Guidebooks

A resource for Arts & Sciences students, the guidebook focuses on policies, the majors, experiential education, the core curriculum and major requirements. Copies are available in the dean's office, or as PDFs, below.

Sociology
Department's Website

Sociology examines the social aspect of everything human beings do in the spheres of politics, economics, culture and scientific investigation. In the process, it develops theories of the social structural conditions of individual and group activity and models of cooperation. Students can choose to emphasize any of these areas, while also studying the many subfields within sociology itself, including sex roles and the family, work and leisure, race and ethnicity, multicultural realities, the news media, popular culture, urban problems, organizations and administration, law and criminality, the development and effects of new technologies, human services, education, and population and social change. Most of these subfields study different societies, including the United States, so that students acquire a multicultural and comparative perspective on social life.

Some graduates in sociology plan to teach in high school or college, while others go on to law, professional school or other careers. At the entry level, sociology graduates can qualify for jobs in most areas that require some knowledge of the effects of social structure on human behavior, but that do not require more technical knowledge than that covered in the methodology courses. Some of the typical areas open to sociology graduates are:

* human services and related health careers (e.g., work with the aging)
* business administration, organizational development, personnel, sales, business services
* federal and state government
* criminal justice
* consulting, lobbying, citizen advocacy
* education and educational services

Students should contact their sociology advisor for sample “specimen program” guidelines.