Sociology, in the most classical definiton, is the science of society. It takes group behaviors, social structures (such as gender, race, and ethnicity), social institutions (such as education, religion, politics, and economics) as its object of study. Apart from macro structures, seemingly the micro, most mundane and personal issues can also be sociology’s object of study, as they cannot be considered as unrelated to the society. Sociology always asks the ‘‘how’’ and ‘‘why’’ questions about these research topics. It shows that the most basic and what seems as natural phenomena are actually socially constructed. Perhaps, these are times that we need sociology the most because people almost every single day witness increasing global conflicts, economic inequalities, and environmental degradation in their everyday lives. Sociology is an important discipline to systematically understand and explain these macro changes, and possible changes that they create on individuals, groups, and societies.
The 21st-century labor market is changing very quickly in terms of becoming increasingly competitive, global, and technologically driven. In this context, the skills expected from individuals include creativity, innovative thinking, team-work and cooperation, communication skills, critical thinking, analytical problem solving, and advanced writing-presentation skills. TEDU Sociology, with English as its language of instruction and the equal importance it lays on theory and method, its liberal arts approach which offers students a wide range of courses from different disciplines, the opportunity it provides to the students to pursue a secondary field and/or participate in the Erasmus Programme, is very capable of helping you acquire and develop these necessary skills.
Having acquired the skills mentioned above, other than pursuing an academic career, TEDU Sociology graduates have the opportunity to find employment in a wide range of institutions both in public and private sector as well as in various NGOs (For more information, please visit the career opportunities subsection).
In general, it can be said that the psychological perspective concentrates on individuals’ feelings, perceptions, cognitive patterns without connecting them to the society or other macro-level factors. However, the first thing you will learn in the sociology classes will be that everything is socially constructed. In sociology, the individual cannot be thought of as independent from society. The most important difference between these two disciplines is this first postulate. Because of this difference, their perspectives and research methods differ.
To become a good sociologist, at first, you should get rid of the prejudices and stereotypes that you may have on your mind as much as possible and start to listen to others, see others morally as equals, and to continuously improve yourself. Apart from these, you should form and improve the skill of sociological imagination, improve your observation skills, have an idea and information about what is going on at the global level, and beware of its connections to your local environment.