Forensic Science with Policing with Foundation Year BSc (Hons) at University of Wolverhampton

This course aims to produce graduates who are primarily able to use selected forensic science and crime scene investigation techniques to assist the police and legal professions. 

Success in this course could enable you to follow a career in either Forensic Science or the Police Service or associated disciplines.

This course will enable you to develop your skills in scientific and critical thinking as well as independent study.

In addition, if you choose to undertake a sandwich degree, the course will allow you to acquire technical skills in the workplace and enable you to integrate knowledge gained in the theoretical aspects of the course into the professional environment.

A broad range of subjects related to Forensic Science and Policing modules can be studied.  There are other BSc Forensic Science and BSc Policing courses available in the UK but, at the time of writing, it appears there are no BSc Forensic Science with Policing courses.  We believe this course will be well suited to the student who has an interest in Forensic Science and wishes to pursue a career in either the Forensic Science or Policing arena.

Forensic Scientists and Crime Scene Investigators who have an awareness of police procedures and Police Officers or Police Detectives who are forensically aware are likely to have an advantage, over the student who studies the single subject degree, in those interdisciplinary areas bordering forensics and policing.

The BSc Forensic Science with Policing programme contains a core policing module in every semester of study combined with judiciously selected aspects of Forensic Science such that Forensic Science is the major component, approximately 66%. The benefit of this is that two major avenues of employment are opened up to the successful graduate.  The first is that of a typical laboratory scientist both within and without of forensically orientated science.  If within a forensically orientated environment then the knowledge of policing and related procedures can help with communication with both police officers and members of the legal profession, i.e., clients who provide evidence for analysis. Secondly, the avenue of policing or working with the police in the capacity of a scene of crime officer, can be possible. The former, a forensically aware police officer, can be thought of as beneficial to the service and, given the current severe shortage of police detectives, could be construed as a route into police detective work for the graduate with the right skills mix.  

There are also many other employment or further training options available to the graduate with BSc Forensic Science with Policing that range from science-based teacher training to further study to MSc or PhD level, or working in many other fields that some of our previous forensic science-based graduates have entered, such as trading standards, public and industrial health and safety and accident investigation.