Welcome to your Transnational Organised Crime course

MA Transational Organised Crime is a Distance learning course. This means students have chosen a programme of study that means they have access to weekly learning materials such as lectures that are pre-recorded and will be invited to join a live (online) tutorial for about 30 minutes to discuss activities, weekly readings and other issues cropping up for their studies. These virtual tutorials are held for each module, each week at a specific time. This virtual tutorial will be recorded (assuming students turn up) and made available for viewing.

Distance learning done right, offers busy students greater flexibility in when and how they approach their studies. However, it requires students to be much more self-motivated and independent learners. If you have previously studied on campus you might find adapting to distance learning more tricky.

It is mandatory that distance learning students watch all the recorded lectures/ seminar/ workshop discussions and complete the weekly activities. You must engage with your course material on a weekly basis. Students who do not engage with their course materials generally perform poorly in their coursework.

Learning is delivered over a single day each week on campus (usually but not guaranteed, on a Friday).

Pre-recorded lectures involve the teaching team delivering a talk for about 50 minutes to-an hour about a particular topic. Seminars, tutorials and workshops are about 30 minutes- long and allow for cohort discussions, completion of activities to consolidate learning from the lecture.

Teaching team hold Academic Support Time each week, usually held after the timetabled sessions. Academic support is where you can have one to one or small group discussions about the weekly topic, coursework or other issues influencing your studies. As a distance learning student, we expect you to make the necessary requests with your employers to be available to join our academic support time. If you need to have a chat with us, we will try and accommodate a meeting at other times in the week between UK working hours 9am-5pm, but this cannot be guaranteed.

Students selecting to study the full time one year route are advised to take note that each 40-credit module comes with 400 hours of study and each 20-credit module has 200 hours of study allocated. Some of these hours are contact time with the teaching team (and will be where you view the learning materials for each week). It is worth noting the number of hours individual learners are expected to invest in their own independent study in order to accomplish a good overall experience of postgraduate study. It is also advisable to study the programme carefully, so you know how many modules you will be studying at one time, in each semester. We strongly encourage you to not attempt to combine full time postgraduate study AND try and maintain full time paid employment.

It might be good to know that we have a two-year continuous part-time programme that learners might find easier to manage alongside demanding, paid work.

If you have any questions about this or anything else described above, please contact the course leader Arta Jalilli-Idriss, arta.jaliliidrissi@staffs.ac.uk or Lauren Metcalfe lauren.metcalfe@staffs.ac.uk. 

Critically engage with the news in your country, specifically be on the lookout for the myriad of global stories associated with organised crime. Notice how recent political events and changes in law enforcement open up or close down opportunities for organised criminal activities.

Watch and Listen to the News. In the UK, we recommend Newsnight, Channel 4 News BBC Radio 4 Today.

Be curious about topics that interest you: listen to (subscribe to) Podcasts, documentaries, films, docu-dramas.

Before the course commences

There will be some or perhaps several critical, topical issues that have encouraged you to come and study this programme. You might have mentioned these topics in your personal statement! Be ready to identify these issues/ topics, and undertake some preliminary reading around the topic you’re interested in. Doing some early reading around a subject, exploring connections and patterns will help you unfold this idea for your research proposal and later your postgraduate project.

Pre-arrival task 1

Engage with the news critically! Be alert to what is being presented to you. What is currently newsworthy: for example, policy changes, global organised crime activities, labour exploitation, trafficking of people, goods, arms, organs. Notice which countries are involved in these activities. How are law enforcement enabling or closing down these activities. Are they new or much older stories? For each story, jot down:

• What is being presented?
• How is it being presented?
• Why do you think it is being presented this way?
• Are other news outlets, channels reporting the story in the same way?
• For how long is it in the press/ public eye (how many days)?
• Does the reporting of the issue evolve (if so, how)?

Pre-arrival task 2

Summer reading!

Read BJ Smith The Dope: the real history of the Mexican Drug Trade.

How might poverty, masculinity, deprivation, corruption, inequality, law enforcement approaches enable or close down certain types of crime?

Task 2

Watch:

There are LOTs of programmes with themes relating to Organised Crime. A really popular series in the UK has been Line of Duty – which depicts the attempts of AC-12 to tackle organised criminal activities and the involvement of law enforcement.

The Staffordshire University Crime and Society Research Group (SUC&SRG) provides an opportunity for students to join academics in conducting research that contributes to creating a more equitable and inclusive society.

Software that you will need before starting the course.

Download software