Bachelor of Arts (Deans Scholars) in History and Political Thought

at Western Sydney University - Bankstown Campus Australia

This double degree program is designed for students whose interests span the Arts and Social Sciences.

It will give you the skills and versatility to work across a range of academic and professional disciplines, including the opportunity to develop global perspectives and communication skills.

You need to include a Social Science Major, so you can design your own academic program within the Bachelor of Social Science program structure.

Child and Community

The Child and Community major provides a comprehensive introduction to a range of social sciences related areas and a strong grounding in contemporary issues facing children and their families from a critical perspective.

This major provides a good foundation for people interested in a career in the human services with a particular interest in children.

The Music Performance major provides students with the opportunity to develop their professional and creative potential in making and appreciating a range of different kinds of music.

Students will gain practical experience in performance as a soloist and in groups, and through improvising and collaborating.

Cultural and Social Analysis is an interdisciplinary major developing knowledge, research skills and analytic capacities relevant to understanding and interpreting landscapes of cultural diversity and social difference in our contemporary world, both in terms of the broad contours, as well as specific micro-social environments.

This major provides grounding in contemporary debates and methodologies in cultural studies and social theory, and draws on various disciplines including history, sociology, communications, and linguistics. Topics include popular culture, everyday urban life, cultural and social impacts of scientific theories and new technologies, multiculturalism, and contemporary spirituality.

Study in this area is relevant for work involving commentary and analysis of contemporary social issues and cultural practices (e.g. journalism, teaching, activism) and fields concerned with designing, delivering and evaluating cultural and artistic productions, and education, communication, welfare or health services, in culturally diverse communities.

This double degree program is designed for students whose interests span the Arts and Social Sciences.

It will give you the skills and versatility to work across a range of academic and professional disciplines, including the opportunity to develop global perspectives and communication skills.

You need to include a Social Science Major, so you can design your own academic program within the Bachelor of Social Science program structure.

International English

International English examines English in its many varieties with a focus on the international development of the language, extending far beyond native English speakers, and identifying features of the language essential to academic and professional performance.

The major provides a basis for international students who may intend to teach English in different countries, or enter other language-centred professions, or for local students intending to pursue post-graduate degrees in education or wanting to improve English skills.

The major provides studies in the varieties and structures of English, informed by specific studies in linguistics, English teaching and bilingualism, and language acquisition.

This is a broadly based, inter-disciplinary four-year double degree offering flexibility and choice within a wide range of offerings in the social sciences, as well as studies of International Relations and Asian Studies and an Asian language.

This degree seeks to equip you with all the interdisciplinary and specialist skills and knowledge that you will need on entering the workforce or on proceeding to advanced study.

Anthropology

Social Anthropology is the study of humans and the cultures they create. The major in Anthropology within the Bachelor of Social Science offers students the opportunity to examine social patterns and practices across cultures, to discover similarities and differences between cultures, and to understand the processes by which humans organise and create meaning.

Areas of focus include the development of anthropology as a discipline; globalisation and culture; power and politics; gender and sexuality; identity and belonging; ethnography and ethnographic methods; indigenous peoples and nation states.

Specific attention is given to cultures of Australasia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and to cross cultural interactions, at both global and local levels. The major seeks to equip students with multi-cultural knowledge as well as to provide a thorough grounding in research methods and ethics with utility in a variety of professional and academic contexts.

This double degree program is designed for students whose interests span the Arts and Social Sciences.

It will give you the skills and versatility to work across a range of academic and professional disciplines, including the opportunity to develop global perspectives and communication skills.

You need to include a Social Science Major, so you can design your own academic program within the Bachelor of Social Science program structure.

Chinese

Language majors will enable you to develop an appropriate level of proficiency in a second language, which may be used for professional purposes such as teaching, interpreting and translation, business or international relations.

If you are undertaking a language major in Arabic, Chinese, Indonesian or Japanese you will be able to use the language in question according to its grammatical and pragmatic principles, communicate with native speakers appropriately in the spoken as well as the written mode, and demonstrate an understanding of the cultures and societies associated with the language.

Since the revival of humanist thought in the Renaissance, universities have placed studies in history and political thought at the centre of exploring what it is to be human.

At the heart of the History and Political Thought major are four compulsory units which introduce the student to the modern (since 1500) history of humanity. Although Europe is very prominent in the Major, the student will be invited to compare its history to the histories of Asia, Africa and the Americas.

The Major culminates in a capstone unit in students’ final semester discussing historical theories and methods. A wide range of elective units covers European, American, Australian and Asian history and political thought and includes thematic units which range widely over time and place.

If you’re a fourth-year Psychology graduate, the Master of Professional Psychology gives you a fifth year of training under the 'five plus one' model, as recommended by the Australian Psychology Accreditation Council (APAC) and Psychology Board of Australia (PsyBA).

You’ll be trained in the key areas of ethics, psychological assessment and therapeutic interventions. Emerge with an APAC-accredited degree and 50 per cent of the requirements towards registration as a general psychologist. To obtain full registration, you will need to organise additional supervised placement hours.

To meet the need for forensically oriented psychologists in the field, this degree also addresses psychological practice within the forensic psychology domain

The Bachelor of Arts (Dean’s Scholars) degree is designed to develop your communication and personal skills, creativity, capacity for independent thought, adaptability to new situations, and problem-solving abilities.

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society and culture. Using diverse methods, practices and theories, it helps us understand social life. Sociology is fundamental to the social sciences because the quality of life of every human on the planet is directly or indirectly influenced by their relative position within, and responses to, society.

This major in Sociology provides you with a thorough training in the methods, theories and select leading areas of contemporary sociology. In the Sociology major, you will have opportunities to study particular themes from a sociological perspective, including inequalities, deviance, identities, gender, religion, medicine and health care, ethnicity and migration, and the family, among other possibilities.

A Bachelor of Arts with a major in Sociology will prepare you for both employment and a research higher degree.

What does it mean to live in Indigenous Australia?

The Indigenous Australian Studies Major offers students the exciting opportunity to acquire key cultural competencies that will enable them to understand and work more effectively with Indigenous Australians in professions such as the arts, communications, media industries; education; government and non-government; policy; health; sciences; and community services.

The Indigenous Australian Studies Major addresses the cultural, historical, social and economic issues affecting Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians and relationships.