General entry requirements

A level:

• AAB to include an A level in a modern or classical language
• You will also need grade B/grade 6 in English and Mathematics at GCSE
• We make differential offers to students in a number of circumstances at ABB including Spanish, plus grade B/grade 6 in English and Mathematics at GCSE.

IB:

• 36 to include a modern or classical language at Higher Level 5, and Mathematics and English

BTEC:

• We welcome applications from students taking BTECs alongside one or two A levels, including an A level in a modern or classical language
• You will also need grade B/grade 6 in English and Mathematics at GCSE

Additional requirements

Second personal statement: If you meet (or are predicted to meet) the minimum entry requirements, we will invite you to submit a second personal statement to Warwick, addressing your reasons for applying to the course. We will contact applicants directly to request the second personal statement and provide guidance at that time.

English Language: You will also need to meet our English Language requirements. This course falls under Band C.

International Students

We welcome applications from students with other internationally recognised qualifications.

Find out more about international entry requirements.

Contextual data and differential offers

Warwick may make differential offers to students in a number of circumstances. These include students participating in the Realising Opportunities programme, or who meet two of the contextual data criteria. Differential offers will be one or two grades below Warwick’s standard offer (to a minimum of BBB).

Warwick International Foundation Programme (IFP)

All students who successfully complete the Warwick IFP and apply to Warwick through UCAS will receive a guaranteed conditional offer for a related undergraduate programme (selected courses only).

Find out more about standard offers and conditions for the IFP.

Taking a gap year

Applications for deferred entry welcomed.

Interviews

We do not typically interview applicants. Offers are made based on your UCAS form which includes predicted and actual grades, your personal statement and school reference. We will also consider your second personal statement when making offers.

Year One

Modern Spanish Language 1

Do you have A level or an equivalent in Spanish and want to consolidate, extend and refine your skills to advanced level? This module will equip you with sound grammatical and linguistic foundations, with the aim of increasing your confidence in reading, listening, speaking and writing in Spanish. You'll use authentic resources in a variety of media from around the Hispanic world, including books, articles, newspapers, television and radio, as well as taking part in our virtual language exchange with students in Colombia, and culminating in production of a language portfolio to demonstrate your competence in the spoken and written language.

OR

Modern Spanish Language for Beginners

As a beginner in the acquisition of the Spanish language, you’ll gain a keen grammatical awareness, a sound understanding of cultures and societies across the Hispanic world, and most of all, confidence in reading, listening, speaking and writing in Spanish. Using authentic resources, including newspapers, television and radio, you are expected to end your course able to sustain everyday conversations in Spanish, read authentic texts, follow the gist of TV extracts and write at an intermediate level in Spanish. You'll also work on basic translations to and from Spanish as a means of consolidating your knowledge.

Language, Text and Identity in the Hispanic World

How has the Spanish language travelled around the world and what happens when it co-exists with other languages? How do writers use language to explore identity, and what happens when they work between two (or more) languages? What skills do we need as readers to interpret the nuances of texts that travel between languages? This module will equip you with an understanding of the cultural and sociolinguistic diversity of the Hispanic world, and a strong grounding in the literary and cultural analysis of texts that address this diversity. The module explores the different varieties of Spanish spoken around the world, along with some of the principal languages that share its territory. It also reads a variety of texts that negotiate national and gender identities across linguistic and cultural borders, with a focus on those that travel between non-hegemonic Hispanic contexts and the Anglosphere.

OR

Images and Representations of the Hispanic World

Where did the familiar stereotypes of Spain and Latin America come from? How have they circulated and been received at different times and in different places? And how have Spaniards and Latin Americans represented themselves to travellers, tourists, artists, and even invaders? Through the study of representations of the Hispanic world, you'll investigate significant topics including (de)colonisation of the Americas, stereotypical views of the Hispanic world and the imagining of Spanish identity through art and film in the 20th century. You'll be expected to read widely and independently, and to gain the analytical skills needed to conduct close textual and film analysis.

OR

Icons of the Hispanic World

You’ll be introduced to major cultural landmarks from across the temporal, geographical and disciplinary range covered within Hispanic studies. You’ll engage with iconic figures at the heart of the Hispanic cultural imagination, and with canonical authors whose work has been influential in a Hispanic context and beyond. You'll acquire the skills required to conduct close analysis and critique of primary sources, both written and visual, in a variety of genres, and in so doing, foster your linguistic competence and increase your awareness of the range and diversity of Hispanic culture. There will be opportunities to improve your research techniques and to present clear and cogent arguments based on your analysis of primary sources.

Economic Principles of Global Sustainable Development

Why and how do economists address issues of global sustainable development? In this module, you’ll learn about the relationship between economic activity, social justice and environmental sustainability, the economic theories that underpin sustainable development policy interventions and how those theories impact upon policy design. After studying this module, you’ll be able to apply fundamental economic principles to the analysis of global sustainable development problems. You’ll also understand how economic policies intended to address those problems are developed and be able to offer informed critiques of such policies.

Environmental Principles of GSD

This module is structured around an emerging global consensus that humans are compromising the global biosphere by transgressing nine Planetary Boundaries: the result of which will be fundamental and unrecoverable change that significantly compromises the safe operating space for human development. We focus on the natural science of these environmental issues – covering well known topics like climate change and biodiversity loss, as well as less prominent problems, such as biochemical flows. We evaluate existing governance and management efforts, and develop innovative responses of our own. You’ll be taught how to write a policy briefing and will prepare one on your chosen subject aimed at a specific decision-making audience. Then, you’ll convert your brief to a policy pitch: a two minute ‘sell’ of your proposals. By the end of this module, you’ll possess key knowledge of environmental principles and also skills valuable for creating meaningful change in the world of work, governance and/or activism.

Social Principles of Global Sustainable Development

This introductory module examines in depth the concepts that allow you to analyse and interpret the social and political issues related to global sustainable development. You’ll learn to understand and evaluate the most pressing social and political dimensions of sustainability at national and international levels.

Upon completing this module, you’ll have acquired the knowledge and understanding to be able to offer a well-informed evidence-based explanation of the social and political dimensions of key challenges such as: inequality, environmental harm, health, and food. You’ll also be able to explain the threats to social cohesion caused by forms of economic development, reflect critically on the reasons why some countries are considered developed while others have stayed poor, and understand and write critically about the continuing challenges of attempting to provide “Education for all” and “Health for all”.

GSD Project

This is an innovative and practical module designed to give you crucial research and analysis skills linked to the important issue of sustainable transport. The module is taught by a number of experts in the field and working on your own and as part of a team, you’ll be required to carry out research that will advance your understanding of the application of theories you’ll have studied in your other first-year modules.

Intermediate Year^

Modern Spanish Language 2

On this module, you'll extend your competence in Spanish. You'll deepen your understanding of advanced grammatical and linguistic structures, increase the range and sophistication of your vocabulary, and refine your use of register in authentic spoken and written discourse. You'll use resources from a variety of media from around the Hispanic world, and take part in our virtual language exchange with students in Latin America and Spain. At the end of the course, you should have sufficient mastery to discuss different topics, report on your independent reading and support your opinions with solid arguments.

OR

Modern Spanish Language 2 (Post-beginners)

Health and Sustainable Development

Viable and equitable solutions in health and sustainable development require interdisciplinary and critical thinking. The first part of the module will introduce you to fundamental concepts of global health governance and health systems, and acquaint you with key global health priorities like drug resistance and mental health from the perspective of GSD. The second part of the module will focus on issues that relate to policies and behavioural change, and are also applicable beyond health, for example in areas like education or technology transfer. Alongside the module content, you’ll have the opportunity to develop your analytical skills to make independent, critical, and constructive contributions to Health and Sustainable Development.

OR

Security, Sovereignty and Sustainability in the Global Food System

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), agreed in 2015, commit the international community to a set of 17 goals to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity. Of these, Goal 2 specifically aims to end hunger, end all forms of malnutrition, and ensure sustainable food production systems by 2030.

The pressing need for such initiatives is stark: we inhabit a world where at least 800 million people are chronically undernourished. The world population is projected to increase to a staggering 10 billion people by 2050, yet who will be responsible for ensuring all these mouths are fed? And can we ever produce and consume food for so many people without causing an unsustainable impact on our environment?

Food security, sustainability and sovereignty are thus crucial issues confronting the world today, and it is these issues which this module seeks to introduce and evaluate. The module is taught in collaboration with active researchers from across various disciplines at Warwick, especially those involved in the University’s Global Research Priority on Food.

OR

Inequalities and Sustainable Development: Inclusion and Dignity for All

This module focuses on how inequalities shape our societies, economies, environments and politics. Starting with the question ‘does inequality matter?’, you'll critically reflect on the UN's decision to integrate inequalities into the Sustainable Development Agenda. You’ll then explore six different dimensions of inequalities (work, politics, environmental justice, societal discrimination, automation and globalisation, opportunities and empowerment) and gain an understanding of the complexities of these problems. Finally, you’ll appreciate the challenges faced by today’s policy makers who aim to address issues of inequalities while taking into consideration all three pillars of sustainable development.

Final Year

Modern Spanish Language 3

On this module, you'll consolidate your fluency in spoken and written Spanish, and refine your translation skills to advanced level. You'll practise oral and discursive expression using a range of advanced linguistic structures, vocabulary and registers. You'll be engaged in independent study, for example in researching and preparing work for presentation in class in order to develop your communicative and intercultural competence and the capacity to structure your own learning.

GSD Dissertation/Long Project

In this final-year module you’ll bring together all of your learning and experiences on the course – the theoretical concepts and principles and your practical know-how – in order to address a specific sustainable development problem of your own choosing. This will be a problem that concerns you most and which you’d like to tackle.

You’ll be supported by an academic supervisor to devise a suitable project and to undertake research to explore the issue, taking a transdisciplinary approach to your investigation in order to produce an original research output. This may be a concept paper, a practical project, a film production, a long essay, an advocacy campaign etc. – use your creativity!

You’ll design a strategy for disseminating your findings (for example at a conference presentation, via online publication or an article in a journal or at a public meeting that you’ve arranged). This provides you with an opportunity to get your voice heard in a forum where it matters and could have lasting impact.

Examples of optional modules/options for current students:

• Managing Natural Resources
• The Energy Trilemma
• Human Rights and Social Justice in Latin America and the Caribbean

• Challenges of Climate Change
• Multilingualism and Sustainable Development
• Surviving the Apocalypse

Tuition fees

Find out more about fees and funding.

Additional course costs

There may be costs associated with other items or services such as academic texts, course notes, and trips associated with your course. Students who choose to complete a work placement or study abroad will pay reduced tuition fees for their third year.

Warwick Undergraduate Global Excellence Scholarship 2021

We believe there should be no barrier to talent. That's why we are committed to offering a scholarship that makes it easier for gifted, ambitious international learners to pursue their academic interests at one of the UK's most prestigious universities. This new scheme will offer international fee-paying students 250 tuition fee discounts ranging from full fees to awards of £13,000 to £2,000 for the full duration of your Undergraduate degree course.

Find out more about the Warwick Undergraduate Global Excellence Scholarship 2021

Your career

As a GSD graduate, you have a wide range of career pathways that are available to you. This is demonstrated by the variety of work placements that our students have completed with employers from different sectors.

Our students have been successful in securing work placements with employers from the private, public, and third sectors. These include:

• Research institutions
• Governmental bodies
• Non-governmental organisations
• Intelligence agencies
• Housing
• Environmental consultancies

Our students have undertaken diverse roles such as:

• Marketing Assistant
• Sustainability Officer
• Intelligence Analyst
• Researchers

You’ll learn valuable transferable skills that will help you with your employment prospects including:

• Analysing and problem solving: Through your study of economic principles and models, you’ll learn how to extract the essential features of complex systems, providing useable frameworks for evaluation
• Critical thinking: You’ll assess arguments, make judgements, formulate reasoned debates and generate feasible solutions
• Communication: You’ll develop advanced communication skills that enable you to communicate with a variety of audiences and in different settings
• Research: You’ll undertake an integrated programme of research skills training, teaching you how to source, evaluate and use different forms of information and data
• Organisation: Through a rigorous assessment schedule and a compulsory dissertation module in your final year, you’ll learn the essentials of time management, prioritisation and how to be well organised
• Collaboration: You’ll have plenty of opportunities to work with others and nurture your emotional intelligence, developing a professional attitude

Helping you find the right career

We have a dedicated Employability and Placement Manager who’ll provide you with one-to-one careers guidance. They work in collaboration with employers, so you’ll be supported in securing appropriate work placements. You’ll have access to specialist pre-placement advice, guidance and preparation, as well as on-going support during your placement.

You’ll also have access to the University’s Student Opportunity resources (including careers counselling, employment advice, and job fairs).

Find out more about careers support at Warwick.