprised of either one or two modules. Scheduled contact hours range between approximately six and ten hours per week depending upon level of study and the complexity of the material being taught. This course is delivered through a mix of in person and online learning. You can expect to take part in lectures, workshops and peer-led seminars.

You should expect to spend an average of 30 – 34 hours per week on independent study which might include following asynchronous learning material, tutorial time with staff, using the University’s library, working with peers and preparing work for assessment. Teaching will be delivered by experience academics and practitioners in the subject. This will be supplemented by occasional guest lecturers and speakers.

There will be a broad range of assessment methods so you are exposed to the different types of tasks that you might encounter in the workplace. These will include coursework in the form of essays (long and short form), portfolios and presentations. Assessment support is provided throughout the modules. We continuously review the assessment methods used in order that they adequately prepare students for graduate level employment.

Tuition fees

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

Channel Islands
£9,535
per year
England
£9,535
per year
EU
£9,535
per year
Northern Ireland
£9,535
per year
Scotland
£9,535
per year
Wales
£9,535
per year

The Uni

Course location:

Chester

Department:

University of Chester Law School

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.

60%
Criminology
73%
Psychology

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

65%
Staff make the subject interesting
76%
Staff are good at explaining things
69%
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

62%
Library resources
78%
IT resources
64%
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?

95%
UK students
5%
International students
24%
Male students
76%
Female students
76%
2:1 or above
18%
First year drop out rate

Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)

D
B
C

Psychology (non-specific)

Teaching and learning

76%
Staff make the subject interesting
88%
Staff are good at explaining things
85%
Ideas and concepts are explored in-depth
75%
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

76%
Library resources
78%
IT resources
74%
Course specific equipment and facilities
81%
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?

93%
UK students
7%
International students
19%
Male students
81%
Female students
83%
2:1 or above
15%
First year drop out rate

Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)

C
C
B

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.

£17,100
med
Average annual salary
97%
med
Employed or in further education
25%
low
Employed in a role where degree was essential or beneficial

Top job areas of graduates

17%
Sales assistants and retail cashiers
17%
Other elementary services occupations
11%
Customer service 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.

Psychology (non-specific)

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.

£17,000
med
Average annual salary
92%
low
Employed or in further education
39%
low
Employed in a role where degree was essential or beneficial

Top job areas of graduates

25%
Sales assistants and retail cashiers
10%
Welfare and housing associate professionals
9%
Other elementary services occupations

20 years ago, this was a specialist degree for would-be psychologists but now it is the model of a modern, flexible degree subject. One of the UK's fastest-growing subject at degree level, and the second most popular subject overall (it recently overtook business studies), one in 23 of all graduates last year had psychology degrees. As you'd expect with figures like that, jobs in psychology itself are incredibly competitive, so to stand a chance of securing one, you need to get a postgraduate qualification (probably a doctorate in most fields, especially clinical psychology) and some relevant work experience. But even though there are so many psychology graduates — far more than there are jobs in psychology, and over 13,800 in total last year — this degree has a lower unemployment rate than average because its grads are so flexible and well-regarded by business and other industries across the economy. Everywhere there are good jobs in the UK economy, you'll find psychology graduates - and it's hardly surprising as the course helps you gain a mix of good people skills and excellent number and data handling skills. A psychology degree ticks most employers' boxes — but we'd suggest you don't drop your maths modules.

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

£18k

£21k

£21k

£24k

£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.

Psychology (non-specific)

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

£18k

£21k

£21k

£23k

£23k

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.

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.

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