University of St Andrews

The multidisciplinary nature of management is reflected in this course. It examines the conceptual frameworks and techniques of marketing and organizational behavior, which are complementary to one another in reflecting an organization's relation to its internal and external environment. In doing so, the course develops an understanding of the growth of marketing and its role in management. Students consider how the behavior of individuals and groups in organizations may be understood and managed and also how managers might better appreciate the markets and market forces they are committed to dealing with. 

The audio-visual essay (or video essay or videographic criticism of videographic film and moving image studies) is a prominent 21st Century methodology and form of pedagogy and research in film and media studies. With its roots in a variety of moving image practices, from video installation to fan vids, the audio-visual essay has emerged to occupy a range of forms (supercuts, desktop documentaries, deformative, poetic, explanatory, to name a few) and is produced by a range of practitioners in differing contexts. This course explores this variety while foregrounding what the audio-visual essay offers the film and media scholar, in both theory and practice. Students engage with key audio-visual essays and scholarship in the field as well as creating their own audio-visual work in a series of practice-based workshops. No prior experience with video editing or video essay making is necessary.

This course combines a bold and sweeping overview of the history of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East over two millennia, with an exploration of the nature of empires and imperialism in antiquity. Students explore how imperial states built and maintained their power (including their efforts to assert and justify their power to themselves and their subjects); the experiences of other populations and cultures that were conquered or incorporated into ancient empires; and the contested legacies of imperial states, both in antiquity and today. As well as tracing the histories of large imperial or hegemonic powers, such as the Achaemenid Persians, the Hellenistic Greek ‘kingdoms’ and Rome, the course also introduces students to the wide range of other cultures that lived under and alongside them, including those of Babylonia, Judea, and Egypt.

This course examines major organizational theories to critically explore organization in contemporary society. The interdisciplinary field of organization studies draws on concepts and theories from disciplines such as economics, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and history. This course introduces students to a variety of perspectives on organizations. When brought together these perspectives allow students to construct a multifaceted picture of the powerful socioeconomic-systems that shape modern society: enhancing their conceptualizations of responsible enterprise and developing their critical thinking skills.

This course communicates the key concepts in modern corporate finance in explaining how corporations make financial decisions, focusing on investment decision (decision to purchase real assets) and financing decision (decision on how to finance this investment). Corporations make these decisions towards fulfilling the financial goal of the corporation, which is maximizing shareholder value. This course therefore covers some computation techniques to value corporations and investments. This course also considers how these financial decisions could be affected by the market, social, and legal environments. Additionally, the course covers the topics of mergers and sustainable corporate finance.

This course develops skills and knowledge that help students to get more out of the experience of listening to Western art music. Surveying set works drawn from different periods, the course considers the roots, emergence and establishment of this repertoire and its associated practices. Students consider how musical compositions were historically shaped by cultural and material contexts, and develop analytical skills in using musical scores to describe musical organization, style, and genre. Students are not required to perform as part of this course, but some prior familiarity with western musical notation is necessary.

This course develops students’ knowledge and understanding of international business. It provides a deep contextualization of contemporary issues and debates within international business. The course explores how the world economy is changing and how international businesses are deeply embedded in a complex web of multi-scaler, multi-form and a multi-causal series of relationships. Drawing on theoretical constructs from a variety of perspectives and disciplines, the course aids the students’ understanding of why and how businesses internationalize, and what happens as a consequence of these complex processes. The course also explains globalization, trade theory and the role businesses can play in alleviating poverty. 

This course considers the sensory qualities of cinema, a subject which engages variously with the film-as-object, film form and the spectator as active participant. The first half of the course draws on the main philosophical strands used by film scholars to conceptualize the affect of cinema, and then explores the ways film theory and criticism have sought to account for the sensuous or material nature of film. With these perspectives in mind, the second half considers the materialities of film form in more detail. The course explores the topic of filmic affect through a range of case studies and will draw on a diverse mix of references, including interviews with filmmaking personnel.

This course develops a level of competence in Python, a modern programming language currently used in many physics research labs for mathematical modelling. No prior experience is required. The course starts with a grounding in the use of Python and discusses numerical methods. The main focus is then on the ways in which Python can be used for problem solving in physics and astrophysics.