Sport and Exercise Science - your questions answered! video transcript

Hi, my name is Dr Andy Hooton, I'm Head of Sport and Exercise Science at the University of Derby. My subject specialism is sports psychology. We have a wide variety of sport courses available, ranging across all aspects of sports, such as rehabilitation, sport management, education, sport and exercise science; and performance sport focus such as strength conditioning, and rehabilitation, and performance analysis. Yeah some fantastic prospects across a wide variety of opportunities within sports, such as performance sport or health and well-being, and I think we've got examples of students that have gone into performance analysis, they've gone into rehabilitation posts, they've gone into health and wellbeing with Derbyshire County Council, BUPA for example, so some really wide-ranging opportunities for students to focus on. We have professional development in sport and exercise which focuses on a number of different areas in terms of developing students whilst on the programme, so as well as internships and placements this includes our steps to success program, which looks at development of your CV, your interview skills, your use of social media, and we also have masterclasses where we get expert speakers in to come and speak to students about their experience and their journey towards their career.

All our courses are designed with an applied industry focus, so we've worked with partners in industry to ensure that our curriculum and assessment is designed with an industry focus, for what students require today, and we have also integrated work placement and internship opportunities into the programmes. We have a fantastic teaching team at the University that are dedicated to working with students to identify their strengths and their areas for development and ensure that we're focused on developing you as an individual, and really enhancing your personal and practitioner attributes as you progress through your degree.

We've got some fantastic facilities at the University, so the Human Performance Unit which has a dedicated strength and conditioning suite, state of the art VICON analysis system, and dedicated sport therapy suites and physiology labs. So there's some fantastic learning experiences and all those facilities are prioritised for student learning and assessment, so you'll get hands-on experience as you're going through your degree. Students will develop a variety of skills whilst on our programmes, and it's really important that we focus on key personal attributes, because that's what employers are looking for, such as communication, teamwork, leadership, and therefore we integrate that into our programmes. So that students will get experiences through their teaching and assessment in order to develop those skills, and be able to evidence them when they're applying for jobs subsequent to their degree.

The courses are designed with industry, but there's also a requirement for students to go out and get experience in industry, and I think that's really important in terms of developing yourself and gaining experience as you're going through your degree, because that's what employers are looking for, so we have a variety of different internship and work placement offers available for students to be able to progress as they're going through their degree. Students have the opportunity to work alongside staff and our postgraduate students, who are working with elite athletes in the Human Performance Unit, so it's a fantastic opportunity to gain laboratory skills, and applied skills in terms of what it's like to work with elite athletes. Students will be taught by experts within their field of study, and the benefit is that all those academics are engaged in applied work or research, so in addition to their academic knowledge they're all working with athletes, or researching with athletes, and therefore they have that hands-on applied knowledge that they can bring into the classroom. If you're a keen athlete there's a wide array of sports to get involved in on a social level, but also on a competitive level within the British University and College Sport competition for elite level competitors, there's also the sports scholarship programme, so some fantastic opportunities for athletes to get involved in.

Sport and Exercise Science - your questions answered! video

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