Bachelor of Science / Bachelor of Arts in Geography and Urban Studies (Dual Degree)

at Western Sydney University - Parramatta South Campus Australia

Western offers a specialist Computer Science degrees to equip you with the skills you need to be career-ready by specialising in different applications of computer science and computer systems.

Technology Entrepreneurship

This major aims to develop graduates with sound skills in the discipline of programming. The focus is on programming at the level of system calls to the underlying operating system and many of the units use the industry standard language for systems programming, namely C/C++, as the vehicle of instruction.

There is a strong emphasis on the development of highly efficient and reliable code that can provide support services for higher level application oriented programs, as well as the development of programs suitable for systems administration and management. Practical work utilises the Unix environment. This major is appropriate where a career in systems programming or systems administration is planned, or where the student wishes to develop advanced systems programming skills.

The Graduate Diploma in Health Science provides students with an opportunity to delve deeper into issues relevant to the Australian healthcare system as well as international models of healthcare. It explores the socioeconomic, behavioural, biological and societal determinants of health and disease, providing a sound knowledge in epidemiology and the use of healthcare data for decision-making. It provides an entry point to the Master of Health Science for those who wish to continue on their professional development journey with further studies.

This program includes work integrated learning opportunities that involve using the workplace and community as a site and as a source for learning. Work integrated learning partners include various Local Health Districts, hospitals, aged care providers, and other health service providers found within the community. Two subjects will be focused on work integrated learning, one using workplaces and communities as sources for learning through project-based learning, and the other using the workplace and community as a site for learning.

In addition to three core subjects, you will complete five electives from a wide range of fields of study including, but not limited to, Communicable Diseases, Health Workforce Planning, Building Organisational Capacity in Health Care, and Surveillance and Disaster Planning.

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. 

Economics

The Economics 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. 

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.

Law and Creative Industries

The Law and the Creative Industries major equips you with specialised legal skills and knowledge to support your career in the creative industries in Australia.

In this major you will develop tailored, strategic knowledge to enable you to effectively contribute to business decision making and to appreciate the legal and regulatory challenges within the context of creative and innovative enterprises.

The units in this major focus on the fundamentals of Australian law, critique and analysis of law, contracts, torts, alternative dispute resolution and media law, with the option to also incorporate studies in competition and consumer law, intellectual property and law within the employment context.

The legal and regulatory focus of this major will provide you with specialised knowledge and skills designed to enhance your access to a range of careers within the creative industries sector. 

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.

 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.

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.

Applied Finance

The Applied Finance major equips you with the expert skills to create a career as a finance specialist. In this major you will develop in-depth knowledge of finance with a focus on investment and securities, economics, and banking and finance. The core units in the Bachelor of Business will provide you a foundation of business knowledge and develop your skills in innovation, career planning, and numeracy. The Applied Finance major builds on this knowledge and skills in an applied discipline based context. Finance specialists work in a range of roles within the rapidly growing finance sector. This major fulfils the educational requirements for admission as an Associate (A Fin) of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia (FINSIA) provided the applicant is at least working in the financial services industry. All other students are eligible to apply for Affiliate membership (no postnominals apply).

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.

Criminology

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 in Communications and International Studies encompasses a wide range of subjects including a core program of media studies.

Students in this double degree also have the opportunity to extend their combined studies through a semester studying abroad. In addition, students complete an internship in their Communications Major. The Bachelor of International Studies examines the relationships of societies, cultures, languages and systems of government within the international system. It will develop your capacity to analyse the historical development of relations among nation states and contemporary political, social and cultural issues, such as globalisation, transnationalism and migration.

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. 

Western’s Bachelor of Construction Management (Honours) prepares you for an unlimited career in the building industry. Along with the full suite of theory and practical knowledge that enable to develop a broad-based view of how the construction industry operates, you will gain a strong understanding of construction technology; construction economics; construction law; and construction project management through this degree.

You could also opt to specialise either in ‘quantity surveying’ or ‘building surveying’ by undertaking relevant suite of electives under each specialisation pathways.

With the 1200 hours of industry based experience requirement before graduation, the program is offered with flexible and condensed timetables to enable you to undertake industry cadetships and other work-integrated learning activities.

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.

Entertainmnent Computing

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 major will deal with a comprehensive focus on the technical and theoretical knowledge of design, development and deployment of software applications in the field of Entertainment Computing, including Games Technology and Database Design and Development.