For some high school students, selecting a university course is very straightforward. For others it is an overwhelming and, sometimes, high-pressure decision. If you’re not exactly sure which career direction you want to take, how do you know what course to study?
Develop the skills you need for your future career
There has been a perception that students who were unsure of their career path would turn to the Bachelor of Arts. By taking the course, you'd combine your interests with your passions and, ultimately, discover or generate a career path you want to pursue.
However, the new Bachelor of Arts has been reimagined, allowing you to personalise your degree and align subjects to your ‘future career’. The new course structure means you can curate your ultimate career path from the moment you step foot into one of Deakin’s four campuses.
Through practical experience and units aimed at developing your personal and professional aspirations, the course provides you with the confidence to pursue your dream career.
The Bachelor of Arts course offers two core sequences, so you can develop the skills you need for the career you want to pursue. Dr Meghan Kelly from Deakin University’s Faculty of Arts and Education explains how the course has changed and the benefits of the new structure.
‘All students in the Bachelor of Arts will complete two core sequences of three credit points each, one per year level. The ‘employability’ sequence helps students combine specific career-development skills,’ explains Dr Kelly.
These core units empower students to engage with complex global challenges. Students will learn to respond to the evolving and dynamic landscape of work, society and the environment using their own innovative, inspiring and enthusiastic responses.
Bringing together the key features of the arts, you'll be empowered to engage with complex global challenges and respond to the evolving and dynamic landscape of work, society and the environment using your own innovative, inspiring and enthusiastic responses.
Associate Professor Kelly believes these new core sequences create an exciting environment for students to learn, ideate and be challenged, as they think about their future career.
‘This new unique combination of core units offers Deakin students an exciting learning environment that will generate leaders of the future,’ Dr Kelly says.
These skills are invaluable to employers, entrepreneurs, and organisations so you as an individual can craft your own career.
Dr Meghan Kelly
Acting Executive Dean Arts and Education
Create your own unique career path
Due to the diversity of study areas offered in Deakin’s Bachelor of Arts, Dr Kelly explains how you’ll have the opportunity to combine skills and knowledge to create your own unique learning pathways, leading to a rewarding career across industries and sectors.
‘The range of careers available to our arts graduates is broad and can come from the humanities, social sciences, communication and creative arts practices. The combinations can be as unique and individual as our students,’ says Dr Kelly.
Some of Deakin’s Bachelor of Arts alumni include Channel Nine weather presenter Livinia Nixon, Australia’s first Indian-origin member of parliament Dave Sharma, and co-founder of ‘The Last Straw’ Eva Mackinley, as well as many more, showcasing the diversity of career pathways that a Bachelor of Arts affords.
Deakin’s Bachelor of Arts graduates develop critical thinking skills that are highly sought after by employers.
‘When you complete a Deakin Bachelor of Arts you are an analysis, a critical thinker, and researcher who can work with information management, written communication and with cultural competency,' says Dr Kelly.
Get one step ahead with industry-led practical experience
Practical experience is paramount and during the Bachelor of Arts you will experience hands-on learning and build skills that will help you throughout your career. You will engage with industry experts and Deakin's community partners to build the skills to offer practical responses for the challenges of day-to-day activity,’ says Dr Kelly.
This means you could be designing a grassroots campaign in first year and authoring white papers and educational resources in second year, with the potential to inform policy and community action. As well as co-developing organisational initiatives with community partners in third year.
‘Through the employability sequence you will have the opportunity to engage in work-integrated learning as part of your studies. Authentic learning experiences may include learning activities in environments that simulate real-world workplaces, study tours and other global opportunities, collaborative team-based industry and community projects, or internships in your second and third years of study,’ adds Dr Kelly.
Through invaluable practical experience, you’ll enhance your critical real-world thinking skills. You’ll also develop a broad inventory of skills and techniques for analysing pressing real-world problems from new perspectives.
‘Building on world-class expertise from Deakin staff, students apply new concepts and new research methods to the problems of our day. They will learn to ask new questions, identify the blind spots of existing knowledge and connect the dots in innovative ways.’
Deakin graduates can showcase their expertise in a way that gives them a distinctive edge to the story they tell about themselves and the meaningful contributions they can – and do – make to the communities in which they live and work.
Dr Meghan Kelly
Acting Executive Dean Arts and Education
Build your personal brand through career curation
‘The skills and knowledge you will develop during your Bachelor of Arts at Deakin are designed to set you up for lifelong learning,’ Dr Kelly explains.
‘You are supported to identify not only career opportunities, but the building blocks of your own personal agency, and the ways in which you are empowered to navigate and transform the world around you. Think about your personal brand not only as an identity, but as the mark that you are empowered to make on the world.’
Dr Kelly believes this is why Deakin graduates have an advantage when they graduate.
‘Deakin graduates can showcase their expertise in a way that gives them a distinctive edge to the story they tell about themselves and the meaningful contributions they can – and do – make to the communities in which they live and work,’ Dr Kelly says.
Through the expertise you capture during the course, you can begin combining your interests with your passions to make a strong contribution to the community.
The opportunities are endless. For example, you could combine media and communications with international relations, leading to a role as an international communications strategist, or you could combine strategic advertising with history, leading to a role as an advertising manager at a library or gallery. You could also combine sociology, indigenous studies and web design leading to a role as an accessible designer for the government.
Do you want to find your purpose and develop critical skills to make the world better?