Courses and structure

What you study

Year 1

You take four Core Courses:

• Researching Society and Culture
• Critical Readings
• Modern Knowledge, Modern Power
• Culture and Society

Year 2

You take Core Courses  in:

• Central Issues in Sociological Analysis
• The Making of the Modern World
• Philosophy and Methodology of the Social Sciences
• Sociology of Culture and Communication
• Researching Society and Culture 2

and

two Sociology Options.

Year 3

You take the Core Course:

• Contemporary Social Theory and Society

You also:

• write a Sociology Dissertation – independent research, supported by classes and subject specialists, resulting in an 8,000-word Dissertation in a topic of your own choice
• choose four Sociology Options

Teaching

Teaching is by lectures, seminars, workshops and tutorials. You're assigned a personal tutor, who also acts as an academic tutor. Tutors oversee your academic work and progress over the year. In the third year, most students undertake a Dissertation on a subject of their choice, for which they receive supervision.

Assessment

Assessment is through a combination of examinations, pre-released examinations, assessed course work and projects.

Skills and careers

Throughout your degree you'll be encouraged to reflect on how the skills you are gaining can be useful to your future career.

We work closely with the Goldsmiths Careers Service, part of the University of London Careers Service – the biggest in the UK. Through the Careers Service you'll have access to a wide range of facilities to help you plan your future effectively. You'll have the opportunity to meet our Department’s graduates and find out how their sociology degree gave them skills intrinsic to careers development.

We also work closely with the College’s Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship’s Synapse programme, which provides workshops that will help you to develop both your employability and personal skills in critical and creative ways. In the context of a rapidly changing social and economic climate, these workshops provide you with valuable thinking time in which you can develop practical skills and also explore your ideas for your future.

Skills

The BA Sociology programme will help you develop the following skills:

• an understanding of current and emerging social problems and theoretical approaches central to sociology
• the capacity to carry out preliminary sociological research
• the ability to examine how social, public and civic policy can be influenced by sociological knowledge
• the capacity to compose and analyse sociologically informed questions
• the ability to investigate, appraise and communicate empirical information
• research and problem-solving skills
• communication skills

Careers

This degree enables graduates to go on to a wide range of careers, covering areas including:

• media, marketing and corporate communications
• market research
• business and management
• the public sector
• the health services and government
• the voluntary and charitable sector
• arts administration
• museums
• teaching
• social work
• youth and community work

Further information

• Find out more about employability at Goldsmiths
• Our alumni

About the department

The Department of Sociology

The Department of Sociology is nationally and internationally recognised as one of the UK’s leading university departments in the discipline. We have an excellent reputation for teaching and achieved the highest rankings for research in the latest Research Assessment Exercise 2008, coming joint top in the UK.

Study Sociology at Goldsmiths and you’ll join one of the largest and most innovative sociology departments in the country. The Department is committed to developing the discipline of sociology by involving all members of the Department in teaching, research and scholarship in a national and international context; to furthering knowledge and theory; and to the understanding and improvement of contemporary social conditions. We play a key role in the development of contemporary social and cultural understandings and innovative social science research methodologies.

Research strengths

Our research strengths are wide and include:

• inequalities
• sociological theory
• art and literature; education
• culture and communication
• science, technology and health
• globalisation, cities and economic life
• racism, religion and nationalism
• social and political movements
• citizenship
• design
• class
• the body and society
• new media and the internet
• psychoanalysis
• human rights, law and citizenship
• visual sociology

These research interests are reflected in our teaching, especially in the second and third years of our undergraduate degrees.

Staff

The Department has 28 full-time academic staff, including nine Professors and nine professional staff, as well as part-time and research staff. We also have a number of visiting tutors.

We publish widely in the form of books, contributions to journals, and press articles. This means that you'll be taught by staff who are actually shaping the discipline.

Find out more about staff in the Department of Sociology.

Facilities

In addition to extensive computing facilities, the Department co-ordinates a programme of talks featuring visiting lecturers from other universities. These talks cover specific areas of interest, and supplement events held by academics within the Department.

Student profiles

"I came across Goldsmiths by chance. I was taking a gap year after college, working full-time and doing some voluntary work, when I decided to apply for a place at university. Goldsmiths appealed to me due to its University of London status and its reputation as a place of cultural creativity. Goldsmiths’ affiliation with some of the great sociological thinkers of our time also impressed me.

I applied for a degree in BA Sociology, as I had taken an interest in it at college. Upon receiving the course material I was thoroughly impressed by the topic choices within the course. I have found the lecturers to be extremely helpful and friendly, their endless optimism keeps me going whenever I feel myself losing interest. The architecture of the university is stunning, the view of the College Green behind the Richard Hoggart Building makes you feel as though you are in an Enid Blyton novel. The university is based in a popular area of South London with a budding music and art scene. The location enables quick access to and from Central London, so it is quite hard to be bored whilst attending Goldsmiths.

In short, I could not possibly imagine where I’d be if I were not at Goldsmiths – I would more than likely be stuck in a mundane office job slowly but surely losing the will to live! Every time I walk out of a lecture I feel educated and enlightened, and for that I think Goldsmiths is worth the time and effort needed to achieve a degree."

Arooj, BA Sociology (graduated 2010)

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"I’m really pleased I chose to study Sociology at Goldsmiths. I like the course and think the third year will be my best. I’m really looking forward to bringing my interests in writing, literature and performance into my academic life.

Born and raised in London, before joining Goldsmiths I’d trained and worked as a personal development coach, and I have been running creative writing workshops since the age of 16. I find studying in London great, and it allows me to stay in touch with a vibrant community of poets. If I had left London to study elsewhere I don’t think I would have achieved as much in my writing and performance.

I chose to study at Goldsmiths because of the good reputation of the Sociology course here and because of its rich arts history. I think that studying Sociology has enabled me to make links between my interests and passions that other subjects would not have allowed. Sociology and writing work well together. I'm always trying to find new ways of communicating ideas and stories through words, and a lot of the thinkers I've studied over the past two years have done exactly that.

University has been a great learning experience. I've found that the relationships you build with people are as important as the time you put into studying. It's the perfect place to enhance social entrepreneurship: studying keeps your thinking fresh and the networks you make prepare you for life after your course. While at Goldsmiths I have co-founded T-Shirt & Jeans, a creative social entrepreneurship, which produces events and workshops around the UK. Goldsmiths has been a great base for this, we've been able to meet lots of artists who are creating amazing movements in their fields.”

Yemisi, BA Sociology