The BA Social Science honours degree at ALU is delivered with a deliberate vision to produce social scientists with innovative skills to solve critical social problems confronting Africa and the world today. Behavioural insights from social scientists are important for transformational leadership in all aspects of society: politics, business, environment, media, civil society, and households. To change society, we first must understand how it works.
This degree is offered at the African Leadership College (ALC) Mauritius as an equivalent of a 4-year undergraduate degree delivered using a transnational education model in collaboration with Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU), United Kingdom. Thus, the students have access to the GCU online library with its vast range of e-books and journals; and are awarded a GCU-degree at the end of their studies.
Course structure
The core subject areas are Politics, Sociology, and Economics (or PSE for short); and the degree programme is structured as follows:
Level 1: ALU proprietary signature leadership core modules in Data and decisions; Communicating for impact; Entrepreneurial leadership; Projects; and Social science: an interdisciplinary introduction
Level 2: African studies; Culture and society; Crime and society; International economic issues and challenges; Society, employability and business; Political concepts, ideas and issues
Level 3: Democratic challenges; Poverty, inequality and policy; Theories of crime and punishment; Women, work and income; Victimology, trauma and social harm; Contemporary issues in the world economy; Research methods
Level 4: Dissertation; Environmental political thought; Global social enterprise and entrepreneurship
Contextualization
ALU ensures that student learning at every step of the degree programme, is theoretically comprehensive, meaningful and relevant in an African context. Our students learn through the flipped classroom approach and critical examination of case studies from a global and local African perspective.
Internship opportunities
To ensure that students in the Social Science programme have real world experience on graduation, they are required to carry out a minimum of 8 weeks of internship every summer at the end of their first, second, and third year of studies. We encourage and support all our students to seek out internships with governments, business, and civil society organisations; some of the institutions where students have served as interns include Africa 24 Media, African Leadership Network, AGCO Corporation, ALU Kigali Rwanda, Ashinaga, BitClub Network, Cim Finance Mauritius, Ecobank and several others.
Career opportunities
The Social Science honours degree programme graduates are prepared for careers and leadership roles in politics, business, environment, media, and civil society organisations in Africa and the world. Career options include – arts, entertainment, journalism, speech writing, behavioural analyst, human resource management, public relations, financial technology, economic and social policy advisers, women and youth empowerment, law enforcement and magistracy, development planning, non-governmental organizations, government and international relations, diplomacy, and international organizations bureaucracy.
The degree is also an excellent foundation for further study at masters and PhD level in any of the key disciplines or related subjects.