Goldsmiths, University of London
UCAS Code: L301 | Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Entry requirements
A level
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About this course
This degree programme introduces you to sociological ways of thinking about the world around you and will give you the resources to think critically and creatively about a wide range of contemporary social issues.
**Why study BA Sociology (with Integrated Foundation Year) at Goldsmiths**
- Sociology at Goldsmiths is internationally renowned for its inventive and imaginative approach to studying Sociology
- If you do not have the required qualifications for degree-level study, our BA Sociology (with Integrated Foundation Year) offers an alternative entry route.
- The Foundation Year is closely aligned with our undergraduate programmes, teaching you a foundational knowledge of the subject and helping you develop the necessary academic skills. You will select the undergraduate degree you wish to study at the point of application but are able to change as you progress through the foundation pathway if your interests change
- Learn about different sociological theories including life course sociology, cultural sociology, and material culture. An understanding of these theories will leave you well-placed to continue on to our sociology degree programmes
- You’ll study contemporary local and global events to explore diverse issues, such as:
how social inequalities operate and how they might be overcome
how concepts of citizenship and human rights are contested
how social and technological practices impact health
how historical processes such as colonialism continue to shape today’s societies
how the climate crisis requires us to develop new ways of thinking and acting.
- Discover how history, gender, race, and class shape our lives
- We help you to discover the type of sociologist you want to be. You’ll ‘get messy’ with hands-on research methods modules after your Foundation Year. In your final year, you’ll design and carry out your own research project based on your own interests. Recent projects ranged from Social Influencers as Digital Capitalists, to Conventional Beauty Standards and Black Women’s Hair Practices.
- After successfully passing your Foundation Year, you'll tailor your journey from your Year 1 by choosing from a wide range of option modules. Our options are grouped together under three research-led pathways meaning you'll be working directly with experts on Culture, Identity & Inequalities; Law, Rights & Justice; and Health Environment & Global Change. You'll also have the opportunity to do a work placement and to take a module in another department
- Learn directly from experts in small cohorts, so you won't just be a face in the crowd
- Our staff are specialists and pioneers in their fields. They write the books that are on reading lists across the country, and you’ll be working with them directly
- Gain both subject-specific and transferable skills to prepare for undergraduate study and to enhance your career prospects
- Have the chance to continue your learning off-campus through possible visits to museums, archives or other cultural organisations to enrich your studies in the classroom
- Join our Sociology Society to be part of a forward-thinking community of students, and get involved in the academic life of the College by attending talks, events and film screenings
- Develop your academic skills by learning how to effectively communicate information, arguments, and analysis in written form. You will learn how to successfully deploy techniques such as source evaluation, critical judgment and referencing
Modules
Year 0 Foundation Year
Alongside direct preparation for an undergraduate degree in Sociology, you will take two modules with our Centre for Academic Language and Literacies (CALL). These modules will help you develop the broader academic and research skills required for undergraduate study.
Reading and Writing Your World
Building Your Research World
Culture and Society in Postwar Britain
Our Lives through Objects
Empires, Nations and Lines on the Map: Postcolonial Perspectives on Global History
Year 1
You'll be assigned a personal tutor, who also acts as an academic tutor. Tutors oversee your academic work and progress over the year.
You'll take the following compulsory modules.
Methods of Worldmaking 1
Modern Knowledge, Modern Power
Critical Readings: the Emergence of the Sociological Imagination 1A
Culture and Society
Optional modules
You'll also take two of the following optional modules.
Critical Readings: the Emergence of the Sociological Imagination 1B
Culture and Society B
Imaginative Criminology
Year 2
You will take the following compulsory modules:
Methods of Worldmaking 2
Philosophy and Methodology of the Social Sciences
Governing Everyday Life
The Goldsmiths Elective
Optional modules
You also choose 3 Sociology options. Those recently available have included:
Law and Contemporary Society
Religion, Crime, and Law
Crimes Against Humanity
The Making of the Modern World
Explaining Crime
Criminal Justice in Context
Social Change and Political Action
Leisure, Culture and Society
London
Sociology of Culture and Communication
Central Issues in Sociological Analysis
Culture, Representation and Difference
Art and Society
Migration in Context
The Sociology of Intimacy and Personal Life
Food and Taste
Disability: Power, Embodiment and ‘Normality’
Knowledge and Subjectivity
Rationality and Its Discontents: Culture, Politics and Philosophy
Gender, ‘Race’ and Crime
Explaining Crime
Sociology of Infection
Year 3
You will take the following compulsory modules:
Dissertation
Confronting climate crisis
Optional modules
You'll then take 5 optional modules, which can include a Sociology Work Placement (if not taken in year 2).
Optional modules change on an annual basis, and recent options have included:
Citizenship and Human Rights
Race, Racism and Social Theory
Globalisation, Crime and Justice
Crimes of the Powerful
Privacy, Surveillance and Security
Identity and Contemporary Social Theory
Analysing the Complexity of Contemporary Religious Life
Visual Explorations of The Social World
Childhood Matters: Society, Theory and Culture
Thinking Animals
Migration, Gender and Social Reproduction
Global Development and Underdevelopment
Practising Urban Ethnography
Subjectivity, Health and Medicine
Prisons, Punishment and Society
Making Data Matter
Philosophy, Politics and Alterity
Sociologies of Emerging Worlds
Work, Society and Culture
Law, Identity and Ethics
Social Theory Through Film
On Time
Thinking with Others, Philosophy and Cultural Difference
Experiment Earth Sciences Politics Disasters
Please note that due to staff research commitments not all of these modules may be available every year.
Assessment methods
You’ll be assessed by a variety of methods that broaden your academic skillset depending on your module choices . These include coursework assignments such as essays, presentations, critical commentaries, and personal reflections as well as seen examinations.
The Uni
Goldsmiths, University of London
Sociology
What students say
We've crunched the numbers to see if the overall teaching satisfaction score here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.
How do students rate their degree experience?
The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Sociology
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Sociology
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
We have quite a lot of sociology graduates, although numbers fell last year. But graduates still do pretty well. Most sociology graduates go straight into work when they complete their degrees, and a lot of graduates go into jobs in social professions such as recruitment, education, community and youth work, and housing. An important option for a sociology graduate is social work - and we're short of people willing to take this challenging but rewarding career. Sociology is a flexible degree and you can find graduates from the subject in pretty much every reasonable job — obviously, you don't find many doctors or engineers, but you do find them in finance, the media, healthcare, marketing and even IT. Sociology graduates taking further study often branch out into other qualifications, like teaching, law, psychology, HR and even maths, so don’t think a sociology degree restricts you to just one set of options.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Sociology
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£19k
£27k
£28k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
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This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.
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You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.
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Post-six month graduation stats:
This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.
It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.
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Graduate field commentary:
The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show
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The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
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