Neuroscience with Placement Year

Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system, and particularly the brain: its structure, its biochemistry, its electrical activity, and the relationship between all of these and the behaviours, thoughts, perceptions, and emotions they produce. It is among the most challenging and rapidly evolving fields in contemporary science, drawing on biology, chemistry, psychology, medicine, and increasingly on computation and data analysis. The questions neuroscience asks, about consciousness, memory, perception, addiction, and mental illness, are among the most profound in all of science.

At the University of Warwick, this four-year full-time programme is the most specialised of the School of Life Sciences degrees, designed for students with a strong and specific interest in how the brain and central nervous system work. You will study neuroscience from the molecular level upwards, examining how neurons communicate, how neural circuits are organised, how the brain develops and changes across the lifespan, and how neurological and psychiatric diseases disrupt normal function. The programme includes a year abroad and a placement year, both of which are built into the degree, making this a four-year programme with an unusually broad range of structured experience outside the lecture theatre.

You will gain sustained experience in a research or professional environment through the placement, and you will have the opportunity to study at a partner institution in another country during the year abroad.

Graduates of neuroscience programmes go on to work in pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, clinical research, healthcare, academic research, and science communication. Those who wish to enter research careers typically continue to postgraduate study at masters or doctoral level. The rigorous scientific training the degree provides also opens routes into medicine, data science, public health, and any field that values advanced quantitative and analytical skills.