SOSC School-sponsored Courses (According to HKUST - Common Core Program - below courses can be counted as School-sponsored Courses in the 36-credit Common Core Program for students admitted BEFORE 2022-23)

Course Code Course Title Credits
SOSC 1350 Contemporary China: Continuity and Change
This course introduces students to the major developments and changes in China since 1949 from a multidisciplinary social science perspective. It reviews the transformative and developmental strategies in the spheres of politics, economics, society and external relations during that historical epoch. It critically examines change and continuity over three periods, namely 1949-1977 or the Mao years, 1978-1989, the earlier reform and open-up years, and 1989-present, the post-Tiananmen years.
3
SOSC 1662 Contemporary Hong Kong: Society
A sociologically informed examination of Hong Kong society. Topics include social change, political, economic and gender inequalities, the rise of the democracy movement, discrimination, consumer culture, identity, intimacy, and family life.
Exclusion(s): SOSC 1661, SOSC 1663 (prior to 2016-2017)
3
SOSC 1850 Understanding Society
This course will help students appreciate the power of the sociological imagination in understanding their everyday lives. This is an age in which we tend to explain human behavior in terms of our individual achievements, personalities, and even our genetic make-up. The sociologist, however, looks at human behavior as the product of groups, organizations and culture. In order to master this sociological outlook, the course shall examine a number of topics central to our lives from the point of view of sociological perspectives and methods. These topics will include: culture, deviance, inequality, religion, education, social change and development, gender, intimate relations and the family, and power and politics.
3
SOSC 1960 Discovering Mind and Behavior
This course introduces the fundamental scientific knowledge about human thinking and behavior processes, and illustrates the relevance of this knowledge to the betterment of human performance and well-being in a wide variety of settings in the society.
3
SOSC 1980 Psychology of Personal Growth
This course introduces major challenges of adjustment individuals face during their transition to adulthood from a psychosocial perspective. Topics include role identities, personality, emotion, stress and coping, interpersonal attraction and communication, and workplace issues.
3
SOSC 3001 Understanding China, 1700-2000: A Data Analytic Approach
The purpose of this course is to summarize some of the new directions in Chinese history and Chinese social science during the last two decades. The course eschews the standard chronological narrative arc for an analytic approach that focuses on specific data sets and distinguishes between data measurement and the production of new facts, and how these new facts complicate our understanding of current social theories. The primary motivation for this course design is to stimulate critical thinking, and to encourage students to question received wisdom.
3