Business and International Relations

Business

Business will equip you with essential business knowledge, techniques and theories. The course has a strong professional focus and ensures that you gain the insight and skills often sought by employers. The course encompasses a broad range of modules, such as Quantitative Techniques, Accounting, Economics, Marketing, Operations Management, Organisational Behaviour and Strategic Management. There is also emphasis on other skills such as presentation, organisation, communication and IT, which are developed throughout the course. Business will allow you to enjoy extensive and varied career opportunities.

This programme aims to deepen your understanding of how businesses operate and to develop your ability to recognise and analyse the economic, technical, financial, social and organisational parameters within which modern managers make decisions.

International Relations

Many of the key questions in today's world concern the way in which states, peoples and religions relate to each other. How and why do they become opponents, or allies? What causes conflict and war and how can they be prevented or resolved? These are the topics with which the study of International Relations is concerned. By looking at current affairs, at history and at the various theories and explanations offered to account for global developments, the discipline of International Relations offers the chance to engage with issues of crucial importance to today's and tomorrow's world. The skills and knowledge acquired are valuable for careers in the global economy and various other careers in the international arena.

Teaching and assessment

You will experience a wide variety of learning and teaching methods, including:

• lectures, tutorials and seminars

• business exercises and case studies

• group and individual project work

• use of our extensive computing facilities

• corporate investigation and analysis

Students will be assessed in individual modules by end-of-semester (January & May/June) examinations and by assignments conducted and submitted during each session. Each module has its own method of assessment. Assessment methods include written exams, essays, presentations and projects.

Personal development

Business

There is the opportunity to develop professional skills and enhance employability by spending a year in paid employment with an industrial, commercial or public sector organisation. It is therefore strongly recommended that you choose a sandwich programme including a placement. However, it should be noted that a placement is compulsory only for Combined Honours students if they are studying a language as one of their subjects.

The year of paid employment can provide you with experience of the practical problems of management and lay the foundations for your final year of study. It is highly attractive to potential employers and around 30% of students are offered a job upon graduation by their placement year employer.

Aston Business School has excellent links with eight hundred and fifty companies both in the UK and abroad. Around two thousand jobs are advertised to students each year via the Placement Office website. Opportunities are available in a wide range of institutions, from large multi-national blue chip companies to small firms and charities.

The Placement Office will help you to secure a placement by providing information and guidance in a number of ways. It offers workshops on interview techniques, assessment centre tests, writing CVs and completing application forms. Students can also undertake mock interviews.

In the final year, students have the opportunity to specialise in areas of particular interest and relevance to their chosen career path.

The Business programme aims to prepare you for managerial positions and will develop your skills as a problem solver, planner and leader. You will have the opportunity to develop the skills to deploy key resources such as people, time and money efficiently and effectively.

International Relations

The placement year at Aston University has an enviable reputation. This year provides the opportunity to develop professional skills by spending a year in paid employment.

Students will be strongly encouraged to seek a placement abroad, although this is not compulsory. Placements are also available in the UK. Students will be carefully prepared for their placement year during their first two years at Aston, with excellent support both before and throughout the placement year. The school of Languages and Social Sciences has a full-time placements officer who will assist with finding and obtaining a suitable placement and provide individual support to plan and organise this exciting and rewarding year. Placements in recent years have included positions in the European Parliament as assistants to MEPs and with various European business organisations, as well as working in UK-based institutions working on European issues and programmes.

Aston has one of the best records for graduate employment in the UK. The courses ensure that students gain academic knowledge as well as developing a wide range of skills that are valued by employers. Aston's International Relations graduates are articulate and intellectually sophisticated; they are able to discuss in informed, analytical and critical ways the most important issues facing Europe and the world beyond.

Skills developed by the study of International Relations may be put to good use in a variety of professions in the public and private sector, both nationally and internationally.

Career prospects

Business

Combined Honours Business graduates have a consistently excellent track record in finding graduate jobs in the private and public sectors. Recent graduates have entered the job market in management positions for leading and well-established companies.

Examples include Marketing Officer for the Co-Op bank, Commercial manager for Marks and Spencer, Accountants for KPMG, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Baker Tilly and Deloitte and Touche.

International Relations

Skills developed by the study of International Relations may be put to good use in a variety of professions in the public and private sector, both nationally and internationally.

Objectives

Our Aims

Many of the key questions in today’s world concern the way in which states, peoples and religions relate to each other. How and why do they become enemies or allies? What causes conflict and war and how can they be prevented or resolved? These are the topics with which the study of International relations is concerned. By looking at current affairs, at history, and at the various theories and explanations offered to account for global developments, the discipline of International Relations offers the chance to engage with issues of crucial importance to today’s and tomorrow’s world. The skills and knowledge acquired are valuable for careers in the global economy.