Foundation Studies Program (Standard) - Arts (X0F:1) (0100808) + Bachelor of Arts with Honours - Gender and Diversity (R4A) (030426C)

Program Description Foundation Studies Program (Standard) - Arts (X0F:1) (0100808):

The Foundation Studies program is a direct academic pathway to first-year undergraduate degree study, or an equivalent. The program acts as a bridging course for international students who wish to study a university undergraduate degree course but who don’t yet meet academic requirements and/or have the English language skills for tertiary study.

To successfully complete the program, students must achieve a 50% pass in all units, including English.

Upon successful completion of the course, graduates can enter one of the University of Tasmania’s undergraduate degree courses.

Bachelor of Arts with Honours - Gender and Diversity (R4A): At the University of Tasmania, students will be part of an academic community that cares deeply about the topics that they teach and study.

Students will learn to influence cultural and social change, and students will gain the knowledge and creativity to envision better futures. Students will take on the world’s cultural, environmental, and humanitarian challenges from multiple perspectives and gain the confidence to make a positive difference. In first year, students will have the opportunity to visit Country with an Aboriginal Elder or knowledge holder as part of the University of Tasmania's curriculum's reflection of the value and place of Indigenous knowledges and perspectives.

The Bachelor of Arts will equip students with a range of specialised and transferable skills that are highly sought after by employers: creative thinking, respect for multiple perspectives, and the ability to work effectively in a team environment.

Students entering the Gender and Diversity program will be immersed in an interdisciplinary exploration of the meaning and impact of gender, race, and sexuality on all lives. Assumptions about sex, gender and race have influenced everything from humanity's understandings of what it is to be human to ancient poetry to contemporary fashion. Students will become familiar with a variety of theoretical approaches to the subject and will be given a range of methodological tools to help students understand those cultural assumptions and practices which have shaped the lived experiences as gendered, racialised beings.

The core units in Gender & Diversity examine questions of identity, power and change, including how understandings of human bodies and sexuality have changed over time. Students will analyse the various ways that masculinities and femininities are enacted in the world, and develop a critical awareness of the gendered and racial dynamics which influence these masculinities and femininities. All human beings live within a particular gender order and racial system: to study gender & diversity is to become more aware of the possibilities and constraints of these structures and their effect on student's life and the world’s people and processes.

This program will prepare students for work in all kinds of settings where an appreciation of diversity matters. This includes the community sector, equity and diversity units in businesses and institutions, discrimination law and human resources.