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Our undergraduate degrees offer you a wealth of options for learning about the living world. Explore biological sciences in all its breadth or focus on a specialist discipline that fascinates you.
All our courses are available with a foundation year and a year with professional experience.
This flexible course is ideal if you're passionate about all aspects of biology. Cover a broad range of topics or specialise in in a particular area such as human biology or ecology and wildlife.
This degree bridges the gap between medicine and pure science. We research diseases including heart failure, cancer and muscle disorders, and you can join the fight for cures.
Our biochemistry degree will allow you to discover not only how life functions and how the human body works but also how we treat disease.
This course provides a solid grounding in the cellular and molecular biology underpinning disease while also exploring how such diseases are diagnosed, prevented and treated.
Learn how microbes function by exploring microbial biochemistry, cell biology, ecology and evolution. You will consider the broad-ranging impact microbes have on our lives and our planet.
Learn more about how your heart works, the causes of heart disease and how to keep your heart healthy.
Understand the basics of microbiology and explore the diversity of microbial life in our world.
We also offer a three-year BEng course in Biomedical Engineering.
Visit our Biomedical Engineering undergraduate courses page to find out more
There is a variety of funding support available to our undergraduates. You may be eligible for government loans, grants or bursaries.
Students from the UK can receive government loans to help towards tuition fees and living costs. They may also be eligible for grants and bursaries depending on their circumstances.
Taking a placement will allow you to gain valuable professional experience in the workplace, learn new skills and increase your visibility to employers.
With all our degrees, you can choose to undertake a year-long placement between your second and final year. Alternatively, you may choose a 3-8 week summer placement, as part of our Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme.
Students in previous years have worked on industrial and summer placements at Diamond Light Source (the UK's national synchrotron), Public Health England, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Covance, the Wellcome Trust, the Nuffield Foundation and in academic laboratories.
Our School has a dedicated member of staff in charge of placements, who can provide you with advice and support.
The University is keen that everyone's placement should be as useful as possible. Learn more about institution-wide support for placements.
Throughout your degree, you will develop transferable skills such as computer literacy, information retrieval, data handling and communication skills, which will be essential in any career.
You could find employment in a wide range of roles across sectors including healthcare, agriculture, commercial manufacturing, environmental management, science sales and management and science communication. You may also decide to take up a research career or move into further study.
Recently, our graduates have gone on to find jobs with employers including the Medical Research Council, Royal Berkshire Hospital, the Environment Agency, Boots, South East Water, ThermoFisher, Nexus Support and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Find out more about how the University of Reading will help with your career.
Edd Jones, BSc Biological Sciences graduate
