Undergraduate Program

Welcome to the undergraduate program in sociology at the University of Connecticut. Sociology majors seek to understand how the world works and they their potential for shaping that world. While sociologists may study large structures such as institutions, social classes, societies, and world systems, we also explore the localized structures that shape everyday experience, including roles, statuses, and group identities. We encourage students to examine the major organizing principles that contribute to shaping our social lives, including race and ethnicity, class, gender, age, and sexual orientation. We invite students to investigate how people may challenge or preserve their world and their place in it. While we do not provide students with a handbook of easy solutions to social problems, we teach students how to ask the difficult questions, to dig beneath the obvious, and to search for the multiple layers of social meaning.

Sociology majors find their skills sought after in fields as diverse as social and human services (both in for-profit and non-profit organizations), criminal justice agencies, health care administration, marketing, advertising, management, government, public policy, urban planning, teaching, and law.

Current major requirements: All sociology majors must complete Sociology 1001, 1251, or 1501 before Sociology 3201, 3211Q and 3251. We strongly recommend taking one of these courses before your Junior year. In addition to the 1000 level course, students must complete 24 credits in 2000-level sociology courses. For complete information, see the Handbook for Majors . Students must have a grade point average of 2.0 or better in these 24 credits. Only quality points and credits earned at UConn may be used to meet these requirements, unless the dean of the college grants an exception. In addition to the 24 credits in 2000 level sociology courses, you must have 12 credits in related courses in other departments. All 2000 and 3000 level courses in the following programs count as related: African American Studies, Asian American Studies, Anthropology, Economics, History, HDFS, Human Rights, Judaic Studies, Political Science, Psychology, Puerto Rican and Latino Studies, and Women’s Studies (except courses that are cross-listed with Sociology). Your advisor may approve courses in other departments as related.

For questions about general education requirement, please contact the Department's undergraduate advisor .

For additional information, feel free to contact any sociology faculty member or the undergraduate program assistant Kathy Covey at Katherine.Covey@uconn.edu , (860-486-4423 or stop by her office at room 114 Manchester Hall).

Janet M. Fierberg Scholarship 2012: The Janet M. Fierberg Scholarship Fund in Sociology was endowed by I. Martin Fierberg and Janet M. Fierberg, an alumna of UConn who studied Sociology and had a career in Social Work. Two scholarships of a minimum of $2,000 each will be awarded this year to outstanding students in their Junior or Senior year at UConn who are planning to pursue graduate study in Social Work or Sociology. Click here for more information and for application form.