39.03.01 BA in SOCIOLOGY

Specialisation: Sociology of Communication
Study Mode: Full time
Duration: 4 academic years (240 ECTS)
Entry Criteria: Russian Certificate of Complete Secondary Education (or equivalent), with school-leaving Unified State Examination results in Social Science, Foreign Language, Mathematics, and Russian

Do you want to understand how contemporary societies work? Are you intrigued by the subtleties of human behaviour? Do you want to combine the challenge of exploring Sociology with studying at least two foreign languages? If so, then our university has an attractive option for you.

Programme Overview
Our 4-year Bachelor programme is designed to help you develop an understanding of the contemporary world, human behaviour and the forces that shape society. The Program focuses on the development of your practical and analytical skills in addressing contemporary sociological problems. You will explore social, political, economic and cultural issues and cover a diverse range of topics, including the class system and social inequality, globalisation, family life, gender, health and disability, etc. Uniquely, this programme allows you to combine your study of sociology with learning two foreign languages (English + one of the following: German, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish). At the end of your studies you will give a viva presentation of your graduation research paper (Bachelor’s Thesis).

What You Will Study

• Psycholinguistic expert system Vaal(R) (analysis of the phonosemantic impact of texts, content analysis)
• PaloMARS (analysis of the structure and behavior of a television audience)
• SuperNova (analysis of the structure and behavior of the radio audience)
• Galileo (media, marketing analysis and media planning)
• IStar (online analysis of Internet audience indicators)
• Atelier Internet II (analysis of audience indicators and planning of advertising campaigns on the Internet)

Course structure

Year 1
The first year focuses on developing your competence in Classical Sociology: you will get a solid grounding in the fundamental concepts that you will be using throughout your degree studies. You are also offered a number of other courses, such as Fundamental Sociology, Philosophy, Logic, Pedagogy and Psychology, Psycholinguistics, Sociolinguistics, etc. In addition, you will develop your competence in your FL1, laying the foundation of FL2 (from the second semester) and refining your command of Russian.

Year 2
In the second year, you will develop your knowledge of such disciplines as History of Sociology, Mathematics in Social Research, Social Psychology, Information Technologies in Social Sciences, Statistical Theory, etc. These subjects are combined with intensive training in the two foreign languages.

Year 3
During the third year, you will enhance your sociological research skills, have a course of Methodology of Social Research, Sociology of Marketing and continue to develop skills in spoken and written languages (FL1/ FL2). You will also be offered a choice of optional courses covering various aspects of Sociology, including Political Sociology, Sociology of International Relations, Statistics in Sociology, etc. The second semester is a time of your first four-week work placement period.

Year 4
In the fourth year, you will extend your studies further into specialist areas of sociology, including Sociology of Communications, Labour and Economic Sociology. The Sociology of Institutions and Organisations course is a valuable addition to the curriculum, as is Sociology of Management. You will be allowed four weeks to complete your Bachelor’s Thesis.

Careers

Upon graduation, you can either continue your studies to get a Master’s Degree or go out to work and apply the skills acquired in a wide range of occupational areas, including social care, public relations and advertising, marketing and human resources, and public administration.