Today we’re diving into a collection of fields that can be described as dynamic, adaptive, and highly relevant to today’s complex world. These are the social sciences, a broad category of study with two main qualifications: fields that bridge the hard sciences with the Humanities and focus on researching living people and societies. The social sciences possess both a qualitative, humanistic focus borrowed from the Humanities, and a rigorous, quantitative research framework informed by the hard sciences and statistics. As implied by the “social” in its name, all social sciences—in some form or another—seek to study and improve human life for humans living now, and they all engage with human-scale societies and systems.
Social sciences do not merely sit between STEM and the Humanities, the social sciences equip students with broad quantitative, statistical, and qualitative skills. Students who excel in these fields view this synthesis of science and humanism as exciting, rather than challenging. More importantly, these are students who are interested in our human world, the societies that inhabit it, and the powerful forces—both political and economic—which shape it. Students with a penchant for community activism and service, an interest in current events, and a desire to experience diverse places and cultures can all find themselves at home in the social sciences.
Core Fields
Anthropology (including Archaeology): Sometimes described as the “study of culture,” anthropology is an interdisciplinary field that studies human culture, language, biology, and society. Anthropologists approach their research from either a linguistic, cultural, or biological perspective; when anthropologists do this work through the lens of material culture, it is considered archaeology. Most archaeologists work both in the field and in laboratories, and undergraduate study of archaeology usually includes excavation fieldwork.
Sociology: Sociology is the study of human behavior in a contemporary, social context. It differs from anthropology in that it employs a more statistics-based understanding of human behavior, rather than focusing on human culture, arts, or biology. Sociology considers how groups of people behave collectively, and it often encompasses research in human services, criminology, and even social work.
Psychology: Psychology studies human thinking and feeling (aka: “the mind”), from a variety of cognitive, clinical, and developmental perspectives. While psychology is a historically popular major at the undergraduate level, most people with a bachelor’s degree in psychology apply their knowledge in a non-clinical setting. However, for students who feel drawn to careers in mental health, therapy, or counseling, psychology remains the most directly applicable—and fascinating—field of study.
Political Science / International Relations: These closely related fields usually have distinct faculties, though often housed within the same department. Political science uses many of the tools of social science, especially statistics, to analyze and predict political motivations, behavior, and outcomes. Much of political science is comparative, making it a great field for students who may pursue Public Administration or Public Policy. International Relations builds on this framework but with a more specialized focus on international politics: transnational crises, alliances between nations, state-making processes, and more.
Economics: Many believe that economics falls into a similar category as business or finance. In reality, economics is a largely theoretical and scientific discipline, versus the practical approach of business and finance. While many young economists go on to work in the financial sector, this field—which studies both the economy as a whole and the actors and actions that affect it—is broad and applicable, leading to future careers in academia, research, government, and international development organizations.
Geography: Many know geography is the study of Earth’s landscapes and environments, but few grasp the cutting-edge direction the field has taken in recent years. Today’s college-level geography departments focus more closely on complex geographic topics like human geography, environmental geography, and especially GIS (Geographic Information Systems). Overlapping with environmental sciences, anthropology, and planning, geography students learn how to analyze, create, and apply geospatial data in increasingly creative and high-tech ways. More about GIS (which makes up a central component of geography study today) can be found here.
Note: Communication is sometimes considered a social science, but we will address it in our next blog entry exploring Business and Marketing.
Broadly Applicable
Although this list contains varied and diverse subject areas, there are unifying features that connect these fields. All of these majors can be considered rigorous, featuring intensive research, fieldwork, and writing requirements; however, they still offer enough flexibility that students wishing to pursue a double-major will usually have the time and energy to do so (double-majors boost a student’s skillset and resume, and often make a lot of sense in the context of a social science degree).
The post-college trajectory for each of these fields offers both direct and indirect paths. For example, anthropology/archaeology can lead directly into post-graduate academic research or employment within cultural resource sectors such as museums and CRM (cultural resource management) firms. More indirectly, anthropology degrees can lead to careers in public health, marketing, and sustainable tourism. Similarly, both psychology and sociology feed directly into human services careers like counseling and social work, but can also be applied to roles in human resources, child/family development, and even law. This flexibility makes the social sciences a great and balanced option for students who want to obtain a rigorous, theory-backed educational foundation while keeping their post-graduate career and study options open.
The skills and capabilities students obtain from studying social science at the undergraduate level are multifold. Regardless of one’s discipline of choice—whether human geography, microeconomics, or linguistic anthropology—graduates leave school with a deep framework for conducting research (qualitative and quantitative), strong writing and communication skills, and practical applications of their field to real human work—whether through study abroad, internships, or department research. This background equips students with the skills they need to not only tackle but thrive in their next chapters, regardless of where those chapters may lead them.