With its flexibility and huge choice of majors, the Bachelor of Liberal Arts and Science provides you with a background in both the humanities and the sciences, and gives you useful skills that will make you highly valued by potential employers in jobs across the market. From writing and presenting to thinking ethically and critically, the BLAS degree is your preparation for life beyond the classroom. This is a course designed for the student who is fascinated by the world and wants to learn as much about it as they can. With a BLAS degree, you can indulge your interests in both the arts and sciences without restricting yourself to just one specialist area of study. Over the three-year degree, you choose either an arts or a science major. With over 40 arts majors and 30 science majors, that adds up to almost 80 choices, from Philosophy to Physics to Political Economy. You will then complement your major by choosing subjects from the other area, ensuring you leave with the well-rounded knowledge base that defines graduates of liberal arts degrees. But the BLAS degree is about much more than what facts and figures you learn. It's about getting skills that can be used in life beyond the classroom. A special Liberal Studies stream has been built into the BLAS degree to boost your communication and analytical skills, which potential employers have told us time and time again are the skills that they look for in recruits.
In the Asian Century, the task of understanding the region is vital to the future. Understanding Asia relies on gaining a foundation in its major civilisational traditions, as well as in the issues of contemporary culture and society. This major will introduce and identify major cultural, historical, social and political trends and issues, including ethnicity and mobility (or diaspora); the major religions and belief systems (particularly Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Islam); other trans-regional trends, including economic and political relationships between Asia and other parts of the world (for example forms of imperialism); major political and social developments and movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and their effects (e.g. nationalism, revolution, military rule, democracy); and mass or popular culture (including topics such as manga and K-Pop). These trends and issues are particularly taught in relation to China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia and South Asia. Asian Studies is taught in English and draws on the cutting-edge research being carried out by the academic staff of the program. Language units of study cannot be counted towards the Asian Studies major, however you are strongly encouraged to study an Asian language in conjunction with Asian Studies units.
