With its flexibility and huge choice of majors, the Bachelor of Liberal Arts and Science provides you with a background in both the humanities and the sciences, and gives you useful skills that will make you highly valued by potential employers in jobs across the market. From writing and presenting to thinking ethically and critically, the BLAS degree is your preparation for life beyond the classroom. This is a course designed for the student who is fascinated by the world and wants to learn as much about it as they can. With a BLAS degree, you can indulge your interests in both the arts and sciences without restricting yourself to just one specialist area of study. Over the three-year degree, you choose either an arts or a science major. With over 40 arts majors and 30 science majors, that adds up to almost 80 choices, from Philosophy to Physics to Political Economy. You will then complement your major by choosing subjects from the other area, ensuring you leave with the well-rounded knowledge base that defines graduates of liberal arts degrees. But the BLAS degree is about much more than what facts and figures you learn. It's about getting skills that can be used in life beyond the classroom. A special Liberal Studies stream has been built into the BLAS degree to boost your communication and analytical skills, which potential employers have told us time and time again are the skills that they look for in recruits.
Microbiology teaches us about life forms that are too small to see with the naked eye. They are vital for life on Earth but can also cause huge problems as infectious disease agents, plant pathogens, contaminants of food and water and biofoulers. A major in Microbiology introduces you to this tremendous diversity of function and form in the microbial world. You explore the impact of microbes on other life forms, look at their role in health and disease at the level of individuals, populations and ecosystems, and in particular their place in the nexus of human, animal and environmental inter-relationships. You will investigate ways in which microbes are used to manufacture products and remediate polluted environments and explore microbial genetics and microbial life at the molecular level, with a particular emphasis on current research in Microbiology in our 3000-level units. By progressing through the major students will learn advanced concepts and methods including molecular microbiology, systems biology, genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics, advanced microscopy techniques, genetic manipulation, microbial evolution, and the use of antimicrobials and antimicrobial resistance.
