Many of the major challenges facing our planet, such as climate change, future energy production or living with natural hazards, require a thorough understanding of how the Earth has behaved in the past and how it works today. Our accredited BSc Geology degree provides all the key skills you need to understand the inner workings of our planet. You will study subjects ranging from geophysics and palaeontology through to volcanology and sedimentology. You will develop skills in the manipulation of scientific data, critical assessment of scientific hypotheses and experience actual scientific research during project work.

Our teaching philosophy is based around flexibility, allowing you to fit the degree around your lifestyle. We embrace new technology and methods to make our degrees accessible to all and have been running remote as well as face-to-face lectures for more than 20 years. This means you can attend classes with our internationally distinguished researchers in our world-class laboratories in London or you can watch live streams/recorded lectures at home using our cutting-edge online teaching platform. You are free to mix both these methods to find the best balance for you.  

We are one of the few departments that meets the Geological Society of London recommendation of a minimum 64 days' fieldwork in a BSc programme and the only one that allows this through online learning. Each year you attend a major residential field course of 10-14 days, cementing your theoretical skills with more practical experience. Currently, we take students to Pembrokeshire (Year 1), North-West Scotland or Greece (Year 2) and Morocco (Year 3). You may also attend weekend field classes and will undertake a substantial amount of field research on your own in the latter years of the degree.

This course is also available for part-time evening study over four or six years.

• We offer you flexible teaching methods, balancing face-to-face and online learning.
• Exciting field trip opportunities to famous geological sites in the UK, Greece and Morocco.
• Accredited by the Geological Society of London as a recognised professional qualification. We are the only university that offers this option through distance learning.
• We are part of the joint UCL-Birkbeck Institute of Earth and Planetary Sciences (IEPS) meaning we share laboratories, expertise and events, all open to students for research projects. Find out more about our research facilities.
• In our joint submission with UCL, we were rated sixth in the UK for Earth Systems and Environmental Science research in the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF).
• Our Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences has been offering evening study courses for over 70 years and distance learning for over 20 years.

Graduates can pursue careers in the oil, mineral and groundwater industries, academia or geology. This degree may also be useful in becoming an engineering geologist, geochemist, higher education lecturer, geophysicist or hydrogeologist.

We offer a comprehensive Careers Service to help you advance your career, while our in-house, professional recruitment consultancy, Birkbeck Talent, works with London’s top employers to help you gain work experience that fits in with your evening studies.