BA in Accounting and Management with Placement Year

BA Accounting and Management is designed to give you a strong foundation in accounting and finance while also offering the opportunity to develop particular expertise in management.

General areas of study may include accounting information, the legal, regulatory and social context within which accounting operates. Management specific topics may include entrepreneurship, marketing principles, and managing in a global environment.

What’s more, if you choose the relevant modules, you may be exempt from some of the ACA, ACCA and CIMA examinations once you’ve completed your degree. Just another small step that’ll help make your way up the career ladder a little easier.

Flexibility – it may be possible to change your degree path to either Accounting and Finance or Finance. (Students who require a Tier 4 visa will need to check this in advance with the Tier 4 regulations which are in place at the time). 

Year 1

In the first year you will study six compulsory modules which are:

• Introduction to Financial Accounting
• Introduction to Management Accounting
• Business Environment and Functions
• Foundations of Finance
• Introduction to Economics
• Quantitative Methods

Year 2

The second-year consists of four compulsory modules:

• Auditing and Assurance
• Corporate Finance
• Corporate Financial Reporting
• Management Accounting

Plus two optional modules selected from a range which have previously included:

• Managing in a Global Environment
• Principles of Business Law
• Introduction to Taxation
• Entrepreneurship
• A foreign language

Year 3

All of our degrees offer you the option of spending your third year gaining practical experience on a business placement. Business placements are a great way to develop your employment marketability and to engage with employers early in their recruitment pipeline. We actively encourage you to explore this as an option within your degree. Placement requires a minimum of forty weeks of work experience and the placement begins in the summer following completion of the second year, and this then becomes the third year of a four-year degree program. This allows you to really explore and understand your job and to find out if the career or company is for you.

• You will develop your practical skills, confidence, and maturity.
• You can focus on a specific career path - many employers recruit graduates from their placement program.
• You will be able to contextualize your studies better, be more mature in your attitude to work.
• You may decide to draw on your working experiences and access a more fulfilling dissertation research subject.
• You will gain invaluable job search and graduate research skills by engaging in the competitive placement recruitment process.

To ensure you are getting the most out of your experience, we support your placement in a number of ways:

First Year Bootcamps and Workshops help you to develop your Placement Strategy and to identify and develop those skills and competencies that will be critical to ensure you are attractive to potential placement employers. These typically involve Employers, Placement Mentors, representatives from Colleges, Societies and the Volunteering Community in Durham.

Second Year Workshops support you through the placement application process and allow you to develop into a supportive student group to travel along the road of gaining a placement together. They enable you to get to know those students who will return with you in the fourth year. Workshops typically involve employers and former placement students.

The DUBS Placement Programme includes a series of employer-led events which take place throughout term 1 and 2 and is open to all first-year and second-year placement students. The skills sessions and networking events allow students to develop essential employability skills as well as providing valuable insight into the recruitment process.

Placement Mentors: We have a mentorship scheme whereby former placement students share their experiences of the application process and placement with first and second-year students and those out on placement. If you become a placement mentor on your return to University you can continue to develop your interpersonal skills and slide back into your University life with another key role which may well develop a new sense of belonging as well as another valuable contribution to your CV

Placement Tutors: Whilst you are on placement you are assigned a tutor who will visit you, liaise with your employer and ensure you gain the most from your experience.

The Business Placement year fees are set annually by the University.  For the definitive amount of the Business Placement year fees payable please contact our Placement Team.

*The offer of a place on a ‘with placement’ degree does not imply that Durham University Business School guarantees to find the student placement. The Business School, in association with the University, will assist students in finding and applying for placements, but it is the responsibility of the student to apply for and to obtain a placement (which is subject to approval by the Business School). In the event that a student is unable to obtain a placement, transfer to the equivalent ‘non-placement’ program is guaranteed provided the student is eligible to transfer on academic grounds. In line with Home Office rules, students from outside the EU will transfer onto the ‘with business placement’ program only once they have successfully secured a placement (normally at the end of their second year of study). Therefore due to visa requirements, we recommend that international students interested in the business placement year as part of their degree apply for this program when making their application to us via UCAS.

Year 4

Moving to a more research-led teaching orientation in the fourth year, you are required to produce a double module Dissertation in the area of accounting and management. Additionally, you will study three compulsory modules exploring:

• Contemporary Issues in Accounting
• Contemporary Issues in Management Research
• Financial Planning and Control

And choose one module from a selection which in previous years have included, for example:

• Corporate Governance
• Strategic Management
• Corporate Responsibility
• Islamic Economics and Finance
• A foreign language

We review course structures and core content (in light of e.g. external and student feedback) every year and will publish finalized core requirements for 2019 entry from September 2018.

Options Available:-

• 4 Year With Foundation Year
• 3 Year With Accounting and Management
• 4 Year With Study Abroad