Natural Sciences

Natural sciences is a degree for students who refuse to be confined to a single discipline. The natural world does not divide neatly into the categories of physics, chemistry, biology, and earth sciences, and the most interesting scientific questions often sit at their boundaries. A natural sciences programme lets you study across two or more of these fields, building breadth alongside depth and developing the ability to bring different scientific perspectives to bear on complex problems.

The resulting combination of skills and knowledge is genuinely distinctive.

At the University of Nottingham, this three-year full-time programme is designed for students with strong academic ability and a broad scientific curiosity. You will study across the natural sciences, selecting areas that align with your interests and developing a coherent but interdisciplinary programme of study. The programme challenges you to integrate ideas from different scientific traditions, to apply rigorous methods from multiple disciplines, and to think about problems in ways that specialists in a single field might miss.

Nottingham's research strength across the natural sciences means you will be learning in an environment where scientific discovery is actively happening, and where the connections between disciplines are taken seriously. A year abroad is available for students who want to experience natural sciences education at an international institution.

With a typical entry tariff of 168 UCAS points, this is a demanding programme that attracts students with exceptional scientific ability. Graduates go into research, academia, industry, healthcare, environmental science, data science, finance, and policy, with the breadth of their scientific training giving them unusual versatility. The analytical rigour and intellectual flexibility that natural sciences develops are valued across a very wide range of sectors.

Many graduates continue to postgraduate study, either in one of the disciplines they studied or in an interdisciplinary field, and some proceed to doctoral research or scientific careers in government and industry.