USC College Department of Sociology
 
Undergraduate Programs

The Department of Sociology offers a departmental major. The greater Los Angeles area provides a natural laboratory for studying such sociological themes as race relations, work and the workplace, the family in a changing society, population trends, and crime. Some of the undergraduate courses involve field research in the urban environment. The department also offers a Minor in Sociology to students majoring in other disciplines.

Undergraduate Degrees

Major Requirements for the Bachelor of Arts in Sociology

Nine sociology courses to include: SOCI 313, SOCI 314, and SOCI 370 (and may include one lower-division course,SOCI 200m). The elective upper-division Sociology courses are grouped into four theme areas:

Theme Area I: Deviance

  • SOCI 350
  • SOCI 351
  • SOCI 353

Theme Area II: Social Inequality

  • SOCI 342m
  • SOCI 355m
  • SOCI 356m
  • SOCI 360m
  • SOCI 364m
  • SOCI 366m
  • SOCI 376m
  • SOCI 386m (enroll in SWMS 385m)
  • SOCI 435m
  • SOCI 437m
  • SOCI 455m;

Theme Area III: Social Organization

  • AMST 357m (enroll in AMST 357m)
  • SOCI 315
  • SOCI 331
  • SOCI 340
  • SOCI 345
  • SOCI 375m
  • SOCI 382 (enroll in JS 382)
  • SOCI 422
  • SOCI 430m
  • SOCI 445
  • SOCI 470
  • SOCI 475

Theme Area IV: Population and Family Studies, consisting of

  • SOCI 303
  • SOCI 305m
  • SOCI 320
  • SOCI 335
  • SOCI 369
  • SOCI 385
  • SOCI 425
  • SOCI 460.

Students must choose their Sociology electives from a minimum of two theme areas.

Sociology Minor Requirements

The department offers four emphases within the Minor in Sociology. There are no prerequisites before adding the minor.

Students choosing the General emphasis will take four upper-division Sociology courses (16 units), one course from each of the theme areas. See Major Requirements for the theme areas.
Those pursuing the Health and Social Welfare emphasis will take three upper-division courses from the following cluster: SOCI: 305m Sociology of Childhood; SOCI 360m Social Inequality: Class, Status and Power; SOCI 369: Family in a Changing Society; and SOCI 475: Medical Sociology, plus one other upper-division course from any other theme area.
Students selecting the Industrial Relations and Human Resources emphasis will complete three courses from the following cluster: SOCI 340: Organizations: Bureaucracy and Alternatives to Bureaucracy; SOCI 342m: Race Relations; SOCI 360m: Social Inequality: Class, Status and Power; SOCI 430m: Work and the Workplace, plus one other course from any theme area other than Social Organization.
Students in the Deviant Behavior and the Law emphasis take three courses from the following cluster: SOCI 350: Deviant Behavior; SOCI 351: Sociology of Juvenile Delinquency and the Juvenile Justice System; SOCI 353: Sociology of Crime and of the Criminal Justice System; and SOCI 360m: Social Inequality: Class, Status and Power, plus one other upper-division course from any theme area other than Deviance.
See an undergraduate advisor for further details on requirements for the minor.

Interdisciplinary Minors

Law and Society (see Political Science).
Children and Families in Urban America (see Social Work).
Education in a Pluralistic Society (see Education).
Bioethics (see Bioethics).
American Studies, Asian American Studies, Chicano-Latino Studies (see American Studies and Ethnicity).
Forensics and Criminality (contact Viannda Hawkins)
Race, Ethnicity and Politics (see Political Science)