专业描述

Many Americans do not know what sociology is; in fact, many of our concentrators did not know what it was before they came to Harvard! Internationally, however, Sociology is a key discipline in the social sciences, and here at Harvard, it is the focus of a vibrant department with a long and illustrious history of teaching and scholarship. One common misunderstanding about sociology is that it is only useful training for those who want to become social workers or political activists. Neither is true. Sociologists often study problems with important public policy implications, but sociology itself is not primarily concerned with providing care for the needy or political ammunition for partisan debates. Sociology was born of the desire to apply the analytic rigor of science to the humanistic concerns of the social world. Training in sociology thus stresses the marriage of elegant thinking, human empathy, and the highest standards of empirical inquiry. Our students receive instruction in both classical social theory—such as Marx, Weber, and Durkheim—and cutting-edge qualitative and quantitative methods. Students also learn how to apply both forms of analysis to real-world issues—whether from third world development to corporate capitalism, or from crime in the streets to crime in the suites. Preparing Students for a Variety of Careers It should come as no surprise that our concentrators find themselves well-prepared for a wide variety of “real world” occupations: As our alumni will attest (see Alumni Profiles), sociology is excellent training for careers in law and public administration, medicine and public health, advertising and marketing, politics and public policy, business, banking, and consulting, to name just a few. Students interested in the social sciences often ask why they should concentrate in sociology instead of our sister departments (economics, government, psychology, anthropology, and history). These are foundational disciplines too but there are a variety of reasons to concentrate in sociology (or to pursue a secondary concentration): practically speaking, we are a relatively small department with a generous student-faculty ratio and a strong tradition of commitment to undergraduates. The sociology department is also an extremely diverse place (as you will discover by perusing our website and the research of both faculty members and graduate students). Finally, through course projects and senior theses we encourage students to conduct field based research, thereby bringing together theories of social interaction with their first hand experiences of the world in which we live.