Social Inquiry (1 Viewer)

[hYperTrOphY]

Can anyone who is doing a B of Arts in Communication (Social Inquiry) tell me what they think of it so far, and some of the pros and cons of the course?

I'm still trying to decide what it is that I will combine law with. At the moment I'm tossing up between Social Inquiry (UTS), Journalism (UTS) or Criminology (UWS).

 

[Jinglebell]

I'm in 2nd year Social Inquiry, and I'm really enjoying it. But I have to stress that it's not a course for everyone (quite a few people transferred after first year to other Communications degrees). The biggest thing to consider is that Social Inquiry is not directed towards a career. There's a whole lot of really good, really interesting jobs you can get into (especially combining with law), but unless you're really interested in becoming a social researcher or similar, there's no real career path mapped out for you through the subjects you do.

BIggest question people ask: "What Is Social Inquiry?"...Basically after first year (and one compulsory research subject in 2nd year) you can choose to either take a research direction or a plotics direction - I'm doing mainly politics subjects which is what I'm really interested in and because I want to eventually do some policy work. In 3rd year (or 4th I think for combined law) you get to do a placement subject - either parliamentary (very competitive for <10 spots), professional or an applied research project. So there's a great opportunity there to make contacts in the job market and test out exactly where SI can take you. But again, the options are hugely broadened by having a law degree also. Personally I'm thinking of studying law part-time after I graduate and find a job, and I know a couple of others looking at that option too.

So what don't people like about the course? If you need a lot of direction and structure, probably not the best idea. I like to say that the only people who stick with a straight SI degree are those completely comfortable with having no idea what they're going to do after graduation, everyone else gets scared and transfers.

In terms of your other options, Ash will have more to say than me about journo, but like SI you kinda have to be really sure about it in order to enjoy it. I think this is common to all the strands of communications at UTS, because they each cater to a very specific type of student, so a lot of people who aren't 100% into it end up completely hating it. Criminology, well that's something completely different altogether, and you just have to decide what sort of thing you think you really want to spend the next 5 years or whatever studying!

...Well that ended up being fairly epic, but I hope it's of some use to you...any specific qustions feel free to ask and I'd be happy to help you out

 

[my sharona]

I see it as a very 'waffle' course.

The first semester is based on deconstructing social constructs, figuring out various ways why gender, time, space etc don't exist. It was fun, but it lacked direction and seemed quite conspiracy theory-ish to me.

Second semester is a lot more concentrated on methods of study, and while it has more direction, it is really quite tedious and i'm really not liking the career options that are being presented to me - social researcher, policy researcher, other jobs involving surveys, statistics and whatnot.

I'm not sure i answered the question properly, but i'll add more if i think of it.

 

[braindrainedAsh]

With journalism, I would only study it if you think you want to be a journalist. From second year it's very vocationally focused. You have electives, but you have to do journalism production subjects and if you don't want to be a journalist it will be somewhat useless. Only pick journalism if you think you want to be a journalist, otherwise pick one of the broader type degrees, or an arts degree at usyd or something, because the UTS degree is very vocationally focused.

If you want to learn the art of journalism however UTS journalism is the place to come. It's very hands on, you produce a lot of journalism work and there are lots of opportunities to get involved.

I think you need to sit down and think really hard about what career path you would like to see yourself in down the track. I was just like you, with heaps of broad ideas about what I wanted to study (and I still have them to some degree), except for me it was deciding between the arts and health sciences like pharmacy. In the end, I sat down and thought hard about it.... could I see myself enjoying working as a pharmacist or speech pathologist... yes I thought I could, especially if I owned my own business, but did it conjure up a real fire in my belly like the thought of pursuing a career in journalism? No.... so I made my decision and I haven't regretted it since. It's hard though, I know.

But if you have any specific questions fire away, Jane and I are always happy to answer them.

 

[Jinglebell]

I see it as a very 'waffle' course.

The first semester is based on deconstructing social constructs, figuring out various ways why gender, time, space etc don't exist. It was fun, but it lacked direction and seemed quite conspiracy theory-ish to me.

Second semester is a lot more concentrated on methods of study, and while it has more direction, it is really quite tedious and i'm really not liking the career options that are being presented to me - social researcher, policy researcher, other jobs involving surveys, statistics and whatnot.

I'm not sure i answered the question properly, but i'll add more if i think of it.

I'm the first to admit that first year is incredibly poorly designed (and I think my year made ourselves quite clear on that to a number of tutors on a number of occasions). And it's very research-oriented, which angered me greatly, but once you get the compulsory crap out of the way they'll stop trying to make you become a social researcher and just let you study what you signed up for

I guess if you like the 2nd and 3rd year options, then it's worth putting up with the compulsory subjects, but if you don't have that light at the end of the tunnel maybe not

 

[hYperTrOphY]

Thanks for the info/advice, much appreciated!

I would like to either practice law or possibly work as an agent for the AFP, hence why I want to Criminology. Therefore, my ideal course would most likley be SocSci (Crim) / LLB. However, I still a bit worried about doing law at UWS, since so many people suggest that if I can get into another uni, I should go there.
Unfortunately, UTS doesn't do Criminology, so if I was to go there I would have to do something else instead.

Social Inquiry looks as though it could be okay, especially as a combined study with law, but even by looking at the topics it's hard to say whether I would like it or not.

It wouldn't be probable that I'd choose journalism due to the fact that it is so vocationally based, but hadn't discounted it just yet. Journalism is something that I used to be interested in, but it doesn't really excite me much anymore..

 

[fleepbasding]

Thanks for the info/advice, much appreciated!

I would like to either practice law or possibly work as an agent for the AFP, hence why I want to Criminology. Therefore, my ideal course would most likley be SocSci (Crim) / LLB. However, I still a bit worried about doing law at UWS, since so many people suggest that if I can get into another uni, I should go there.
Unfortunately, UTS doesn't do Criminology, so if I was to go there I would have to do something else instead.

Social Inquiry looks as though it could be okay, especially as a combined study with law, but even by looking at the topics it's hard to say whether I would like it or not.

It wouldn't be probable that I'd choose journalism due to the fact that it is so vocationally based, but hadn't discounted it just yet. Journalism is something that I used to be interested in, but it doesn't really excite me much anymore..

same, a couple of months I got really into the idea of journalism but that has kind of passed now. I just want to do a B Arts at heart!

 

[braindrainedAsh]

Yeah UTS communications degrees are quite vocationally focused and don't have the broad range of subjects you can pick from in arts degrees at other unis. Also cos you combine with law you don't get many electives... there are some elective subjects that are apparently good, like political theory, australian history and politics, genocide studies, psychology and the like. Also you can sometimes do your electives at a different uni if you can be bothered to organize it all.

It all depends on what you want.

 

[charlie_charlie]

At the moment, I'm doing combined social inquiry and law in first yr, and you sound a bit like how i was last year in the sense that i knew i wanted to do law (and combine it with something); something people-related and interesting. having said that, i guess what frustrated me about first semester of uni was that it was only arts subjects (no law until 2nd semester) and how it was all compulsory (so you can't choose your subjects like in other arts degrees)- so i completely detested contemporary cultures; would have never chosen it if i had the choice. I'm not too sure what a criminology degree entails, but from what i have picked up (with comes from about 2 conversations with people i know vaguely), is that criminology at unsw, for example, lets you pick and choose from a range of subjects...like political studies, psychology...basically, looks like a BA/Social Science degree, majoring in criminology stuff too. What i dislike about social inquiry personally is that the courses at UTS are generally aimed at getting you a job by the end of your degree - so if you're doing a law degree, which will provide you with more employer-friendly skills, and you're just doing arts with the intention of pure interest - that's not what the uni has in mind. even though, as Jinglebell said, not many people can see the job possibilites with social inquiry, UTS seems to aim to try and fill you up with vocational, practical subjects - ie social research-y type subjects. And since a lot of your electives are taken up with your law subjects, you won't get the broad variety of choice for pure interest subjects, which is what i'm angry with atm, since personally i just want to study history and political type arts with law, since i think i want to head into law into the future. check out the online handbook for the number of electives you get...but its definitely less than the straight social inquirers.

don't get me wrong, social inquiry and law can be a fantastic course if that's what you want. but if you want the general interest-y stuff from a regular BA with the LLB, I'd probably recommend USyd or UNSW or Macq or UWS (even though I'm not too sure about the range of subjects and course structure in the last 2 unis). Having said that however, if you look into social inquiry and like how its structured and the info offered, I have to say, and just looking at the law side -the law faculty at UTS is really, really good (well, as much as i can judge without having gone to other unis). Currently, all my complaints with my course is with the humanities side, not the law side. But that's mainly cos I want to do waffly, history and political and some other random subjects in my arts degree, as opposed to social research-y type stuff.

hoped that helped. feel free to pm me if you have more qs.

 

[hYperTrOphY]

Thanks a lot for the replies!

Autumn semester

Communication and Information Environments
Contemporary Cultures 1
Power and Change in Australia
Introduction to Social Inquiry

--> I don't like the look of that!! No law, and these subjects (excluding Power and Change in Aus) don't appear to be very interesting.

Overall, the whole first year of this course seems very dull and boring.

From 3rd year onwards, the social inquiry course seems to get better, but I'm still not sure...

 

[braindrainedAsh]

CIE absolutely sucks. PCA was tolerable, and so was CC1. Think about the first semester as a holiday from having to work hard.... plus it gets you used to the whole uni scene. Once you get further on in the course you kind of start to understand why you had to do those compulsory subjects, and I think every UTS communications student will tell you that the course gets better as you go along and specialize in your professional strand more and more.

Except apparently they are no longer pass/fail grading first year now. Just a rumour I've heard.

But yeah, you need to decide whether this is the best course out there for where you want to head in life. A straight arts degree with law does give you more options at some other unis.

 

[my sharona]

I actually really enjoyed Power and Change.
CC2 was so artsy, i couldn't handle it. I kept writing essays and they kept encouraging me to do different things.
I stopped going to CIE lectures because they were so long and tedious. Although i think MIS (the follow-on to CIE) is really interesting and thought provoking, except for some joke weeks (e.g. postmodernism)

I think i have a thing for Marx

I don't know about the other subjects being graded, but i wouldn't be surprised... Social Inquiry is a graded subject, but its pretty easy so i wouldn't worry about failing unless you don't hand in assessments.

 

[hYperTrOphY]

How different/similar do you think UNSW Social Science - majoring in something like sociology and anthropology - would be to UTS Social Inquiry?

I've looked at their website, but its difficult to really understand the course content and whether you'd enjoy it from a few sentences.

 

[charlie_charlie]

Social Inquiry core subjects can be frustrating though, they are basically a mixture of social theory and social research methods,like this semester's subject of Theory and method. Basically, this semester we're being introduced to how to undertake Research methods, and our major assignment is to write out a research proposal. Whether this is what other unis do, I have no idea...I do know that the Social Inquiry course seems quite different to a sociology major at Usyd, from the conversations I've had with my friends doing sociology subjects; seems to be more theory based there. I'm not too sure about the higher level sociology subjects though.

But anthropology is not really taught at UTS though, and again, talking to a friend doing antrho at Usyd, seems quite different. But i'm quite unclear about social science at other unis.

 

[my sharona]

How different/similar do you think UNSW Social Science - majoring in something like sociology and anthropology - would be to UTS Social Inquiry?

I've looked at their website, but its difficult to really understand the course content and whether you'd enjoy it from a few sentences.

I don't know for sure, but my impression is that Social Inquiry is designed to reserach and report on findings in society (think the census, political polls, etc.), while Social Work is more based on providing / improving existing conditions of disadvantaged groups...

 

[braindrainedAsh]

I think that the UTS course would be more vocationally based compared to those subjects at UNSW, that is the case with most of our communications degrees. So you would probably learn the content and information at UNSW but at UTS you would focus more on how to apply the knowledge to life/a job etc. I'm not totally sure though. One thing that is good is to check out the course handbook entries on some of the subjects that make up the degree. In the UTS online handbook it even has examples of what types of assignments are set for particular subjects so that might help give you more of an idea.

 

[hYperTrOphY]

I think that the UTS course would be more vocationally based compared to those subjects at UNSW, that is the case with most of our communications degrees. So you would probably learn the content and information at UNSW but at UTS you would focus more on how to apply the knowledge to life/a job etc. I'm not totally sure though. One thing that is good is to check out the course handbook entries on some of the subjects that make up the degree. In the UTS online handbook it even has examples of what types of assignments are set for particular subjects so that might help give you more of an idea.

I have been going through the 'detailed' version of the handbook to look at the assessments and descriptions. The course doesn't look too bad, although there are still a few concerns.

In year 3,you have to select one of the following:
50138 Community, Culture and the Social 8cp
50139 Political Theory 8cp
50140 Comparative Social Change 8cp
50141 Australian History and Politics 8cp

However, does anyone know what the difference is between this Political Theory and that done in 2nd year?

 

[Jinglebell]

Are you sure you read that right? That's the 200-level disciplinary choiceblock. In my degree plan (granted it's from 2004, but should be the same) that's there for 2nd year. However, in 3rd year you get to choose an option from *any* disciplinary subject, maybe they just messed that up somehow. But there's only one political theory subject (even though there should be more).

Are you reading the online handbook? Put up a link and I'll check it out

 

[hYperTrOphY]

http://www.handbook.uts.edu.au/law/ug/c10134.html#F22

 

[moffie_bottom]

I think that the UTS course would be more vocationally based compared to those subjects at UNSW, that is the case with most of our communications degrees. So you would probably learn the content and information at UNSW but at UTS you would focus more on how to apply the knowledge to life/a job etc. I'm not totally sure though. One thing that is good is to check out the course handbook entries on some of the subjects that make up the degree. In the UTS online handbook it even has examples of what types of assignments are set for particular subjects so that might help give you more of an idea.

Hi

I see that you do Communications (Journalism) at UTS...I know this thread is for Social Inquiry, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to ask you about the Journalism course.

What are the best/worst things about the course, in your opinion? What made you choose UTS for communications, over other universities? And lastly - do you know much about combining Journalism with International Studies?

Thanks