International Year One in Economics

Academic English Skills

Academic English Skills aims to provide thorough training in the language and related academic skills which will enable international students to best achieve their academic potential at university. Our Academic English programme is validated by UK ENIC, the UK government agency responsible for providing information and expert opinion on qualifications and skills worldwide.

You will develop awareness and competency in a range of language-related academic skills, including the processes of academic writing, effective and extensive reading strategies, effective participation in seminars and delivery of presentations, and listening to and recording information effectively from lectures. You will also develop the accuracy and range of written and spoken language required to use language effectively and appropriately, with clarity and confidence in an academic context.

Alongside your classes, your studies will be supported by an online learning platform, providing you with a range of tasks and activities specifically designed to develop and extend your language and academic skills outside the classroom and to give you more control over your own learning.

Applied Economics and Policy

This module will introduce you to how economists think about current world problems such as long run economic growth, inequality, fiscal and monetary policy, Brexit, and even why Starbucks coffee is so expensive. The module is also designed to help you develop data management, essay writing, library search, and presentation skills that you will need for the university degree and beyond. This skills-based module tries to develop and apply data analysis skills and techniques, critical analysis and counterfactual thinking, and presentation skills.

On successful completion of the module, you will be able to: outline and explain key economic issues; critically discuss and analyse issues of current and past economic policy from an economist’s point of view; design a mechanism for the efficient allocation of scarce resources and undertake a review of scientific literature and provide a summary of key topics.

Data Skills for Economics

This module will provide the basics of probability and statistical theory, but also give the students intuitions of its use in practical examples. The module will also emphasise learning via analysing data. Through the workshops, students will become familiar with statistical software that is used in the workplace. Additionally, the module will foster critical thinking about data, its collection and representation.

On successful completion of the module, you will be able to: define key properties of probability and random variables; explain the fundamental concepts of statistical modelling, particularly linear regression models; demonstrate understanding of basic time series analysis; apply statistics concepts in real-life situations; use basic statistical and estimation techniques to analyse data; assess the accuracy of the resulting estimates and conclusions; test hypotheses using real data; visualise relationships in the data; apply STATA commands to estimate and interpret regression results and critically evaluate the usefulness of mathematical and statistical techniques to economic problems.

Mathematics for Economics

This module aims to cover the basic mathematical and quantitative tools used by economists every day. The module gives an emphasis to the mathematical tools, which are applicable to solve a wide range of economic problems. The first half of this module is devoted to linear algebra, specific functions of one and more variables used in economics, manipulating those functions, and finding their minima and maxima. In addition, the first half of this module covers the rules of integration and differentiations, which aims to prepare you to apply constrained and unconstrained techniques. The second half of this module is devoted to optimisation theory using concepts of vectors and matrices, drawn from linear algebra, and require the study of concave functions. The knowledge of matrices helps you to solve systems of linear equations, which are used in both Microeconomic and Macroeconomic planning and forecasting.

On successful completion of the module, you will be able to: identify the main mathematical tools used in economics and in optimisation theory in particular; explain unconstrained and constrained optimisation techniques widely applied in economics; formulate and solve economic problems and models; demonstrate the logic of proofs of mathematical theorems and construct simple proofs and interpret derivatives and integrals which are essential in economics.

Principles of Economics

This module covers the basic theories of Macroeconomics and Microeconomics. The module will teach you how to: formulate a problem that our society is facing now or has faced in the past; explain and solve the problem using economic theories and evaluate the usefulness of the theory by using data observation and more novel theories.
On successful completion of the module, you will be able to: explain the emergence of contemporary global economy; identify and describe strategic interactions between individuals, firms and the government; explain the theoretical basis of demand and supply; apply economic modules to analyse individual, firms and government’s strategic behaviour; analyse the role of government intervention in individual markets; discuss how the goods and assets market underpin growth, inflation and unemployment; criticise the role of fiscal and monetary policy play in macroeconomic management and evaluate modules critically, including identifying the applications of, limitations to, and improvements in the models learned.