Honours in Critical and Cultural Studies
- Why do Honours?
- Entry Requirement
- What's involved?
- Applying for admission
- Honours Program 2007
- Click here for further Honours Admissions details.
Why do Honours?
"What's wrong with them. Don't they realise the Honours year is the best time they'll have at uni?" - past Honours student
This was one response to our question about why more students don't do Honours. But maybe lots of students don't know what Honours is or what it involves.
Students have many different reasons for taking an extra year after their Bachelors degree to complete Honours.
- you are very interested in the work you've studied in your B.A. program and would like to do more specialist work in some of these areas
- you see the Honours qualification as setting your degree apart from those of other graduates; telling employers you're serious about your work and proving you have independent skills in research, thinking and writing
- you think you might want to go on to postgraduate study in CCS and Honours is the most direct path to a scholarship and to postgraduate work
- you are going to teach or in some other way quite explicitly apply the materials in the CCS program and want to enhance your learning
Honours is a one-year full-time program (two years part-time) in which students are able to follow up their own interests in a long project (dissertation) and do small group work on issues and concepts of major interest in contemporary Critical and Cultural Studies.
It's a more collegial year than any other as classes are small and students get to know each other well. They often work together on the materials covered in the Honours units in informal discussion groups. And students really enjoy the freedom of following up an interest in the major project or dissertation.
Entry Requirements
Proposed entry requirements from 2007 are:
1. students need to have completed 15 credit points in CUL units (of which 8 credit points must be at 300 level) or a recognised coherency in CCS
2. a GPA of at least 3.0 in CUL units
It is also possible to gain entry to the program by special permission from the Department of Critical and Cultural Studies. This should be discussed firstly with the Honours convenor. CCS is keen to admit good students who may have 'bombed out' in some part of their studies but who overall have good prospects of completing an Honours degree successfully. So try us!
What's involved?
Typically an Honours year involves undertaking one compulsory and two elective coursework units (ie three units in total, each worth 20% of the total mark), and a dissertation (worth 40% of the total mark).
The compulsory coursework units introduce issues involved in developing a research project: aims, methodologies, theories, research approaches, writing, presentation, and familiarise students with the historical development of Cultural Studies as a discipline with its own conventions and practices.
The elective units on the other hand, change from year to year depending on student demand and staff availability. Topics previously offered have included theories of desire, multimodality & multimedia, subjectivity, audiences & performance, queer visual culture, whiteness studies.
CCS students have completed dissertations on such topics as bodies, abjection & mutilation, female action heroes, chaos theory & textuality, cyborgs revisited, cinema audiences, photography and race, cyberpunk, religious iconography, body modification, and much more.
The Honours year is intellectually challenging and exciting and also much more sociable than the crowded undergraduate schedule.
Applying for admission
You should apply by the end of October to commence at the beginning of the following year or by the end of May for mid-year.
While later applications are also considered and no late penalty is usually applied, there is no guarantee that late applications will be processed in time for the start of semester.
Click here for further Honours Admissions details.
If you would like to discuss the program further, please contact Honours Convenor Dr Goldie Osuri
Room: W6A/823
Ph: 9850 8606
Email: gosuri@scmp.mq.edu.au