Bachelor of Social Science in Geography and Urban Studies

at Western Sydney University - Parramatta South Campus Australia

Graduates can plan a career in media, public relations, journalism or advertising companies with skills adaptable to many environments.

This combined degree ensures that your future work appeals to the right target audience.

The Bachelor of Communication component covers all areas of creative communication, enabling you to understand how your field of study is connected to other disciplines.

The Creative Industries degree partners with creative industries to provide an interdisciplinary, experiential degree that combines a core of entrepreneurship with major studies including culture and society, creative writing, design, enterprise innovation, journalism, literature, media arts, music performance and photo media.

Media Arts Production

The major in Media Arts Production is designed to provide students with production skills, complete with practical hands-on experience together with a theoretical foundation in the moving, visual media. 

This degree opens doors to entrepreneurship, start-up companies and new innovations that require business knowledge and cutting-edge information systems and technology skills.

Today, to implement technology, practising professionals need to not only have knowledge and skills in information and communications technology, but they also need to understand the context in which computer technology can best be selected, applied and implemented.

The business component of the double degree will allow students to gain knowledge in one of three core Business areas: Money, Markets or Management. 

Human Resource Management

The Human Resource Management Major is designed for people who seek careers in human resource management and industrial relations. Graduates’ careers focus on enhancing the value of human and social capital through supporting employee engagement for many different kinds of organisations, market-oriented and community-oriented organisations and many kinds of people.

The teaching philosophy is based on knowledge in action, a fusion of the Australia Human Resource Institute’s capabilities for HR professionals and the Western Sydney University Graduate Attributes designed to secure success.

An aim of the program is to instil those values and attitudes that can support leaders in judgements about balancing the pursuit of organisational objectives with creating opportunities for developing people’s capacities and careers.

This double degree is designed for students whose interests span the Arts and Business.

Study in the Bachelor of Arts component is designed to develop communication and personal skills, creativity and a capacity for independent thought, adaptability to new situations and problem-solving skills, attributes increasingly demanded by employers.

Cultural and Social Analysis

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.

If you’re creative, passionate and a problem solver, our enhanced Arts degree could be for you.

Choose a study plan that aligns with your own interests. Find your passion and select from 27 majors. Discover opportunities for internships and overseas study.

Japanese

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 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.

Today, to implement technology, practising professionals need to not only have knowledge and skills in information and communications technology, but they also need to understand the context in which computer technology can best be selected, applied and implemented. You will work with organisations to design, develop, deploy and manage information systems through the application of computing technology.

This program will help you carry out a real-life project where you will need to demonstrate you can design and develop an information system that solves a community-based problem.

This degree is exclusively for high-achieving students, and will continually challenge you to do even better and build on your academic success. Students in the Advanced degree program are automatically enrolled in The Academy Opens in new window, which offers interdisciplinary leadership programs, professional development and local and international internship and engagement opportunities for students.

Big Data

This major covers theories and technologies of big data with applications to information systems. Students completing this major will possess and apply the technical skills for managing large volumes and varieties of data in the information systems context.

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.

Economy and Markets

The Economy and Markets major provides a broad pluralist perspective on fundamental aspects of relationships between individuals, firms, institutions and countries. Students will learn how economies function and how public policy and the way organisations behave affect diverse social, economic and environmental problems. Students are introduced to a wide array of competing economic theories, so that they are critically informed about the ways in which they can transform the world. A major in this area prepares students to be active participants in addressing the wide range of problems faced by governments, social organisations and the business community in the domestic and international economies. Students who study economics can expect to develop their analytical and problem solving skills and to be intellectually challenged, whether they view the discipline as providing specific vocational skills or as an area of academic and intellectual interest to them. A major in this area is very highly regarded in the business world and opens up a very large range of career prospects in general business, finance and the public sector.

Tailor your studies to your specific goals by combining our Bachelor of Arts degree with the Bachelor of Creative Industries degree.

When you graduate after four years, you have two degrees, and the unique skills relevant to the contemporary employment environment.

The Arts component combines academic knowledge with practical real life training. It is designed to equip you with a broad range of skills and knowledge in research and critical enquiry, and is sufficiently flexible to cater to a range of career aspirations and personal interests.

In the Creative Industries component you will combine a core of entrepreneurship with major studies including culture and society, creative writing, design, enterprise innovation, journalism, literature, media arts, music performance and photo media.

Criminology and Criminal Justice

This criminology major offers students the opportunity to study crime and criminal justice in a critical way that particularly stresses social and cultural definitions of criminality and the reactions to it.

Areas of focus include criminal justice institutions and practices; the development of criminology as a discipline and its various strands; forms and patterns of victimisation; crime prevention strategies and debates; aspects of juvenile justice; the evolution of prisons and different forms of punishment; law enforcement and surveillance; violence, gender and crime; cultural depictions of crime and contemporary debates in criminology.

This double degree provides you with the practical skills and knowledge required to excel in the fields of both business and law. The Bachelor of Business degree gives you the knowledge to create a career as a business professional. Whether you wish to pursue a corporate role in a global enterprise or start your own business, this degree will provide you with the skills to do it.  

The Bachelor of Laws program satisfies the academic degree requirements for admission to practice as an Australian lawyer. Students will engage in collaborative face-to-face problem and case-based learning, will be supported by online learning materials, and will participate in authentic assessment to develop knowledge and skills.

Sport Management

The Sport Management major is designed for people who seek careers in Australian and international Sport management.

Specialist units provide students with a capacity to understand and function within the increasingly dedicated context in which sport is played, organised and managed.

Students who complete this major will be equipped with the skills and knowledge to manage sport experiences pertaining to globalisation and emerging contemporary issues in sport.

Through counselling and psychotherapy, people gain self-understanding, expand interpersonal capacities and become capable of healthy change.

This program brings together theory and practice, and gives you the tools to make a meaningful, real-life impact in the fields of psychotherapy and counselling. You will also enjoy the close guidance of Western’s highly experienced clinical practitioners and internationally recognised psychotherapy educators.

Western’s Master of Psychotherapy and Counselling is designed to expand and refine your capacity to listen deeply and provide in-depth support to people struggling with emotional issues and life difficulties.

This is a deeply humanistic program in which you will explore the role of the human psyche and learn how your own life experiences and perspectives can be used to help others achieve their personal and mental-health goals. Your training will also include an emphasis on the creation of the therapist and the therapeutic environment for the client.

Taught by highly experienced clinical practitioners and internationally recognised psychotherapy educators, you’ll learn to bring theory and practice together, receive practical guidance to make meaningful impacts, and be supported by staff to counsel people in real-life situations.

Graduates can plan a career in media, public relations, journalism or advertising companies with skills adaptable to many environments.

This combined degree ensures that your future work appeals to the right target audience.

The Bachelor of Communication component covers all areas of creative communication, enabling you to understand how your field of study is connected to other disciplines.

The Creative Industries degree partners with creative industries to provide an interdisciplinary, experiential degree that combines a core of entrepreneurship with major studies including culture and society, creative writing, design, enterprise innovation, journalism, literature, media arts, music performance and photo media.

English

The English major invites students to explore contemporary approaches to language, literary study and writing, including literary criticism and theory, linguistic analysis, genre and textual study, and creative writing.

The English major focuses on the imaginative workings of language, and students can study a wide selection of modern and classic literature, as well as the relationships between written texts and other media such as film and information technology.

Students also have the opportunity to produce their own creative writing and to edit and publish their work. Career prospects include publishing, editing, teaching, writing and advertising.