University of Sussex

This calculus-based course provides a firm foundation in physical concepts and principles, covering electricity and magnetism, light, geometric optics, interference, wave-particle duality, and atomic and nuclear physics. Applications of physical concepts are stressed, particularly those related to biological and medical phenomena as well as those forming the basis of much of modern technology. Students gain further insight into the physics taught by carrying out a series of laboratory experiments and learning how to analyze and interpret the data. This is an intensive module requiring good mathematical skills, including algebra and trigonometry and a knowledge of vectors and of differential and integral calculus.

This course offers students an overview of the psychological, pharmacological, neurobiological, and neurophysiological bases of drug use, abuse, and contemporary understanding of addiction (and some mental conditions), and has a strong natural science (neuroscience) orientation. The acute and long-term effects of selected drugs of abuse on behavior, mood, cognition, and neuronal function are discussed using empirical findings and theoretical developments from both human and non-human subject studies on the neurobiological and psychological basis of drug action and addiction.

This course provides the groundwork for understanding the shape and status of the English language. The course is divided between the study of the ways in which it has changed since the Old English period, and the study of the social and cultural contexts in which those changes have happened. Special attention is given to the emergence of key dialects and to the relations between English and other languages in the British Isles. Students also gain experience of a range of different varieties of English.