Why do honours in health and social development?

An honours year builds on the foundation of study in content and research methods provided by the three year undergraduate degree in public health and health promotion or health sciences.

For prospective employers, honours graduates have an edge on their CV by demonstrating high levels of achievement, critical reading and information retrieval skills, and critical thinking and project management skills.

For critical thinkers, the honours program provides a pathway to the highly selective research candidature for higher degrees such as masters and PhD. Previous honours students have continued to complete PhD studies and acquired academic careers as researchers, lecturers and public health leaders in Australia and internationally.

View our student profiles

Grace McArthur

'Putting it into practice: Using specialist resources to support women and girls with disabilities who have experienced violence and abuse'.

Grace McArthur
Supervisors – Dr Amie O’Shea and Associate Professor Patsie Frawley

'I have a strong interest in health promotion and preventing violence against women, so when the opportunity came up to do an honours project in this area, I jumped at the chance. I worked with Amie O'Shea and Patsie Frawley as my supervisors, and my project was called 'Women with disabilities: promoting rights to access violence, sexuality and relationship services', which contributed to the 1800RESPECT Disability pathways project.

Doing an Honours research project not only helped me gain strong insight into my research area of choice, it also helped me learn about myself on both a personal and a professional level. As well as developing strong problem solving and time management skills, I also learned a lot about my own perceptions and experiences of the world when delving into social theory, which was an unexpected learning. It also helped me gain clarity in what I want to achieve in my career. The highlight of my Honours research project was getting a taste of working in a niche part of the health sector and working with like-minded people who have similar passions to me.

Since completing my Honours, I have gained full time employment as a graduate health promotion practitioner at Monash Health Community. I certainly think my Honours experience assisted in being job ready, along with some other work and volunteer experience.'

Georgia Langmaid

Themes

A number of themes cut across the research endeavours within the School of Health and Social Development. There is a focus on social diversity and improving the health of marginalised/excluded groups, and a commitment to outcome-oriented research. Research in the School focuses on:

gambling
gender, family, reproductive and sexual health
health, diversity and social inclusion
health economics
health literacy
obesity prevention, healthy food environments and food policy
physical activity, motor skill competence and self-perception
professional practice and higher education in public health, health promotion, social work, occupational science and therapy
refugee health
sustainability, environments, communities, nature and health
violence and abuse: prevention and intervention.

Skills gained studying honours

Develop higher level skills in information retrieval and the critical analysis of published material.
Develop conceptual frameworks and methodological procedures for the collection, analysis and interpretation of data.
Become familiar with significant ethical and professional issues.
Produce a thesis which demonstrates evidence of research ability and written communication skills.