Bachelor of Social Science in Geography and Urban Studies

at Western Sydney University - Parramatta South Campus Australia

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.

With a Bachelor of Social Science from Western, you will have the ability to help shape the world we live in. This degree expands your knowledge through theory, research and practical application and offers you a deep understanding of our complex, culturally diverse and dynamic world. You will gain access to industry-based projects and placements, local and international work experience and build the practical skills that will get you ready to apply your knowledge to the workforce.

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.

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.

Journalism

The Journalism major combines an understanding of how the news media work with practical experience in broadcast, print and online journalism. Students develop journalism skills suitable for newspapers, magazines, internet, radio and TV, corporate and community media.

If you want to explore how the mind works, question why people behave the way they do and help others lead their best lives, this degree is the ideal choice. Western’s Bachelor of Psychology (Honours) will pave the way for a range of career options, including further study required to become a psychologist.

Psychology at Western combines evidence-based biological, cognitive, neurological, social, developmental, and personality theory with statistical expertise and practical experience.This program is strongly vocational, equipping you with the specialist psychological and research skills you will need to discover more about human behaviour and answer questions about things we don’t yet understand.

As part of your four-year degree, you will be taught by some of the most respected experts in the field and gain the opportunity to undertake local and international work placements.Additional study is needed to become a practising psychologist. This program gives you a thorough grounding in psychology and the academic degrees to take your ambition to the next level.

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.

 Indigenous Australian Studies

What does it mean to live in Indigenous Australia? The Indigenous Australian Studies major offers you the exciting opportunity to acquire key cultural competencies that will enable you to understand and work more effectively with Indigenous Australians in professions such as the arts, communications, media, 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.

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.

Peace and Development Studies

The Peace and Development Studies major is concerned with inequalities of power and opportunity that lead to international and local conflict, uneven development, social dislocation and environmental degradation. This major examines the structural causes of racist and gendered violence, environmental crises, forced migration, poverty, resource conflict, and inter-generational inequity.

You will be introduced to theories and methods for identifying, measuring and resolving conflict and environmental degradation. Constructive solutions include empowerment and self-determination, sustainable living, peace building and conflict resolution strategies.

The major is organised around three fields of inquiry: structural inequality, social justice and human rights; development and sustainability; and peace and humanitarian responses/ actions.

This is a double degree program that targets the wide application of information technology in Business providing a well rounded education in two disciplines.

Sport Management

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

This double degree offers a highly valued career path in criminology and law. The Bachelor of Criminology degree offers students the opportunity to study crime and criminal justice in both a conceptual and an applied way that particularly stresses social and cultural definitions of criminality and the reactions to 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.

Areas of focus in the Bachelor of Criminology 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, and cultural depictions of crime and contemporary debates in criminology. The degree addresses the criminalisation of disadvantage through race, class, disability and gender, with a focus on the nexus between social and criminal justice. This will equip students with the specialist skills and knowledge that a new graduate would need on entering the workforce or on proceeding to advanced study.

The Bachelor of Laws provides students with a broad progressive legal education with a strong practical orientation to the law. Students develop skills in problem-solving, critical thinking, research, communication, collaboration, self-management, and ethical and professional awareness and judgement. Students will also develop skills in legal advocacy, negotiation, and legal technology and extend their professional and learning experiences through work integrated learning, clinical placement and international exchange engagements.

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.

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.

Advertising

The Advertising major gives students a thorough grounding in general principles of communication as well as practical skills in advertising. The external major can be completed by students enrolled in the Bachelor of Business.

The major offers a balance of advertising theory and practice and focuses on real, project-based outcomes. Areas of study include advertising strategy, advertising creative and art direction, client and account management, digital and social media contexts, advertising campaigns.