Subjects

Hey all,

It’s getting close now! I’ve officially hit and passed the 1 month mark and the 4 weeks mark until I go! It’s been great having so much time off from studying, and great thinking about all the adventures I’ll have abroad, but at the end of the day I’m going to Ole Miss to work on getting my degree (amongst all the other fun stuff). In this week’s post, I’m going to tell you all a little bit about the subjects I’ve been approved to study at Ole Miss (see the Applications blog posts if you’re interested in the subject selection process) and which out of those I’m hoping to do.

As I’m studying a double degree in Arts and Commerce, my choices for subjects to study overseas were quite broad and flexible. Whilst my commerce subjects needed to be matched since they’re set in stone, I still had various choices as I still have a few of the core subjects to complete (foundational units in economics and business analytics/statistics) as well as 7 more units from my Human Resources major. For the Arts part of my degree, I pretty much had no conditions. I could study criminology units to credit towards my criminology major, sociology units to credit towards my sociology minor, or units from any other study area that comes under Arts at Deakin (journalism/PR/advertising/media, languages, social sciences, English/writing, art etc.) since I still have room for 3 electives. So in comparison to some other people I know, and those in degrees that have little room for choice, I’m pretty lucky. Since Deakin required me to get approval for 8 units to study overseas just to be safe (in case of full class capacity, timetable clashes etc.), I chose to have 3 commerce and 5 arts units on my final Outgoing Study Plan (OSP). These were my final approved choices:

BUS230 – Economic Statistics

This unit is a match for the introductory Business Analytics unit I have to take as part of my core commerce units at Deakin. It mainly involves using and extracting statistical data and information to use in business to make decisions. It includes probability, sampling interference and testing, linear correlation and time series analysis. In summary: it’s complicated and is basically flashing me back to year 12 methods. This unit’s class time includes only a lecture, which can be taken as 1 x 3 hour lecture, 2 x 1.5 hour lectures, or 3 x 1 hour lectures.

BUS322 – Negotiation and Dispute Resolution

This one is a match for a unit at Deakin that is part of my Human Resources major. This unit mainly involves learning about negotiation techniques and the best ways to resolve disputes in the workplace, and then engaging in exercises to put those newly-learned skills into action and practice using them in real life. This class has a lecture, which I can either choose to take as 1 x 2.5 hour lecture per week or 2 x 1.25 hour lecture per week.

MGMT583 – Labor Relations

In my Human Resources major I have to take a unit called Employment Relations, and this unit is Ole Miss’ match for it. I’ll learn about labour laws, unions, collective bargaining, strikes, arbitration, and legislation that governs employment relations. This unit’s only classes are 2 x 1.25 hour lectures per week.

CJ315 – Drug Abuse Enforcement and Criminality

This unit is a criminal justice unit and has been approved as an elective towards my criminology major in Arts. It focuses on the legal responses to drug abuse in the US such as laws, sanctions, and treatment alternatives. Taking this unit would require me to attend 2 x 1.25 hour lectures per week.

CJ370 – Domestic Crimes and Family Law

Again, this unit has been approved as a criminology elective. It looks at the origins of family and domestic violence as well as the administration of justice in such cases/situations. The only weekly in-person obligation I would have for this class is a 2.5 hour lecture.

IMC586 – Foundations of Sports

This unit is from the Journalism and Media department and therefore counts as a general elective towards my arts degree (since it’s not from my major or minor area of study). Foundations of Sports looks into collegiate and professional sport, sports media, athlete representation, corporate involvement etc. from a journalistic perspective to understand how and why sport has become a multibillion dollar industry. Taking this unit would involve attending a 2.5 hour lecture each week.

SOC301 – The Family

This sociology unit (and the next one) were not approved as credit towards my sociology minor because they were not the right ‘level’ and therefore taking these units would simply count as a general elective towards my arts degree. Regardless, sociology is an area I’m interested in. The unit ‘The Family’ looks at a family as an institution and a group of interacting people, and the issues, relationships and interactions that are had and made between the interacting members. This class has 2 x 1.25 hour lectures per week.

SOC310 – Sociology of Disability

(Same explanation as above – general elective). This unit looks at disability from varying theoretical angles regarding race, science and law, and takes an extended look at disability in the US as well as disability in Germany in the 20th century as case studies for the unit. This unit requires attendance of 2 x 1.25 hour lectures each week.

Those are the 8 units that I’ve been approved to study at Ole Miss, however I’ll only end up enrolling in 4 of them. At this stage, the 4 I’m hoping to enrol in are: BUS322 – Negotiation and Dispute Resolution, CJ315 – Drug Abuse Enforcement and Criminality, CJ370 - Domestic Crimes and Family Law, and IMC586 – Foundations of Sports. These units are the ones that interest me most, and my reasons for not choosing the other units vary. Firstly, I don’t want to do BUS230 – Economic Statistics unless I have to because it sounds complicated and I would rather do easy units overseas so I’m not super stressed and can enjoy myself more. Secondly, MGMT583 – Labor Relations would be a very US-specific unit and I would rather take this unit at Deakin so that the laws I learn in the unit are actually relevant to what I’d need to know for working in human resources in Australia. Thirdly and fourthly, the two sociology units (SOC301 – The Family and SOC310 – Sociology of Disability) seem interesting but since they won’t count as credit towards my sociology minor, I would rather just take Deakin’s sociology units and save my electives for other subject areas (such as the journalism unit).

Fingers crossed that I’m able to enrol in the units that I want! I’ll obviously let you guys know once I’ve met with a course advisor and locked them in during orientation week.

That’s all for now, I’ll be back next week! 26 days to go!

- Emily xx