Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Asian Studies

at Western Sydney University - Parramatta South Campus Australia

Take on the world with resilience, creativity and the right mindset. Add Entrepreneurship to an undergraduate degree to get the edge. This degree is an innovative approach to training the next generation of high impact entrepreneurs by providing knowledge and developing practical skills.

The Bachelor of Entrepreneurship is not a stand-alone degree, but is designed to be undertaken in combination with any Western Sydney Bachelor degree. The program aims to guide students through all phases of their entrepreneurship journey: from forming a team to helping with pitching their ideas to potential investors and developing strategies for obtaining funding.

You’ll learn about product development, legalities and ethics, financing, operations, funding and start-ups, and growth and exit strategies. Develop resilience, creativity, risk tolerance and the right mindset. Learn how to think big and lead teams to success. Gain access to real-world placement opportunities in incubators, technology parks and innovation centres. Get the ultimate edge from creative ideas through the sustainable development of an idea into a lean start-up.

This combined degree offers you a unique opportunity to gain the creative and business skills necessary to prosper in the contemporary innovation landscape.

Underpinned by a foundation of graphic design, the Bachelor of Design gives you fundamental skills and knowledge in the exciting and constantly changing area of visual communication.

The Creative Industries component 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.

The program is designed for those who wish to pursue a creative practice while gaining the business and legal acumen to become a successful part of the creative economy on their own terms.

Enterprise Innovation

The Enterprise Innovation major equips you with the expert skills to create a career as a management specialist. You will be prepared to succeed in a range of roles in contemporary private, public, and not-for-profit organisations in Australia and abroad.

In this major you will develop strategic management knowledge to enable effective organisational decision making. The units in this major focus on organisational learning and development and behaviour, operations management, leadership and entrepreneurship, change and innovation, and policy.

This double degree program is designed in recognition of the globalising nature of the information technology industry.

In the IT area, the program allows students to develop skills in application development, program design, systems analysis and design, networks, web-design, and the implementation of technology.

 Psychological Studies

The Psychological Studies major comprises units in the discipline of psychology that focus on the field of inquiry, using scientific techniques and methods to understand and explain behaviour and experience.

Units in the program are drawn from the following core areas of psychology: brain and behaviour, learning, motivation and emotion, social psychology, lifespan development, perception, and cognitive processes.

This double degree allows you to tailor your studies to your speci?c goals by combining your Bachelor of Social Science with our accredited Bachelor of Laws degree. The Bachelor of Social Science will expand your knowledge through theory, research and practical application and offers you a deep understanding of our complex, culturally diverse and dynamic world. The social science degree is a broadly based, inter-disciplinary program that provides flexibility and choice within a range of social science subject offerings. The degree seeks to equip students with the interdisciplinary and specialist skills and knowledge that a new graduate would need on entering the workforce or on proceeding to advanced study.

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.

 Peace and Development Studies

The Peace and Development Studies major is concerned with methods for promoting peace, human rights and sustainability. It involves a critical analysis of inequalities of power and opportunity that lead to international and local conflict, social dislocation and environmental degradation.

Students will examine the structural causes of racist and gendered violence, environmental crises, forced migration, poverty, resource conflict, and inter-generational inequity. The inter-related network of solutions includes empowerment and self-determination, sustainable living, constructive development, peacemaking and peace building. These require understanding of the theories and method for identifying, measuring and resolving conflict and environmental degradation. The assumptions and failings of traditional development practice are critically assessed.

Students will engage social theory within an interdisciplinary and applied framework, at local, national and international levels. The major is comprised of three fields: 1) structural inequality, social justice & human rights; 2) development and sustainability; 3) peace and humanitarian responses/actions.

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.

Digital Cultures

The Digital Cultures Major offers students the opportunity to learn about how cutting edge technology and digital practices are changing society.

By analysing new media, visual arts, and digital design and the effects that the use of these new technologies have on culture and society, students will gain the necessary skills to position themselves for careers in a wide variety of contexts that require understanding of technology or digital media and its impact.

Complementing these analytical skills, students will also gain practical skills in the creation of digital media and design.

This combined degree offers you a unique opportunity to gain the creative and business skills necessary to prosper in the contemporary innovation landscape.

Underpinned by a foundation of graphic design, the Bachelor of Design gives you fundamental skills and knowledge in the exciting and constantly changing area of visual communication.

The Creative Industries component 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.

The program is designed for those who wish to pursue a creative practice while gaining the business and legal acumen to become a successful part of the creative economy on their own terms.

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.

By connecting creative writing practice to ideas and creative work from the arts and sciences, the Master of Arts in Literature and Creative Writing offers you the opportunity to think across creative, critical and disciplinary categories, and to produce either works of scholarship or creative writing (or related creative work that crosses into other areas including music, art, performance and film).

The Writing and Research Centre at Western Sydney University offers a challenging, rigorous programwork and project-based Master’s degree, combining criticism and creative work and leading to a Master of Arts in Literature and Creative Writing.

The centre is unique in Australia in the way it combines scholarship, authorship and expertise in publishing. The centre includes some of Australia’s most celebrated writers (such as the novelists Gail Jones and Alexis Wright) and widely published literary scholars and critics with international reputations (such as Ivor Indyk, Hazel Smith, Chris Andrews, and Anthony Uhlmann).

Western Sydney University is ranked above world standard in both the study of literature and creative arts practice. The centre houses the highly decorated literary press Giramondo Publishing, and the pre-eminent literary review site in Australia, The Sydney Review of Books.

With outstanding resources, the University is able to offer multifaceted understanding of literature and writing. Hazel Smith is a world leader in the field of practice-led research and research-led practice, and this carries with it our philosophy of deepening the understanding of both critical and creative practice by linking critical and creative thinking.

In short, the centre is one of the best places in Australia to either become a writer or to think in a critical and scholarly way about writing.

Take the lead in a critical area of needed skills. Our Master of Health Science degree offers you the opportunity to lead in the fields of Health Services Management, Occupational Health and Safety or Digital Health.

The degree is specifically designed to prepare new, aspiring, and middle tier health service practitioners, planners, and managers to lead in the strategic and operational management of a wide range of health services and facilities.

Digital Health

The Digital Health specialisation combines the opportunity to study contemporary issues associated with information management in healthcare organisations with the integration of a sound understanding of the impact of digital health, as well as the development and implementation of projects and programs relating to this growing and critical area in both organisations and professional practice. The specialisation would be of interest to clinicians, health management and science (information engineering) professionals, and personnel working in health corporate roles with responsibilities in health data and information. Students in this specialisation can further focus their studies in aspects of innovation and entrepreneurship, and research and development in the digital health space. You will also gain experience with the development and implementation of projects and programs relating to these growing and critical areas in organisations and professional practice.

Get ready for a journey of discovery when you study Science at Western. Develop the skills you need to investigate a wide range of scientific disciplines from astronomy to zoology. Help create a sustainable future in all businesses and industries.

Pick which subjects suit your career goals. Open up to a world of unlimited opportunities in astrophysics, conservation biology, drug design and pharmaceuticals, environmental health, food formulation, forensics, biomedical and biophysical research, hospital or pathology labs,  plant science and horticulture, and wildlife management. 

Animal Science

Interactions between people and animals are increasing due to our reliance on animals for companionship and food production. This major will enable you to develop a deep understanding of these issues, through studies of animal behaviour, animal health and welfare, animal nutrition, animal production, animal reproduction, and human-animal interactions. You will have access to diverse on-campus animal facilities including reptiles, native mammals, sheep, cattle and deer and off-campus organisations such as wildlife parks, zoos and farms.

A variety of exciting career paths are available to graduates of this program, including international opportunities in the many fields of animal science. Graduates of this degree can look forward to career opportunities as an animal welfare officer, life scientist, quarantine officer, animal journalist or can progress into pursuing a research career, teaching career or working in government and related industries.

This combined degree offers you a unique opportunity to gain the creative and business skills necessary to prosper in the contemporary innovation landscape.

Underpinned by a foundation of graphic design, the Bachelor of Design gives you fundamental skills and knowledge in the exciting and constantly changing area of visual communication.

The Creative Industries component 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.

The program is designed for those who wish to pursue a creative practice while gaining the business and legal acumen to become a successful part of the creative economy on their own terms.

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.