91快活林

International requirements and visas

We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

Visas and immigration advice

Top reasons to choose this course

• Learn in a vibrant, progressive city with a reputation for radical, environmental and LGBTQI+ activism. 

• Your lecturers are internationally recognised researchers on issues including populism, gender studies, the Middle East, environmentalism, migration, housing and political theory. 

• You will engage with cutting-edge academic research. The university’s Centre for Philosophy, Politics and Ethics hosts regular talks, seminars, workshops and conferences, and offers an annual undergraduate research prize. 

• International exchanges at a partner university – in year 2, students in the politics subject area have the opportunity to spend a semester studying abroad at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Netherlands or the University of Lyon 2, France.

• Placement opportunities give you the chance to make industry connections and gain valuable experience.

• Guest speakers have included Caroline Lucas and Sue Shanks (Green Party), Yousef Eldin (BBC documentary producer), Nancy Hawker (Amnesty International) and Professor Angie Wilson (ex-chair of the Political Studies Association, researching sexuality and politics), as well as representatives from Make the Shift, The Free West Papua Campaign and 91快活林 & Hove Community Land Trust. 

• Assignments don’t just mean essays, you’ll be assessed in lots of ways including films, podcasts, data visualisations, political speeches, social media campaigns – the types of projects that will be valued by employers.  

• Graduate with both theoretical and practical knowledge. Our courses offer practical skills and real-world experiences to prepare you for your future careers, with opportunities to undertake placements, design a campaign for a political organisation and learn digital communication skills. 

• The university’s commitment to addressing global challenges is the lens through which you will learn and issues such as climate change, equality and inclusivity and sustainability are embedded in all teaching on our politics courses. 

• Our decolonised approach to teaching and learning emphasises lived experience, recognising that knowledge is held in communities, not only in academic institutions. 

• You will be studying in a thriving community alongside students taking related degrees which informs our delivery.

Year 1 

In your first year, you will study six modules that introduce you to the subject area. 

Year 2

In year two you will explore British politics and theories of government and policy, and begin to learn the fundamentals of research methods and ethics in preparation for your final year dissertation.

You’ll also choose the subjects that interest you most through option modules.

Final year

Placements

Spend a year on placement

Gain valuable experience and earn money during an optional placement year following year 2. You’ll return to the final year of your degree with added confidence, real-world experience and valuable contacts. 

A placement year significantly improves your CV, giving you a distinct advantage over others when applying for jobs and starting your career. It will also help you to develop the softer skills such as communication and teamwork.

For the assessed part of your placement, you will create a reflective piece of work on professional practice and skills. 

The university has links with a wide range of organisations including in health, culture and heritage, housing, councils, the police, the probation service, policy think tanks and charities.

Our dedicated Placements and Employability team will support you in getting a placement that meets with your interests and career ambitions. They can help with CVs and cover letter writing, applications, online testing and more. Plus, they’ll provide support and guidance when you’re on placement and make sure that everything is going well.

Other placement opportunities

In your second year you can gain real-world experience on placement with the option module Experiencing the Workplace: Practices and the Community.

You’ll spend 40 hours working with an organisation and put into practice your learnings in relation to policies, politics and communication, reflecting on issues such as gender, race and class representation.

Through the placement you will develop transferrable employability skills and abilities, such as teamwork and problem-solving, and gain an insight into potential career paths – all while actively contributing to the community.

We will help you find a placement that suits your interests and support you to build your CV and with interview preparation.

Our politics students have spent their placement with organisations including:

• Sussex Prisoners Families.

Lab facilities

Mithras House has a series of lab rooms which can be used for teaching on your course or in your independent research work.

Life lab
A skills-based lab for practice-based teaching, social work, psychotherapy and counselling, and employability. The Life lab is fitted with lounge furniture to provide a comfortable space for conducting qualitative research with larger groups. The lab can be used to conduct research activities with children of all ages and can be used for meetings and events. The room also contains a dedicated space to conduct assessed role play or interviews with children.

City lab
This is a qualitative research methods and creative methods resource for all students, staff and researchers, as well as research participants, including children, community groups and the general public. It can also be used for meetings and events. The City lab contains a kitchen, a teaching/meeting room with enhanced acoustic isolation and two meeting spaces that can be separated with a screen or combined to accommodate larger groups.

Design lab
Housing our extensive collection of historic dress and textiles, which are used in some teaching on our History of Art and Design courses, this has the space and equipment for you to work on textile projects. Displays created by students on these programmes are on view in the social spaces of the building.

Community lab
A space designed for collaborative student learning, this is used by students and staff involved in the university’s Global Challenges programme – our collective mission to contribute towards solutions to tackle the pressing issues facing our world.

Stats lab
A specialist workspace with computing equipment for statistical analysis and projects involving video and audio editing software. The lab contains eight acoustically treated booths for both recording and transcribing interviews undertaken as part of dissertation research and for recording and editing podcasts.

Applied cognition lab
A dedicated research space for psychological research involving measures such as electrodermal activity (EDA) and electroencephalography (EEG). The space is designed to allow the participant and researcher to sit at separate desks whilst psychophysiological data is being collected. 

VR and eye tracking lab
The VR and Eye-Tracking Lab is used for psychological research using equipment, such as eye-trackers and virtual reality headsets. The space has adjustable lighting and a blackout blind for maintaining consistent lighting conditions during eye-tracking research, as well as sensors set up in the room to allow individuals to move freely around the room during virtual reality research.

Take a video tour of the labs with technicians Andrea and Grace 

Meet the team

Dr Andy Knott  –  course leader

Andy works in political theory, with a specific interest in political subjects, especially individualism and the people of populism, as well as debates across contemporary democratic theory.

Andy teaches and has published several recent books on populism and is currently writing a book entitled Rethinking Left and Right in Contemporary Politics.

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Robin Jervis

Robin’s research focus is in the field of political economy. He is interested in ideas of ownership of resources, particularly in alternative models of public ownership informed by anarchist and Marxist traditions and how these approaches can relate to radical understandings of democracy and ‘ideal’ or ‘developmental’ conceptions of liberty.

Robin’s teaching style blends learning technologies with more traditional seminar teaching approaches. Robin is currently working on a series of projects which focus on alternatives to capitalism, as well as an ongoing research project examining perceptions of social justice using psychological techniques. .

Other staff who teach on the course include:

Course fees

The course fees shown here are what you will pay for the first year of your course if you start in the academic year 2026–27 and you are studying full-time (fee amount is subject to parliamentary approval). You pay fees in each year of your course. The fees you pay may increase each year.

Regulated fees

Fees for UK students on undergraduate and some postgraduate courses are set by the UK government. These are known as regulated fees. From academic year 2026–27, regulated fees will increase annually in line with forecast inflation.

Student Finance England loans for tuition fees and maintenance will also rise in line with inflation.

If you are studying part-time your fee will usually be calculated based on the number of modules that you take.

Unregulated fees

Course fees for international students taking undergraduate courses and for most postgraduate courses are not regulated by the UK government. Unregulated fees may increase each year by up to 5% or the forecast Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation (whichever is higher).

Find out more

• Fees, bursaries, scholarships and government funding info for UK and international undergraduate students
• Student finance and budgeting while studying
• Read our student contract and (pdf) for more on University of 91快活林 tuition fees.
• 91快活林 Boost – cost of living help for our new undergrad students. Find out about how we can help with your study, accommodation or travel costs and more.

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