Biology with Integrated Foundation Year

Our Integrated Foundation Year will take you through a carefully-designed course to help you to progress confidently onto your undergraduate degree.

The Biology Foundation Year provides progressive structures in which you are able to gain knowledge and understanding of approaches to scientific study and your chosen degree subject.

Once you have completed your Foundation year, you will normally progress onto the full degree course, BSc Biology. There may also be flexibility to move onto a degree in another department (see end of section, below).

Biology helps us to understand the world around us – the way that plants and animals interact, the way that different living things evolve and adapt and our own role in the wider natural world. Biology at Royal Holloway, University of London gives you a sound understanding of the structure, function, evolution and diversity of living organisms and the interactions between them.

On BSc Biology you will study a diverse range of biology modules, from molecular biology to learning the science to help overcome the challenges of climate change. You can choose a pathway to tailor your degree to your own biological interests from a huge range of options taught by experts in their fields, across the spectrum of ecology or molecular sciences.

You will learn on a biodiverse campus in reach of sites of special scientific interest and put your learning into practice through fieldwork opportunities. You will develop an understanding of how to design and analyse experiments and gain invaluable laboratory experience and data handling skills.

On successful completion, you’ll be equipped with:

• a broad understanding of the fundamental knowledge base and the terminology of Biological Sciences

• an awareness of current areas of debate and discovery in Biological Sciences and how scientific knowledge and methods can be applied to investigate them.

• the skills needed to work in a wide range of sectors.

From time to time, we make changes to our courses to improve the student and learning experience, and this is particularly the case as we continue to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. If we make a significant change to your chosen course, we’ll let you know as soon as we can.

Course Modules

Core Modules

Foundation Year

• Global and Planetary Health

• Foundation Life Sciences and The Environment

• Foundation Mathematics for Life Scientists

• Environmental Science for Foundation Life Sciences

• Life Sciences II: Organ Systems

• Foundation Statistics for Life Sciences

Year 1

• Becoming a Bioscientist

• Green Planet: Plants and Our Future

• Cell Biology and the Origin of Life

• Genetics

Year 2

• Biological Data Analysis and Interpretation

• Evolution

Year 3

• Individual Research Project

• Climate Change - Plants and the Environment

Optional Modules

In addition to mandatory modules, there will be a number of optional modules available during the course of your degree.

https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/studying-here/undergraduate/biological-sciences/bsc-biology-with-integrated-foundation-year/

In your Foundation Year, teaching methods include a mixture of lectures, practical classes and workshops, laboratory classes, individual tutorials, and supervisory sessions. Outside of the classroom you’ll undertake guided and independent practice. You will be assigned a Personal Tutor in the Department of Biological Sciences and will have regular scheduled sessions. In the Foundation Year, you’ll also be assigned a Personal Tutor in the Centre for the Development of Academic Skills (CeDAS).  Assessments are varied; practical exercises, weekly problem sheets, set exercises, written examinations, laboratory reports. In addition the Foundation Year offers a full range of skills-based training.

For your degree course, teaching methods will include a mixture of lectures, seminars, individual tutorials, and practical field and laboratory work. Outside the classroom, students will be expected to undertake study to understand the taught material, and to carry out the assessed coursework. Assessment will be through a combination of examinations, project(s) and practical work.

Professionally accredited courses provide industry-wide recognition of the quality of your qualification.

• Royal Society of Biology