Politics and Sociology
UCAS Code: L380
Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Entry requirements
A level
GCSE/National 4/National 5
Applicants are expected to hold GCSE English and Mathematics at Grade 4/C or above.
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
UCAS Tariff
About this course
During a period of profound and unprecedented political upheaval, a degree in politics and sociology will equip you with the skills necessary to lead and succeed in a changing world.
Combining your politics degree with the study of sociology is a smart choice. Sociology’s role is to analyse the changing nature of our social world. Its relationship with politics is deep and complex.
As well as exploring British and international political structures, our course offers a distinct focus on ‘political action’ across party politics, campaigns and community politics, with a particular focus on sociological perspectives.
Throughout the course, we maintain a critical focus on how political ideas and policies translate into outcomes ‘on the ground’. This includes relating established and emerging theory to issues of contemporary social justice and social policy, whilst studying challenging aspects of the real world such as inequality, violence, unfairness, or injustice.
Politics and sociology graduates have an important range of analytical and organisational skills applicable to many graduate opportunities. Jobs directly related to this degree include Government and Civil Service roles, covering public affairs, consultancy and research. Jobs in the field of marketing, media, public relations, and local government are also popular.
The political landscape is changing as society is evolving. New dynamic relationships are being forged between the left and right, and between localism, nationalism and globalism. There has never been a more exciting time for the joint study of politics and sociology.
Tuition fees
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The Uni
University of Suffolk
School of Social Sciences and Humanities
What students say
We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.
How do students rate their degree experience?
The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Politics
Sorry, no information to show
This is usually because there were too few respondents in the data we receive to be able to provide results about the subject at this university.
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
Sociology
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Social sciences
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
The numbers of people taking politics degrees fell sharply last year and we'll keep an eye on this one - it can't really be because of graduates getting poor outcomes as politics grads do about as well as graduates on average. Most politics or international relations graduates don't actually go into politics - although many do, as activists, fundraisers and researchers. Jobs in local and central government are also important. Other popular jobs include marketing and PR, youth and community work, finance roles, HR and academic research (you usually need a postgraduate degree to get into research). Because so many graduates get jobs in the civil service, a lot of graduates find themselves in London after graduating. Politics is a very popular postgraduate subject, and so about one in five politics graduates go on to take another course - usually a one-year Masters - after they finish their degrees.
Sociology
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
We have quite a lot of sociology graduates, although numbers fell last year. But graduates still do pretty well. Most sociology graduates go straight into work when they complete their degrees, and a lot of graduates go into jobs in social professions such as recruitment, education, community and youth work, and housing. An important option for a sociology graduate is social work - and we're short of people willing to take this challenging but rewarding career. Sociology is a flexible degree and you can find graduates from the subject in pretty much every reasonable job — obviously, you don't find many doctors or engineers, but you do find them in finance, the media, healthcare, marketing and even IT. Sociology graduates taking further study often branch out into other qualifications, like teaching, law, psychology, HR and even maths, so don’t think a sociology degree restricts you to just one set of options.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Sorry, no information to show
This is usually because there were too few respondents in the data we receive to be able to provide results about the subject at this university.
Sociology, social policy and anthropology
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£15k
£18k
£19k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
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Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF):
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This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).
This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.
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This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).
You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.
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Post-six month graduation stats:
This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.
It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.
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Graduate field commentary:
The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show
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The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
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