Information and Departmental Plan of Study
Sociology at Princeton offers a cutting-edge undergraduate concentration for people interested in the social dimensions of politics, economics, history, psychology, and demography. The concentration encourages students to engage in cross-disciplinary thinking even as it provides a thorough grounding in a single field. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches to social science are utilized by our students and faculty.
Princeton sociology graduates are admitted to the leading medical, law, and business schools; and they take jobs from Wall Street to social activism. Students concentrating in sociology are in increasing demand as corporations and governments want graduates with the conceptual and/or statistical tools to make sense of rapid social change and the recent explosion of digital data generated by the web.
Department faculty do research and teaching on important topics of concern in the "real world," from social networks, immigration, and inequality to globalization, politics, and economic sociology.
Prerequisites
Students are normally encouraged to complete one or more courses in sociology by the end of sophomore year. Sociology 101 is highly recommended, though some concentrators take it after they have enrolled in the department.
Program of Study
Students are required to take a minimum of nine courses in sociology, including an upper limit of two cognate courses in other departments which must receive approval from Sociology in order to count toward the required nine. A "cognate" course is a Princeton class offered by another department that has substantial sociological content. All departmental courses or approved cognates that count toward the required nine must be taken for a grade and cannot be taken Pass/D/Fail. SOC 101, SOC 300, SOC 301, and SOC 302 are requirements for the major. Collectively they are designed to help students carry out their junior and senior independent work. These courses expose students to the nature of sociological problems and theory, the logic of inquiry, the techniques of empirical investigation, and the elements of statistics. SOC 300 and SOC 301 are usually taken in the fall of junior year and are offered at that time to facilitate students who wish to study abroad in the spring. SOC 302 is normally offered in the spring.