Dean's Welcome

Welcome to the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences at the University of Sydney - Australia’s oldest and most comprehensive faculty of its kind. We have an outstanding reputation for our teaching and research in the humanities and social sciences. Our ambition is to be one of the leading liberal arts faculties in the world and we want you to join our community of scholars, students and alumni.

Our passion is ideas. For over 164 years, our students and staff have been thinking, writing, and arguing about ideas and their consequences. Consider any issue that you really care about - whether it is global poverty, climate change, social and economic reform, or even the nature of beauty - and lying beneath all the spin and froth of everyday debate are fundamental ideas and concepts that require rigorous analysis and careful reasoning.

We are committed to providing you with an exceptional environment in which to pursue your studies. The Faculty is home to some of the world’s most outstanding scholars in our disciplines. And we have consistently been ranked among the leading faculties of our kind in Australia and the world, including by the Times Higher and the QS World University Rankings.

Students come to University with many different ambitions. Our fundamental objective is to help you think more clearly, rigorously and expansively than you ever have before. Whatever particular discipline or program of study you eventually pursue - and we offer more choices than just about any other Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences in Australia - we want you to leave us with the intellectual skills to not only succeed in life, but gain meaning and value from it as well.

Of course, you are also concerned with gaining an education that prepares you for life beyond university. Our degrees will provide the foundations upon which your future careers will be built, as well as give you opportunities for international exchange, internships and work placements while you study.

Our graduates go onto do amazing things with their degrees - they include teachers, bankers, entrepreneurs, human rights activists, diplomats, writers, journalists, designers, lawyers and more. You might go on to enrol in one of our excellent postgraduate programs, or train for a professional degree. Whatever path you take, we know that what employers value most is someone who has a well-trained mind - someone with intellectual autonomy, but who can also collaborate and communicate effectively. In 2015, we are launching a new program - ArtSS Career Ready - that is aimed at helping you with your career choices. We will provide you with additional support and the opportunity to do a work placement at some of the leading private and public sector firms and organisations in Australia.

We are also delighted to be offering a completely refreshed set of undergraduate majors – after an extensive curriculum review - with clearer pathways that will provide you with the breadth and depth we know students value in a truly liberal arts education. And we are also excited to be launching 6 new professionally oriented postgraduate programs – in International Relations, Economic Analysis, Art Curating, English Studies, Museum and Heritage and the Executive Masters in Humanities and Social Sciences.

I hope you will also take advantage of the extraordinary range of activities available at the University of Sydney outside of the classroom - there are opportunities to join a vast array of clubs and societies, develop your leadership skills and travel and study abroad.

You’ll be joining a large, diverse and vibrant student body, made up of more than 10,000 undergraduates and postgraduates. The Faculty also has over 600 staff and a range of support services, all of which are here to help you realise your ambitions. This website is a good place to start to find out more about what we do.

We look forward to you joining us soon.

Professor Annamarie Jagose

Dean, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences