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Graduate Core Courses


socdocThe Social Documentation program has a required core curriculum around which students are expected to design their own course of study. Each student is assigned two faculty advisors, a creative advisor and a substantive advisor, both of whom will be involved in designing individualized curriculum and project plans. Full-time enrollment in the program is required (no exceptions).

A total of 72 units of course work are required to complete the Master's Degree in Social Documentation, comprising a combination of:

  • seminars on social documentary and social-science research designed specifically for Social Documentation graduate students
  • other courses on campus selected by students in consultation with advisors on the basis of relevance to the proposed project
  • courses focused on conceptualizing, executing, and completing the social documentary Master's Project

There are seven required core courses (plus one required "Project Completion" individual study during the final quarter):

First Year:

200 "Approaches to Social Documentary"(fall)
202 "Practice of Social Documentary" (fall)
208 "Social Science Research and Social Representation" (winter)
270 "Project Planning" (spring)

Second Year:

204 “Ways of Seeing and Hearing” (fall)
294A "Production, Analysis, Editing" (fall)
294B "Production, Analysis, Editing" (winter)
Project Completion (spring)

In addition to these mandatory core courses, an additional 37 units must be secured through electives as identified on an individual basis as offered by Community Studies or other departments, through supplemental media labs, or through independent-study classes as approved by faculty advisors.

For more information and detailed descriptions of Social Documentation Core Courses, please refer to the UCSC General Catalog Social Documentation Section.

For a listing of courses offered during the current quarter, please refer to the UCSC Schedule of Classes.