Sport and Exercise Science BSc (Hons)

Overview

All major athletes and teams need a sports scientist. Our course has received professional endorsement from the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES), and will prepare you to work in this fast-moving field. As part of your degree, you’ll work with athletes and members of the public to understand and apply the four key disciplines of sport and exercise science: physiology, psychology, biomechanics and nutrition.

The field of Sport and Exercise Science applies to all levels of exercise – from the general population to elite performance. It uses scientific principles and techniques to help educate and improve the quality of health and wellbeing of individuals, and enhance the performance of athletes and teams across an array of sports at national and international level.

Our course gives you the skills you need to work at the top level. You’ll explore the nature of human performance from health through to athletic excellence; how the human machine operates when engaged in sport and exercise, and how to interpret and evaluate its responses.

You’ll learn to work safely and ethically as a sport and exercise scientist within our BASES accredited laboratories housed in the Cambridge Centre for Sports and Exercise Science. You’ll develop key employability skills in both an applied and research setting, as well as gain effective practical skills that are in demand from top level clubs, sporting organisations and in clinical practice.

In your final year you’ll have a unique opportunity to choose between a final year research project or to work and complete a project in industry and deliver on an organisation’s strategic priority, as a result potentially creating a service/product that helps them fulfil their needs.

Assessment

Throughout the course, we’ll use a range of assessment methods to help you measure your progress. These include presentations, practical skills tests, scientific reports, case study critiques, online assessments and a research project.

Careers

We work with employers to make sure you graduate with the knowledge, skills and abilities they need. They help us review what we teach and how we teach it – and they offer hands-on, practical opportunities to learn through work-based projects, internships or placements.

During the course, you’ll be encouraged to improve your employment prospects by making connections with industry. For example, you should consider becoming a student member of the British Association of Sport & Exercise Sciences (BASES) or the European College of Sports Sciences (ECSS).

Sports science graduates are increasingly in demand around the world. There are wide-ranging employment opportunities for introducing people to sport and exercise, to developing them as participants, and even helping take them to the top. As a sports scientist, you could work:

• as an athlete-support scientist (with teams and national sports associations)
• as an exercise consultant
• as a performance analyst
• in the health and fitness industry
• as a clinical physiologist
• in applied health and physical activity.