Earth Sciences (Hons) University College Dublin

Overview

Earth Sciences (Hons) is offered by University College Dublin. Understanding the Earth system profoundly impacts many aspects of society and is critical to developing solutions for current global challenges, including climate change, energy, access to clean water and protection from natural disasters. 

Key Facts

Our degree builds on biology, chemistry, physics and physical geography to understand the structure, age and evolution of the Earth, the history of life, and the processes (e.g. plate tectonics, earthquakes, landslides) that shape Earth’s surface and interior. Modules equip graduates with modern field, digital and geospatial skills, and there is an emphasis on developing critical thinking based on earth system data, on scales ranging from microns to thousands of kilometers. Students interested in Earth Sciences have the choice in first year to study the modules for Earth Sciences and Environmental Biology or to focus on Earth Sciences only. At the end of second year, students choose their degree major. Assuming students meet all the academic requirements in first and second year, students are guaranteed a degree subject from the stream they are studying in second year. We do our best to ensure that students go on to study their top degree subject choice. As we offer plenty of degree subjects in each stream, students have a number of similar degree subjects to choose from as their degree major. This is a sample set of modules that an Earth Sciences student could study each year in UCD.