Location
Cornwall Campus
Taught by internationally recognised experts, this programme covers both fundamental and applied aspects of the subject with the flexibility to pursue those areas of most relevance for your professional development. Taught at Exeter's Cornwall Campus in new buildings with state-of-the-art facilities, this MSc contains a significant research component and is a popular choice.
Within modules there is considerable scope for you to choose the topics you wish to pursue. Integral to the whole programme will be extensive liaison with conservationists from a wide range of collaborating governmental and non-governmental organisations such as the Marine Conservation Society, Natural England and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Key individuals from some of these organisations contribute to classes and field visits and a number of our project students will be placed with such organisations.
A special feature of the programme is the African field trip which includes visits to some of Africa’s largest and most important game reserves, as well as an introduction to some of the day-to-day problems faced by conservation biologists in developing nations. Travel and subsistence costs for this part of the programme are included in the programme fee.
Within one-year of graduation, eighty-percent of graduates from the programme can expect to be employed in careers such as ecological consultancy, conservation work within government in UK and overseas, NGO conservation in the UK and overseas and fully funded PhD positions in ecology and conservation.
I have always been interested in the natural world, environmental issues, sustainability and conservation. After travelling for a while following my undergraduate degree I decided I wanted to pursue a career in the environmental field, and the MSc Conservation and Biodiversity at Cornwall sounded really interesting.
There have been many valuable aspects of the programme, most notably the high level of external speakers and experts who have come in to speak to us regarding local and national conservation issues and programmes; this included talks about the conservation implications of development at Falmouth docks, and speakers from Natural England, the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, the Atlantic Whale Foundation and many more. This made a change from lectures and showed us the practical side of what we were learning. It also gave us a chance to have lively debates and question sessions with these experts. Another valuable aspect of the course was the diversity and number of field visits. The Kenya field trip was by far the most rewarding learning experience of the course.
I found the staff to all be really approachable and down to earth, and the modules mean that you learn a huge variety of new information and skills, from statistics and GIS to marine conservation. What’s more, the Cornwall Campus is in a great location surrounded by nature so we were able to do many local field trips including the national seal sanctuary, the lobster hatchery and Plymouth aquarium. It also means you don’t have to travel far to carry out research for your dissertation since there is a lot of wildlife right on the doorstep.
Katie Goodman, MSc Conservation and Biodiversity 2010/11
The MSc Conservation and Biodiversity programme at the Cornwall Campus was exactly what I was looking for. One of the best aspects of the Cornwall Campus is the beautiful nature in the area. While studying I’ve even found the time to surf, join FX-PEDITION 2010 and volunteer for the conservation charity BTCV.
Su Shan from Taiwan, MSc Conservation and Biodiversity 2010
