University of Sussex

This course explores neuronal signaling in vertebrates and invertebrates. Students gain an in-depth understanding of chemical synaptic transmission. Students look at the processes involved in synaptic plasticity and its role in learning, memory and the regulation of behaviors. Students also explore sensory transduction and how the nervous system acquires and integrates information from the environment. There is a particular focus on vision, hearing, and pain. Throughout the course, students learn about the experimental approaches that have contributed to our understanding. Students develop analytical, presentation, and teamwork skills through formative group presentations of published research.

In this course, students build a foundation for studying development by engaging with first-hand research experiences of Sussex faculty, ranked as the world’s number one for International Development. Each week, a different lecturer shares how they’ve approached development, introducing key concepts and ideas rooted in their own research, and discussing real places and pressing issues. Students explore a variety of approaches to defining and understanding development, gaining insights into the diversity of perspectives that shape the field.

The course introduces students to a collection of basic programming concepts and techniques, including designing, testing, debugging, and documenting programs.  The course introduces the programming language Java, and is for both absolute beginners and those with prior computing experience. Java is a language used for other components of undergraduate modules. 

In this course, students explore mental health issues and how disorders impact people throughout their lives. Students learn how psychologists make diagnoses and use theory to guide treatment. Topics include anxiety, depression, dementia, and modern evidence-based treatments, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

In this course, students get an introduction to the concepts of database software, database design, management, and programming. This includes conceptual database design using the entity-relationship approach, logical database design, and physical database design. The course focuses on the relational data model. Students learn to design and implement a relational database using Structured Query Language (SQL), retrieve and manipulate data via SQL queries, normalize relational databases: normal forms, and the elimination of certain anomalies based on redundancy, tune database queries with security via permission rights and indexes, write stored procedures and triggers using procedural SQL, and use Java Database Connectivity libraries (JDBC) to access databases in Java programs. 

This course is an introductory study of contemporary organizations and their management. It explores the types of purposes of organizations, their stakeholders and changing environments together with their key managerial processes – entrepreneurship, organizational structure, leading, strategic planning and change. The focus throughout is on helping students achieve a critical and reflective approach, and learning to apply relevant concepts, tools, and models. The course provides a platform for later study by encouraging skills in critical thinking, academic writing, concept acquisition, and research. 

This course provides students with a broad understanding of international business, including the fundamental abilities and knowledge essential to the doing of business internationally: both in theory and practice. The course offers a foundation in international business. 

This course provides a historical survey of British cinema as well as an introduction to critical and theoretical debates associated with national cinema. Examine the relationship between British cinema and British culture, history, and national identity. Consider how British cinema has represented other dimensions of identity such as class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality. Analyze a range of films in order to explore how British cinema. Lastly, the course considers how specific genres such as the crime film and the period drama have functioned in the national and international marketplace.

The course explores how drama, theatre, and performance reflect and effect social change. Students think about the relationship of the individual and the community in relation to wider social or institutional structures. The course brings together historical perspectives about drama, theatre, and performance and urgent issues in the present. Key skills students gain include working with theatre texts, historical understanding, and critical analysis about social and cultural change.

Students consider a range of Shakespeare's plays (comedies, tragedies, tragi-comedies, and romances) from different stages of his career, analyzing the playwright's stagecraft, his use of language and his reworking of traditional forms for the commercial stage. While students explore some recent adaptations for stage and screen, the course also focuses on the plays as produced in their original historical and cultural contexts. The course familiarizes students with Renaissance drama's negotiation of contested social and political issues at the turn of the 17th century. Students investigate the social processes of the theatre – notably the playhouses used by Shakespeare's company (the Theatre, the Globe and Blackfriars) – and focus on the interplay of Shakespearean texts and their performance in the production of meaning.