The focus on international development embraces the study of the economics, politics and sociology of developing countries. Students should acquire a good interdisciplinary understanding of international development issues and be able to use appropriate techniques to analyse specific problems in the world economy.

The aims of the programme are to give students opportunities to:

A distinctive feature of the undergraduate programmes at Bath is that they may be studied either as a three-year full-time or a four-year sandwich programme, in which the third year is spent on work placement.

There are many advantages to taking a sandwich programme. Firstly, it provides an invaluable opportunity to gain work experience prior to graduation and therefore to improve your curriculum vitae. A recent survey by the National Council for Work Experience indicated that 40% of graduates believed that work experience was the most important factor in gaining permanent employment after graduation, and that 62% of employers used placements as a means to recruit permanent staff. Secondly, job-related skills become useful in the final year of your programme. Many employers provide job-related training (e.g. IT courses), which are transferable to the study environment at university. Thirdly, final year dissertations frequently arise from work undertaken during the placement.

We select placements carefully to give practical experience in the use of economics and regularly place students with prestigious companies and organisations, including the Bank of England, HM Treasury, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Cambridge Econometrics, and BP plc.

Placements, which are paid, are chosen in consultation with the Placements Officer. Students are assigned a tutor who maintains regular contact, and visits the workplace. A placement conference is held at the University and students are required to submit placement reports.

Course Details