MBiolSci Zoology with Placement Year

This five-year course is designed to give you the best start for a career in industrial or academic research. You'll combine the research-focused integrated masters with a year-long, paid work placement as part of your degree.

Our students have found placements within industry with organisations such as GSK, Atkins Environmental Consulting and EMEC Ecology; with charities like the Wildlife Trusts, Newquay Zoo, and the Field Studies Council; or in government with the Environment Agency. You could even apply your scientific knowledge and transferable skills within or outside of the bioscience industry in areas including market research, communications or business development. It's a great opportunity to test out a career path that you're considering and many students are offered a graduate-level job at the end. You'll pay reduced fees for the year you're on placement and you'll still have the support you need from your tutor and the University.

The majority of your final year will be devoted to a major research project where you'll develop advanced laboratory and fieldwork skills, working alongside our world-leading zoologist academics focused on everything from genetics to biodiversity and climate change.

The course is about animals, their evolution, and their interactions with each other, the environment and biodiversity conservation. It spans microbes, invertebrates, birds, fish, mammals and humans. You’ll learn how they evolved, how their physiology works, how they behave, and how they respond to global change. You’ll discover how their biodiversity is maintained and lost, and use this knowledge to help us to address important issues such as tropical wildlife conservation, disease outbreaks and maintaining functioning ecosystems.

You'll cover three main themes at Sheffield:

Alongside your specialist zoology modules, from your first year you’ll have the freedom to study topics across the breadth of biology to complement your knowledge. Topics range from ecology and molecular genetics that underpin conservation, to pharmacology, neuroscience and even human physiology. This flexibility allows you to study zoology in greater depth, keep your interests broad or even switch to another degree programme within the biosciences.

No matter what modules you choose to study, you’ll develop practical laboratory and transferable skills that make our graduates attractive to employers including project management, problem solving, communication skills and data analysis.

Whether you choose to focus solely on zoology, or study a range of topics across the biosciences, your personal tutor will support you to tailor your degree to your interests and career goals.