Accounting and Finance with Placement Year ( BA )

Year 1

In the first year, compulsory modules will provide you with an introduction to accountancy and the key fundamentals to examine and evaluate modern financial markets. Typical modules may include introductions to financial and management accounting, economics, finance and mathematics and statistics. This compulsory core will be complimented by an optional module from the areas of business, global economics or foreign languages

Year 2

In the second year, compulsory modules allow you continue your studies in accounting and finance with a choice of optional modules considering the broader financial context including economics, taxation and law and the opportunity to study a foreign language.

Year 3

All of our degrees offer you the option of spending your third year gaining practical experience on a business placement. Business placements are a great way to develop your employment marketability and to engage with employers early in their recruitment pipeline. A placement requires a minimum of forty weeks of work experience and the placement begins in the summer following completion of the second year, and this then becomes the third year of a four-year degree programme. This allows you to really explore and understand your job and to find out if the career or company is for you.

• You will develop your practical skills, confidence and maturity.
• You can focus on a specific career path -many employers recruit graduates from their placement programme.
• You will be able to contextualise your studies better, be more mature in your attitude to work.
• You may decide to draw on your working experiences and access a more fulfilling dissertation research subject.
• You will gain invaluable job search and graduate research skills by engaging in the competitive placement recruitment process.

To ensure you are getting the most out of your experience, we support your placement in a number of ways:

First Year Bootcamps and Workshops help you to develop your Placement Strategy and to identify and develop those skills and competencies that will be critical to ensure you are attractive to potential placement employers. These typically involve Employers, Placement Mentors and representatives from Colleges, Societies and the Volunteering Community in Durham.

Second Year Workshops support you through the placement application process and allow you to develop into a supportive student group to travel along the road of gaining a placement together. They enable you to get to know those students who will return with you in the fourth year. Workshops typically involve employers, and former placement students.

The DUBS Placement Programme includes a series of employer-led events which take place throughout term 1 and 2 and is open to all first year and second year placement students. The skills sessions and networking events allow students to meet recruiters and develop essential employability skills as well as providing valuable insight into the recruitment process.

Placement Mentors: We have a mentorship scheme whereby former placement students share their experiences of the application process and placement with first and second year students and those out on placement. If you become a placement mentor on your return to University you can continue to develop your interpersonal skills and slide back into your University life with another key role which may well develop a new sense of belonging as well as another valuable contribution to your CV.

Placement Tutors: Whilst you are on placement you are assigned a tutor who will visit you, liaise with your employer and ensure you gain the most from your experience.

The Business Placement year fees are set annually by the University.  For the definitive amount of the Business Placement year fees payable please contact our Placement Team. *The offer of a place on a ‘with placement’ degree does not imply that Durham University Business School guarantees to find you a placement. The Business School, in association with the University, will assist you in finding and applying for placements, but it is your responsibility to apply for and to obtain a placement (which is subject to approval by the Business School). In the event that you are unable to obtain a placement, transfer to the equivalent ‘non-placement’ degree is guaranteed provided you are eligible to transfer on academic grounds. In line with Home Office rules, if you are from outside the EU you will transfer onto the ‘with business placement’ degree only once you have successfully secured a placement (normally at the end of your second year of study). Therefore due to visa requirements, we recommend that if you are an international student interested in a business placement year as part of your degree you apply for this when making your application to us via UCAS.

Year 4

Moving to a more research-led teaching orientation in the third year, you are required to produce a double module Dissertation in an area of accounting and finance areas. Additionally, you will study two compulsory modules exploring the world of accounting. You will have the option to choose two modules from a range of business, accounting and finance options. You may also choose to continue your study of a foreign language. We review course structures and core content (in light of e.g. external and student feedback) every year, and will publish finalised core requirements for 2020 entry from September 2019.

Placement Year

You may be able to take a work placement.