The Student Room Group
Student Outside, University of Aberdeen
University of Aberdeen

Further Courses Aberdeen University

I have been reading the prospectus for Biology at Aberdeen university and it says in first year:

"All biologists take 8 courses, including four foundation biology courses. In addition, a course in chemistry is also studied. This leaves a choice of three further courses which would normally contribute towards enhanced study."

Do the three further courses mean biology courses or can you do other courses such a geography as well as biology?
Original post by sarahlouise2468
I have been reading the prospectus for Biology at Aberdeen university and it says in first year:

"All biologists take 8 courses, including four foundation biology courses. In addition, a course in chemistry is also studied. This leaves a choice of three further courses which would normally contribute towards enhanced study."

Do the three further courses mean biology courses or can you do other courses such a geography as well as biology?


It will be courses outwith biology due to how flexible the degree structure is in many Scottish universities, so could be geography if you wish (although perhaps look into timetabling clashes - I don't study at Aberdeen so couldn't tell you).
Student Outside, University of Aberdeen
University of Aberdeen
Yes, your three extra courses will be out with your chosen field of study, the uni say it is to make their students more well rounded and ensure they have some education on other topics, but really it's just a way of making up enough credits to be able to go on to graduate haha. Degrees like law and medicine already have the full amount of compulsory credits, but most other degrees are usually short by 15-45 credits in 1st and second year.

You have a few options when it comes to choosing extra courses though. You can choose to do additional modules that interest you, but you will be treated as a degree student within that module and will obviously have to complete the whole module to gain the credits.
You also have the option of doing a sixth century course which are bs courses that are worth 15 credits each. You can only do 1 per semester, so a max of 30 credits worth per year and they have no exam, they are 100% coursework based. They are a very easy way to gain credits, but they're all in really random, pointless subjects and 100% attendance is compulsory for those.

Personally, I chose extra modules that although required a bit more work than the sizth century ones, I knew I would be interested in.
I'm more likely to do more work in something I'm interested in rather than a little bit of work for something that bores me to tears.

You can have a look at your options before you start uni though. In fact, I HIGHLY recommend that you start looking at your options and make decisions before advising week because so many people end up stuck in crappy modules that they don't want because they haven't looked in advance and weren't aware they needed to choose anything extra.

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/registry/courses/index.php

You can choose from any of the categories in the above link, and then from the level 1 courses within those categories.

Hope that helps a bit.

Quick Reply

Latest