Sociology Program to Offer New Classes in Fall, Spring

The UCF sociology program will be adding five new undergraduate courses just in time for the 2015-2016 academic year.

This fall, students can register for Spatial Sociology, Careers in Sociology, and Consumer Society. Video Games in Society and Food and Society, Families and Aging will be available for the spring semester.

Sociology majors and minors will learn basic information on how to map social phenomena and complete some basic analyses about the topic they are studying in Spatial Sociology.

“Students in these courses learn skills that include mapping where particular social phenomena occur geographically,” Undergraduate Program Director Lin Huff-Corzine, Ph.D., said.

The class is an introduction course to Geographic Information Systems, and will feature hands-on activities such as flying drones in local fieldwork and community-based projects.

The Careers in Sociology course will help students gain a better understanding about their discipline and what they can do when they graduate.

“Students may know that they find their courses interesting, but have no idea where a degree in sociology can take them in regard to a career,” Huff-Corzine said. “Once we complete some introductory information [in the course], speakers representing five different pathways a sociologist may take their career will share their experiences.”

Students will get a chance to explore primary trends and processes related to life, and gain knowledge in the Consumer Society course. The class will be taught off-campus at the west campus of Valencia College.

“Our activities as consumers affect our daily decisions, and how we think about ourselves and our society—even if this relates to minimalizing our consumption. This course will thus explore the interconnections between the routines and rituals of a consumer society and our everyday lived experiences,” Huff-Corzine said.

In Spring 2016, Video Games in Society will be a featured online course for students who want to examine the effects of gaming on individuals in society, as well as some history of the development of video games in the U.S.

Food and Society, Families and Aging will also be offered to teach students about the importance of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, age, religion, and social class on behavior as they relate to food production and consumption. Students who take this course will have a good understanding about where their food comes from, how it is processed, what food means to individuals, and how food is not equally distributed within society.

Huff-Corzine said that other learning institutions already have classes like the ones being introduced to the sociology program, but the teaching style and professor-student interaction at UCF will set them apart from the rest.

“Each of these courses, or something similar, is offered elsewhere,” she said. “But each will be unique in how it is offered.”