It is a general belief among parents that if their kids major in sociology, they’ll have a hard time finding a job. To be honest, this is kind of true.
Many choose sociology because they find it more interesting than other social science or humanities courses, disregarding its viability in the job market. However, even if we set aside the issue of post-graduation employment, sociology doesn’t really do much to raise the critical thinking skills of the vast majority of students from Asia.
In this post, we will review:
1. What is sociology?
2. What do undergraduate sociology majors study?
3. What kind of students are truly suitable for studying sociology?
4. What can you do after completing a degree in sociology?
1. What is sociology?
Sociology originated in the 18th century, when a French philosopher named Auguste Comte proposed a discipline dedicated to finding solutions for social issues. What we call sociology today, though, is much broader, referring to all research done on the impact of human actions on society.
Human behavior is incredibly diverse. Likewise, the study of society is an extremely broad concept, encompassing global politics, economics, culture, gender and race. So, sociology is the broadest social science disciplines, and it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what it studies because it covers such a wide range of topics.
Here are some common research topics in sociology, in order to illustrate its breadth:
Social class
Gender
Race
Economic inequality
Education
Immigration
Economic power
Crime
Labor relations
Technological development
Healthcare systems
Legal systems
In short, sociology includes any research focused on phenomena or issues in human society that are clearly distinct from psychology, economics, or political science.
2. What do undergraduate sociology majors study?
In both the US and the UK, undergraduate sociology programs consist of two main components: required courses and elective courses.
Required courses typically include introductory sociology and research methods, among others. However, good programs recognize that purely focusing on sociology may hurt students in the job market. Therefore, they have gradually incorporated courses in statistics, data analysis, and even developed interdisciplinary majors.
For example, the University of Edinburgh in the UK offers not only a pure sociology major but also four interdisciplinary majors:
Sociology + Politics
Sociology + Psychology
Sociology + Anthropology
Sociology + Statistics
When applying, students can only choose one of the above major combinations, and their application requirements also vary. For instance, the "Sociology + Psychology" specialization requires applicants to have taken biology in high school, which the others don’t.
As for elective courses, they truly span a wide range of topics, including feminism, refugee issues, addiction phenomena, social crime, intimate relationships, and more. Essentially, all the common research topics in sociology listed earlier have corresponding courses, providing students with a vast selection of topics to study. Here’s the issue: because sociology is so broad, its value in the job market can vary greatly depending on how students choose their courses.
Consider two students: Student A is interested in the topic of "Media and Society" and selects all his elective courses related to this topic. Moreover, thinking about his employment prospects, he also takes several statistics courses. Upon graduation, he not only has a thorough understanding of the media industry, but also possess strong data analysis and research skills, making finding a job relatively easy for him. On the other hand, student B lacks a clear interest in any particular topic. Faced with a myriad of elective courses, he randomly selects courses without a clear direction, avoiding math-heavy courses entirely because he finds them too difficult.
While both students will eventually graduate with a sociology degree, it's evident that student A's degree holds more value in the job market compared to student B, whose degree would be perceived as less rigorous.
3. What kind of students are truly suited to study sociology?
In my experience with students, I’ve noticed a pattern: if their teachers discuss topics like feminism, race, crime, etc. in class, and students find this interesting, they often think that they're suited to study sociology. However, because sociology is particularly broad, students should have a clear research focus and a specific career direction before thinking of majoring in it.
I once had a student who, when applying to universities, not only wanted to study sociology but also narrowed it down to two specific directions: either media studies, or copyright law. Even before entering university, she had already planned out her future: if she focused on media, she would choose elective courses accordingly, aim for internships at magazine companies during university, and base her thesis on the media's impact on society. Her career goal after graduation would be to join a magazine company, aspiring to eventually become an editor-in-chief. If she went in the direction of copyright law, she would go to law school after college, thereafter becoming an intellectual property lawyer.
Only students with such clear interests and career goals can accurately sift through the diverse undergraduate sociology courses, selecting those most relevant to them and preparing themselves for their careers post-graduation. If a student lacks direction and simply selects easy courses in order to pass exams, write theses, and obtain a degree, he might find when hunting for a job that he’s become a "jack of all trades", but master of none.
Therefore, even for students already determined to study sociology, I usually recommend concurrently minoring in statistics. At the very least, having skills in data analysis will make it easier for them to find employment in the future.
4. What can you do after studying sociology?
The most obvious direction for a sociologist major is to pursue an academic path by entering think tanks (national-level research institutes) or becoming a university professor. Of course, these require a Master’s or a PhD.
Outside academia, sociology covers a wide range of fields and offers flexible career directions. For example, students with a background in statistics and data analysis skills can work in market research or join companies specializing in developing social media software, where they can analyze user data. Alternatively, students interested in media can directly enter media-related careers, where they could find jobs at magazines or television stations.
Students interested in feminism and race may consider doing a law degree, and then specializing in these fields. I've even seen students interested in documentary filmmaking who majored in sociology and minored in film production, becoming directors after graduation.
In summary, employment prospects for this major are not limited to academia; graduates can fit into various industries. However, the question remains whether students have developed sufficient competitiveness in the job market after four years of study. Therefore, I've always emphasized that sociology demands a lot from students. Only those who are proactive and able to take advantage of all the resources a university has to offer can successfully find meaningful employment.
To sum up, compared to other majors, sociology's most distinctive feature is its broadness, challenging students intellectually during their studies, but disconnected them from the job market upon graduation.
Only students with real intellectual curiosity about social phenomena, who keep up with the news daily, who enjoy conversing with people of different ages and fields, and who have a clear career goal after graduation, are truly suited for studying sociology.
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