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Studying Politics at Aston

This blog post comes from Silvia Grant, our former undergraduate Politics Student, who is now completing a PhD at the School of  Languages and Social Sciences at Aston. 

Here, Silvia highlights some of the things students can expect when studying at Aston. 

I started studying Politics and International Relations (BSc) at Aston University in autumn 2008. I had come from Rome, and it was my first time abroad. At first I was a bit bewildered; cars driving down the wrong side of the street, the local Brummie accent sounding nothing like the edulcorated BBC English we were taught, and always thinking ‘I think it’s about to rain any moment’, but then it doesn’t. Within a few days, however, my worries were blown out the water with Freshers week. During this induction week we were all introduced to one another, I made lots of friends I still keep in touch with, we were introduced to the wonders of the city centre, were introduced to the dozens and dozens of different student societies and clubs, and were taught how to navigate the main building. The main building is huge structure with different wings, and takes some getting used to. I prefer it to other universities which have a number of scattered smaller 2-floored buildings because it’s as if it were a microcosm in itself, you bump into lots of people, and you can spend years trying to find your favourite corridor.

My Politics and International Relations (PIR) course was the exemplar politics course. Our first year had a lot of ‘Introduction to’ courses, which I first thought was slightly redundant as we had been ‘introduced to’ topics at school. Didn’t take much at all to realise that these were instead crucial, as there are some topics which deal with very sophisticated and complex notions. You have some liberty in choosing which modules to take, but overall in my three years I studied UK Politics (history, domestic, and foreign policy) political economy, philosophy and ethics, US politics, comparative European politics, EU (history, relations, institutions, and law), politics and law, international relations (history, theory and application), security studies, terrorism, charismatic leadership, political communication, and post-Cold War conflicts. At points I felt stretched, because there is plenty of reading to do, but then I got back into the flow of it. What really made the difference were the lecturers. The PIR team was incredible, and still is. We really got involved in discussions in the seminars, and we could feel a real sense of urgency in what was being debated. Politics students also read lots of news, as they feed into Uni studies. Amongst other things, we are given a distinct advantage in critically interpreting and understanding the news, their spin, and the world around us.

Our shiny new library

Politics courses are ‘sandwich’ degrees in the sense that you can decide to have a placement year in your third year. Aston is really strong at offering placements, and it’s a great opportunity to get some work experience, to get a prestigious internship, to travel abroad to learn a language, get a taste of studying abroad at one of Aston’s partner Universities, or otherwise pursue the beginning of your post-degree professional interests. Our Uni has a great close-knit community, is walking distance to Birmingham city centre (and its multi-million pounds regenerations), and is top ranked in many tables. Aston also has a reputation for matchmaking powers, as many students have found their other halves during their degrees, including me.

Our Campus
Our Campus


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