The information below relates to our BSc/MSCi courses:
Personal Tutor: At the start of your degree, you will be assigned a Personal Tutor who will remain with you throughout your studies until graduation, to help you in three important areas: supporting your academic progress, developing transferable skills and dealing with any welfare issues. You will meet your personal tutor at least once a semester to review your academic progress and discuss how to develop your transferable skills. Your personal tutor will also be able to advise on particular areas where you need additional support.
Delivery of the course
As a Birmingham student you are part of an academic elite and will learn from world-leading experts. From the outset you will be encouraged to become an independent and self-motivated learner; we want you to be challenged and will encourage you to think for yourself.
Your learning will take place in a range of different settings, from scheduled teaching in lectures and small-group tutorials, to self-study and peer-group learning sessions (for example preparing and delivering presentations with your classmates).
To begin with you may find these new ways of studying challenging, but rest assured, we will work with you to facilitate this transition. You will have access to a comprehensive support system, including welfare tutors, who can help with both academic and more pastoral issues, as can your personal tutor.
In your first and second years, the course is delivered as lectures, tutorials, workshops and laboratory classes. In your final year, you will complete a research-related project.
In your first year, expect about 20 hours of contact time per week made up of approximately 12 hours of lectures, tutorials and workshops, and eight hours of laboratory classes.
Laboratory-based practical work forms an integral part of the School's degree programmes. Classes not only develop your practical skills, but also reinforce concepts introduced in the associated lectures as well as allow you to explore particular phenomena. Practical sessions typically last four hours in your first year; however these increase in length in subsequent years to allow for more advanced experiments.
In your final year, if you are on an MSci programme, you will join a research group and become a member of the Research School whilst undertaking a major Research Project. Your project will not only enable you to focus on the area of Chemistry that interests you most, but also to carry out science that has never been done before. Projects can be synthesis-based or concentrate on more theoretical aspects of the subject, or, of course, be a combination of both. You will work closely with your project supervisor to tailor the project to you particular research interests. If you are a BSc student, you will also complete a research-related project in your final year.
Small-group tutorials run alongside our lecture courses, and provide a valuable opportunity for you to discuss specific problems with your tutor, as well as consolidate and test your understanding of the lecture material through problem-solving exercises.
Enquiry-Based Learning (EBL) provides an environment where the learning process is driven by enquiry. In this learning approach, the lecturer's role is purely as a facilitator. EBL provides a particularly useful method for teaching aspects of Chemistry, for example, the use of spectroscopic techniques in structure elucidation. It often requires you to work in a team to solve a problem, and typifies a research-orientated approach to problem-solving, which is embedded in the research-led ethos of the University of Birmingham.
The information below relates to our BSc/MSCi courses:
Each module is assessed independently and most contain some components of continuous assessment, which usually accounts for a quarter to one-third of the marks. The chosen methods of assessment depend on how best to assess the learning outcomes of a particular module; however these typically include end-of-year examinations, written assignments, oral and poster presentations, computer-based tests as well as laboratory and project reports. In some cases, modules are completely assessed by coursework. Examinations are taken in May and June.
We place strong emphasis on providing prompt and informative feedback on all pieces of submitted work. Feedback comes in a variety of forms, including written comments on pieces of assessment, whole-class feedback sessions and one-on-one discussions with your tutors. In all cases, the feedback will highlight the good points as well as those areas that require more attention.
During your first year you will undergo a formal 'transition' review to see how you are getting on and if there are particular areas where you need support. This is in addition to the personal tutor who is based in the School and can help with any academic issues you encounter.
At the beginning of each module, you will be given information on how and when you will be assessed for that particular programme of study. You will receive feedback on each assessment within four weeks, so that you can learn from, and build on, what you have done. You will be given feedback on any exams that you take; if you should fail an exam we will ensure that particularly detailed feedback is made available to enable you to learn for the future.