The University of East London is making swift strides towards its aim of becoming London’s No 1 university for sport, and our much-admired Sport and Exercise Science degree is leading the way.

Study our challenging course and you’ll be examining the role that biomechanics, physiology, psychology and nutrition play in human performance. You’ll also look at how these disciplines interact, so you receive the complete education a multi-disciplinary sports scientist needs.

You’ll have the chance to study optional subjects that give our course its special flavour – such as our module in disability sport.

It’s a course that has attracted some of Britain’s leading sportsmen and women of the day such as European 200m champion Adam Gemili, Commonwealth 200m bronze medallist Bianca Williams and double European and Commonwealth medal-winning swimmer Aimee Willmott. It also develops the sports scientists and teachers who’ll help deliver the champions of tomorrow.

If you want to know how good our course is, don’t just take our word for it. Listen to Adam.

“As an athlete you need to understand how your body works - the biomechanics," he says. "That knowledge has really helped me when I’m in the blocks to get the biggest first step that I can.”

We’ve worked hard to make this course as flexible as possible and you’ll discover we’ve found a pretty good balance between learning theory and actually seeing what that looks like in practice.

The beauty of sharing a first year with your colleagues from our Sports Coaching and Sport, Physical Education and Development courses is that you can swap to one of those courses at the end of year one if you wish.

In year two, you’ll complete a mixture of compulsory and optional modules. The options include Disability, Sport & PE, Principles & Practice in Teaching & Coaching and Inclusion in Youth Sport & PE.

For your final-year project, there’s more scope to specialise, allowing you to focus on areas of particular interest to you.

For instance, one of our students studied the coaching philosophy of Saracens Rugby Union Club. Another went to Leyton Orient to research how football goalkeepers distribute the ball after collecting it in their area. This fascinating study led to him becoming a match analyst at the club after graduating.

We definitely like to do things differently at UEL, so there’s no danger of it being all lectures and no practical application. Indeed, we want you to throw yourself into sport. So you’ll get involved in workshops and do your own sports coaching and lab sessions.

You’ll learn in top-quality facilities at both our Docklands and Stratford campuses. We have fully equipped and advanced labs, including our own biomechanics suite to study people’s gait as well as specialist software used for nutritional analysis.

At our £21million SportsDock complex, we have a superb fitness centre and strength and conditioning room.

It’s important to us that our course is aligned with the principles of the British Association of Sports and Exercise Science (BASES), the UK’s professional body for sports and exercise science in the UK. The course is also accredited by SkillsActive, so you’ll be able to complete your Level 2 and Level 3 Gym and Personal Training Awards while you’re here.

Your friendly and supportive tutors, led by Dr Richard Buscombe, are all active in research and in community-based projects. You can get involved in worthwhile schemes like the one, funded by the NHS, in which we deliver exercise sessions for people with clinical conditions and young people who’ve suffered from alcohol and drugs abuse.

Who will teach on this course

Richard Buscombe

The teaching team includes qualified academics, practitioners and industry experts as guest speakers. Full details of the academics will be provided in the student handbook and module guides.

Each year you will spend around 270 hours of timetabled learning and teaching activities. These may be lectures, workshops, seminars and individual and group tutorials. Contact hours may vary depending on each module.

The approximate amount for this course are:
Year 1: scheduled teaching – 270 hours; guided independent study – 930 hours.
Year 2: scheduled teaching – 270 hours; guided independent study – 930 hours.
Year 3: scheduled teaching – 270 hours; guided independent study – 930 hours.

A host of exciting career avenues in the sporting and teaching worlds will open up to you once you graduate, but the great thing about our course is that you may find they open up to you even while you’re studying for your degree.

That’s because our work placements and the relationships we have built with sports organisations and schools are so strong.

They’re optional and flexible placements, which means you can choose your best time to undertake them. We have strong links with football clubs such as Leyton Orient, West Ham and Millwall and various sports academies and schools.

We’ve had students working at activeNewham, the sports arm of our local council, London Sport and the Olympic Park, which is right on our doorstep in Stratford. In some cases, these placements lead to full-time jobs. For instance, Oktay Huseyin was placed at a tennis academy in Essex and is now the head of strength and conditioning there.

Some of you will go on to further study, like one of Dr Buscombe’s students who did an extraordinary third-year project on spirituality and fandom in Lithuanian basketball. She’s now studying the same subject for her PhD in Melbourne.

Our graduates have gone on to work for employers as varied as the National Basketball Association (NBA), Leyton Orient FC and the London Borough of Newham.

We’ve produced coaches, fitness club managers, personal trainers, private and community coaches and teachers. We even managed to find one of our students, Marshall Tutu, some tennis opportunities between his studies. Now he’s playing as a full-time professional.