With so many courses available it is important that you consider which would be the best for you. To help you with this decision, the following is offered as a guide to the key characteristics to look for in a sport and exercise science degree:
- Is the course endorsed by BASES? BASES assures the appropriateness of the curriculum, resources and opportunities that undergraduate courses offer for training sport and exercise scientists. See Undergraduate Endorsement Scheme (BUES)
- Are all the three aspects of science - physiology, biomechanics and psychology covered, as well as interdisciplinary approaches?
- Are there good laboratory facilities to which you will have access? Check that there is a strong practical skills element to the course. This will help to ensure that you get hands-on experience in the methods used by sport and exercise scientists.
- How many of the staff are accredited by the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES)?
- Check out what active research and community projects exist. Involvement in these projects will allow you the opportunity to gain experiences and skills beyond the formal curriculum. Universities with high ranking research groups will generally publicise this along with their research rating (5* being the top Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) grade awarded in 2001 by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)).
- Does the course provide you with information on the career pathways of its graduates? Most institutions should be able to provide information about where graduates progress after their degrees. Look for institutions that are successful in placing graduates in sport and exercise related occupations.
As with all important decisions, it is advisable to seek as much objective information as possible to support your choice. Look at the reports produced by the Quality Assurance Agency relating to the departments to which you are considering applying.
It is important that you obtain detailed information about the actual content of the courses for which you are thinking of applying. Often courses with the same name have very different content, and equally courses with different names may in fact cover the same material.
Some universities offer discipline-specific programmes of study, for example in the psychology of sport and exercise. These courses tend to provide less breadth of study than traditional sport and exercise science courses. Such specialist courses may, however, appeal to those applicants with a very clear idea of their disciplinary interests and potential career progression. Generally however, a broad understanding of sport and exercise science is best achieved through multidisciplinary study at undergraduate level (i.e. a course that focuses on biomechanics, physiology and psychology). A specialism can then be developed through relevant postgraduate study.
Undergraduate sport and exercise science courses are listed on the BASES Course Finder.