Introduction
Studying for a European language alongside your chosen degree subject is a great way of enhancing your learning and opening up a much broader range of careers upon graduation. Language skills remain a major benefit.
Study Information
At a Glance
- Learning Mode
- On Campus Learning
- Degree Qualification
- MA
- Duration
- 60 months
- Study Mode
- Full Time
- Start Month
- September
- UCAS Code
- LR27
At Aberdeen, you can study German as a complete beginner, or build on prior knowledge of the language, and both streams can lead to either a single German MA Honours degree or a joint MA Honours degree with a large number of possible combinations.
Studying German in Aberdeen will provide you with a very solid grounding in the German language. Amongst our staff are native speakers from German and Austria, who will introduce you to the cultures of the German-speaking world. You will encounter the world of German artistic expression in the form of literature, film and art. And you will gain a deeper understanding of Germany’s complex history.
As an integral part of your 4-year programme, you will spend half of year three developing your language skills as a teaching assistant or visiting student in a German-speaking country.
What You'll Study
- Year 1
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Compulsory Courses
NOTE: GERMAN ADVANCED – for post-Higher candidates and those who have studied German for more than 4 years
Modern German Culture 1 (GM1052) AND/OR Modern German Culture 2 (GM1556)
- Academic Writing for Language & Literature (AW1008)
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This compulsory evaluation is designed to find out if your academic writing is of a sufficient standard to enable you to succeed at university and, if you need it, to provide support to improve. It is completed on-line via MyAberdeen with clear instructions to guide you through it. If you pass the evaluation at the first assessment it will not take much of your time. If you do not, you will be provided with resources to help you improve. This evaluation does not carry credits but if you do not complete it this will be recorded on your degree transcript.
- Getting Started at the University of Aberdeen (PD1002)
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This course, which is prescribed for level 1 undergraduate students (and articulating students who are in their first year at the University), is studied entirely online, takes approximately 5-6 hours to complete and can be taken in one sitting, or spread across a number of weeks.
Topics include orientation overview, equality and diversity, health, safety and cyber security and how to make the most of your time at university in relation to careers and employability.
Successful completion of this course will be recorded on your Enhanced Transcript as ‘Achieved’.
- Creating the Anthropocene (GG1010)
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15 Credit Points
This course reflects upon the role humans have played in creating the Anthropocene (the epoch we are now living in), a time period during which human actions have become more significant than natural processes in shaping our world. Drawing primarily upon perspectives from physical and human geography, the nature of the changes, “how did we get here?”, are considered, laying the foundations for GG1512, in which “what comes after?” – how contemporary society is attempting to tackle Anthropocene challenges – is debated.
- German Language 1 (GM1050)
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15 Credit Points
This module is designed for students with an SCE H in German or equivalent. The course develops receptive and productive oral and written German language skills. Students who are considering applying for entry to German Honours must take this course.
- Modern German Culture 1 (GM1052)
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15 Credit Points
Learn more about German 20th-century literature, dealing with the events that shaped German and European history. As in all good literature, we will discuss universal themes and topics covering all of the most important aspects of modern life.
- The UN Sustainable Development Goals: Transforming Our World (GG1512)
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15 Credit Points
This course interrogates the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. These encompass contemporary global challenges such as responsible consumption and production, no poverty, clean water and climate action (challenges whose emergence is introduced in GG1010 Creating the Anthropocene). Drawing upon Human and Physical Geography perspectives, a ‘strong’ interpretation of sustainability, one where social and economic dimensions fundamentally rely on ecological foundations, underpins the course.
- German Language 2 (GM1550)
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15 Credit Points
This module is designed for students with an SCE H in German or equivalent. The course develops receptive and productive oral and written German language skills. Students who are considering applying for entry to German Honours must take this course. The course builds on GM1050.
- Modern German Culture 2 (GM1556)
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15 Credit Points
Learn more about modern German history, culture and literature while also extending your skills in reading German texts.
Optional Courses
Plus select further credit points from courses of choice to reach 120 credit points.
- Year 2
-
Compulsory Courses
Second half session to be spent in a German Speaking Country
- Space, Economy and Society (GG2014)
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15 Credit Points
GG2014 examines political, economic, social and cultural change from a geographical perspective. The course consists of five distinct blocks, each of which introduces a specific sub-field of human geography – economic, urban, tourism, cultural and social geography. As a team-taught course, it makes use of a range of concepts and uses case studies drawn from the staff’s own fields of research. As well as geography, the course is designed to be accessible and relevant to students from other arts and social science disciplines such as anthropology, business, economics, history, international relations and sociology.
- German Language 3 (GM2042)
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15 Credit Points
This level two language course will build on and extend students' fluency and written skills in German.
- Modern German Culture 3 (GM2043)
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15 Credit Points
Learn more about modern German history and culture while also extending your skills in reading German texts.
- Physical Environments (GG2013)
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15 Credit Points
This course provides an understanding of environmental processes and landscape change through time and space. The course places Physical Geography as an integral component of Earth System Science. The first half of the course explores physical environmental processes, whilst the second focuses on evidence of environmental change across a range of temporal and spatial scales. Three themes of glaciology, hydrology and palaeoecology will be explored to illustrate the linkages and interactions between process and form over a range of temporal and spatial scales. The course is team-taught by staff with an emphasis on using examples from recent research projects.
- Year 3
-
Compulsory Courses
- Approaches to Geography (GG3071)
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15 Credit Points
This core course is designed to introduce Honours students to key debates on the nature and scope of academic geography. Geographers past and present have studied a huge variety of phenomena using a variety of tools to investigate their subject. This course will help you understand this diversity. Topics include: the changing meaning of the 'environment'; the use and abuse of statistical analysis; the influence of left-wing and post-modern perspectives, and the role of technology. Students may specialise in particular aspects, or mix-and-match across the breadth of the discipline, as you wish.
- Remote Sensing and Geographical Information Systems (GG3069)
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15 Credit Points
This course covers the practical aspects of remote sensing and GIS. It is entirely hands on, and students learn through a series of exercises that becomes progressively more challenging and more specific to different geographical disciplines. By the end of the course students will be familiar with key remote sensing and GIS software and will have learned their fundamental tools. These are highly demanded skills in the job market at present, so this course is strategic for those students potentially interested in a job where these types of tools are employed.
- Research Design (GG3574)
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15 Credit Points
This core course builds on GG2508 to provide an introduction to the conduct of research in the Geosciences at an advanced level. It is intended to familiarise students with the skills necessary to design, implement and write up effective research. These skills will support work on undergraduate dissertations and other project work. The course also introduces careers research skills, and explores how you can best make use of your degree in the 'real world' after graduation: workshops run in partnership with the University's Career Service provide practical advice and training on how best to develop your career.
Optional Courses
Select further 30 credit points from level 3 or 4 courses in Geography, plus 45 credit points from level 3 courses in German.
- Year 4
-
Compulsory Courses
- German Language Study for Senior Honours (GM4099)
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30 Credit Points
Building on the skills gained during the Junior Honours language course and before, this module expands and refines German language expertise in writing, reading, speaking and listening, to an advanced level, for their final exit written and oral exam in German.
Optional Courses
Select one of the following dissertation options:
- Geography Dissertation (GG4023)
- Dissertation in German (GM4052) AND Geographical Issues (GG4537)
Plus further credit points from level 3 or 4 course(s) in Geography to gain a total of 60 credits in the discipline. Plus further credit points from level 4 course(s) in German to gain a total of 60 credits in the discipline
If you choose to take GG4023 Geography Dissertation, you are not required to take GG4537 Geographical Issues but may take both courses if you wish.
NOTE: You are required to gain a minimum of 90 credit points from level 4 courses.
- Geography Dissertation (GG4023)
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30 Credit Points
The Honours dissertation provides students with the opportunity to produce a piece of independent and original research on an approved topic. Advanced level knowledge of a sub-area of the discipline is developed through independent study supervised by a member of academic staff. This course is compulsory for any students completing a single Honours degree in Geography and for any joint Honours student who has not registered to complete a dissertation in their other Honours subject.
- Dissertation in German (GM4052)
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15 Credit Points
Students engage in their first larger project of independent research. The dissertation is to be written in German and followed by a 20 minute Viva.
- Geographical Issues (GG4537)
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30 Credit Points
This core, 'capstone' course is designed to develop further students' critical understanding of the contemporary intellectual and real-world contexts in which the academic discipline of geography - and its graduates! - operates. The course involves the preparation of seminar presentations and short papers on a series of issues pertinent to contemporary geography. This work should showcase new philosophies and methodologies; and/or the relationships between geography and other academic disciplines; and/or applications of academic geography to real-world problems. Students also consider how they can best make use of their degree after graduation, with preparation of a reflective, career-planning report.
We will endeavour to make all course options available; however, these may be subject to timetabling and other constraints. Please see our InfoHub pages for further information.
How You'll Study
Learning Methods
- Individual Projects
- Lectures
- Research
- Tutorials
Assessment Methods
Students are assessed by any combination of three assessment methods:
- coursework such as essays and reports completed throughout the course;
- practical assessments of the skills and competencies they learn on the course; and
- written examinations at the end of each course.
The exact mix of these methods differs between subject areas, years of study and individual courses.
Honours projects are typically assessed on the basis of a written dissertation.
Why Study Geography and German?
Why Geography
- Our degree programmes focus upon the key environmental, economic, societal and technological challenges we currently face in the world, including climate change, sustainable development, social inequalities and environmental protection.
- The University of Aberdeen is ranked 1st in Scotland and 6th in the UK for Geography & Environmental Science by the Complete University Guide, 2022.
- Human Geography at Aberdeen is ranked 1st in the UK for student satisfaction in the 2022 National Student Survey, with an overall satisfaction score of 100%
- Opportunity to study Geography from a social sciences/humanities perspective and/or a physical science perspective.
- Aberdeen is a great place to study Geography, with the region's spectacular mountain and coastal areas, a vibrant city and rural communities, providing perfect field sites for the study of geography.
- Our Royal Geographical Society accredited degree in Geography is designed to provide you with key skills and knowledge (e.g. data analysis, GIS) appreciated and often required by employers.
- Extensive fieldwork options provide core skills for your future career, giving you vital transferable skills and experience of working in teams and independently in some of the world's most dynamic environments.
- We have an engaging and very active Geography Society, where you can build your networks and enhance your employability.
- Courses draw on our research in sustainability transitions, the use of digital technologies, conservation, land management, urban development. rural change, water management, climate change, glaciology, remote sensing and past environmental change.
Why German
- The highest possible rating of ‘Excellent’ in the last Scottish national Teaching Quality Assessment.
- A vibrant international community on campus and across the region, with many German-speaking students, staff and activities to get involved in and practise your language skills.
- German Society open to all students interested in German and the German-speaking countries, organising drama performances and other events such as Kaffee and Kuchen, a German Stammtisch, film showings, and visits by German speakers and writers.
- German Drama Group providing a great opportunity to produce an annual play, widen your language skills and meet other German students studying in Aberdeen. Previous years included works of 20th century dramatists Dürrenmatt, Borchert and Horvath.
- Opportunities to study the rich literature and culture of Austria and Switzerland in addition to Germany.
- A packed campus programme of events, exhibitions, seminars, invited speakers and the popular annual May Festival which welcomes international figures, experts, authors and scientists to campus every spring, with an increasingly European flavour.
- Your period abroad as a language assistant or visiting student - we have exchange scholarships with the Universities of Zurich, Kiel and Greifswald, and Erasmus partners including Leipzig, Cologne, Bonn, Trier and Graz in Austria.
- The spectacular, award-winning Sir Duncan Rice Library, with fabulous study facilities, state-of-the-art technology, and an extensive German collection to inspire your studies.
Entry Requirements
Qualifications
The information below is provided as a guide only and does not guarantee entry to the University of Aberdeen.
General Entry Requirements
- 2023 Entry
-
SQA Highers
Standard: AABB
Applicants who have achieved AABB (or better), are encouraged to apply and will be considered. Good performance in additional Highers/ Advanced Highers may be required.
Minimum: BBB
Applicants who have achieved BBB (or are on course to achieve this by the end of S5) are encouraged to apply and will be considered. Good performance in additional Highers/Advanced Highers will normally be required.
Adjusted: BB
Applicants who have achieved BB, and who meet one of the widening participation criteria are encouraged to apply and will be considered. Good performance in additional Highers/Advanced Highers will be required.
More information on our definition of Standard, Minimum and Adjusted entry qualifications.
A LEVELS
Standard: BBB
Minimum: BBC
Adjusted: CCC
More information on our definition of Standard, Minimum and Adjusted entry qualifications.
International Baccalaureate
32 points, including 5, 5, 5 at HL.
Irish Leaving Certificate
5H with 3 at H2 AND 2 at H3.
Entry from College
Advanced entry to this degree may be possible from some HNC/HND qualifications, please see www.abdn.ac.uk/study/articulation for more details.
- 2024 Entry
-
SQA Highers
Standard: AABB
Applicants who have achieved AABB (or better), are encouraged to apply and will be considered. Good performance in additional Highers/ Advanced Highers may be required.
Minimum: BBB
Applicants who have achieved BBB (or are on course to achieve this by the end of S5) are encouraged to apply and will be considered. Good performance in additional Highers/Advanced Highers will normally be required.
Adjusted: BB
Applicants who achieve BB over S4 and S5 and who meet one of the widening access criteria are guaranteed a conditional offer. Good performance in additional Highers/Advanced Highers will be required.
More information on our definition of Standard, Minimum and Adjusted entry qualifications.
A LEVELS
Standard: BBB
Minimum: BBC
Adjusted: CCC
More information on our definition of Standard, Minimum and Adjusted entry qualifications.
International Baccalaureate
32 points, including 5, 5, 5 at HL.
Irish Leaving Certificate
5H with 3 at H2 AND 2 at H3.
Entry from College
Advanced entry to this degree may be possible from some HNC/HND qualifications, please see www.abdn.ac.uk/study/articulation for more details.
The information displayed in this section shows a shortened summary of our entry requirements. For more information, or for full entry requirements for Arts and Social Sciences degrees, see our detailed entry requirements section.
English Language Requirements
To study for an Undergraduate degree at the University of Aberdeen it is essential that you can speak, understand, read, and write English fluently. The minimum requirements for this degree are as follows:
IELTS Academic:
OVERALL - 6.0 with: Listening - 5.5; Reading - 5.5; Speaking - 5.5; Writing - 6.0
TOEFL iBT:
OVERALL - 78 with: Listening - 17; Reading - 18; Speaking - 20; Writing - 21
PTE Academic:
OVERALL - 59 with: Listening - 59; Reading - 59; Speaking - 59; Writing - 59
Cambridge English B2 First, C1 Advanced or C2 Proficiency:
OVERALL - 169 with: Listening - 162; Reading - 162; Speaking - 162; Writing - 169
Read more about specific English Language requirements here.
International Applicants
Fees and Funding
You will be classified as one of the fee categories below.
| Fee category | Cost |
|---|---|
| EU / International students | £20,800 |
| Tuition Fees for 2023/24 Academic Year | |
| Home Students | £1,820 |
| Tuition Fees for 2023/24 Academic Year | |
| RUK | £9,250 |
| Tuition Fees for 2023/24 Academic Year |
Scholarships and Funding
Students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland, who pay tuition fees may be eligible for specific scholarships allowing them to receive additional funding. These are designed to provide assistance to help students support themselves during their time at Aberdeen.
Financial support for your study year abroad
We provide funding to students starting in 2021/22 on degrees with a compulsory period abroad at the same level as the Turing funding. This financial support can be used towards rent in your new city overseas, general living costs, or travelling to see more of your new home country. Students going abroad will continue to pay their normal rate of tuition fees with no increased charges or need to change tuition fee arrangements to the host university. For a full overview of how the tuition fees work, you can check this helpful funding table on our website.
International Applicants
Further Information about tuition fees and the cost of living in Aberdeen
Additional Fees
- In exceptional circumstances there may be additional fees associated with specialist courses, for example field trips. Any additional fees for a course can be found in our Catalogue of Courses.
- For more information about tuition fees for this programme, including payment plans and our refund policy, please visit our InfoHub Tuition Fees page.
Our Funding Database
View all funding options in our Funding Database.
Careers
There are many opportunities at the University of Aberdeen to develop your knowledge, gain experience and build a competitive set of skills to enhance your employability. This is essential for your future career success. The Careers and Employability Service can help you to plan your career and support your choices throughout your time with us, from first to final year – and beyond.
- More information on employability at the University of Aberdeen
- More information on the Careers and Employability Service
Our Experts
Information About Staff Changes
You will be taught by a range of experts including professors, lecturers, teaching fellows and postgraduate tutors. Staff changes will occur from time to time; please see our InfoHub pages for further information.
Discover Uni
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Get in Touch
Contact Details
- Address
-
Student Recruitment & Admissions
University of Aberdeen
University Office
Regent Walk
Aberdeen
AB24 3FX