Curriculum

The curriculum has been carefully designed to provide students with instruction on essential aspects of the discipline: theory, research logic, methods, and real-world applications. We have scaled back the major’s requirements to the absolute minimum in order to allow students more flexibility in designing their undergraduate career, but we insist that students take all nine required courses in our department. These courses represent the hard core of the Sociology curriculum, and they must be taken for a quality grade. To preserve its coherence, we strongly discourage petitions to get out of taking course requirements or to substitute a non-SOCI course (including sociology courses taken outside our department) for a required SOCI one. 

Please plan ahead! Because several course requirements are offered concurrently, it will be difficult to take them all in one year without overloading. 

Finally, please join our undergraduate listserv soc-ugrads@lists.uchicago.edu so that you don’t miss important news and reminders. 

Course Requirements for the Major in Sociology
  1. Introduction to Sociology (choose one)
  2. Sociological Theory (choose one)
  3. Quantitative Methods (choose one)
  4. Qualitative Methods (choose one)
  5. Logic of Social Inquiry (choose one)
  6. Four courses in sociology (i.e., prefaced by SOCI)
  7. BA project (optional) 

It is strongly recommended that the requirements be taken in the following sequence: (1) Introduction to Sociology (2) Sociological Theory and the two Methods courses, (3) Logic of Social Inquiry, and (4) the BA project (seminar and paper), with the four electives taken throughout. One course cannot be counted for more than one requirement. 

You may use this checklist of requirements for guidance. 

Qualifying Courses, AY 2025-2026

This list may not be complete or up to date. Check with the Director of Undergraduate Studies (garrido@uchicago.edu) to see if an unlisted SOCI course counts towards a requirement.

The most up-to-date descriptions of our course offerings can be found in the college catalogue.

Autumn 

  • SOCI 20138. Politics/Participation/Organization
  • SOCI 20232. Sociology of Religion
  • SOCI 20233. Race in Contemporary America
  • SOCI 20242. States, Markets, and Bodies
  • SOCI 20618. How to Study Power, Part 1
  • SOCI 20621. Race and Immigration

Winter

  • SOCI 20116. Global-Local Politics
  • SOCI 20506. Cities, Space, and Power
  • SOCI 20550. Population Problems and Demographic Dilemmas
  • SOCI 20619. How to Study Power, Part 2 

Spring 

  • SOCI 20000. Invitation to Sociology
  • SOCI 20104. Urban Structure and Process
  • SOCI 20106. Political Sociology
  • SOCI 20123. Sociology of the Family
  • SOCI 20252. Urban Innovation: Cultural Place Making and Scenescapes
  • SOCI 20258. Maverick Markets: Cultural Economy and Cultural Finance
  • SOCI 20295. Morrissey’s America: Contemporary Social Problems
  • SOCI 20615. The Chicago School: History and Prospects

Any theory course (in addition to the one taken to fulfill the Sociological Theory requirement) 

  • SOCI 20290. Theories of Sexuality and Gender (Autumn)
  • SOCI 20125. Rational Foundations of Social Theory (Winter)
  • SOCI 20005. Sociological Theory (Spring)
  • SOCI 20576. Social Theory for the Digital Age (Spring) 
  • SOCI 20004. Introduction to Statistical Methods and Models (Autumn)
  • SOCI 20559. Spatial Regression Analysis (Autumn)
  • SOCI 20550. Population Problems and Demographic Dilemmas (Winter)
  • SOCI 20009. Regression and Generalized Linear Models (Winter)
  • SOCI 20519. Spatial Cluster Analysis (Winter)
  • SOCI 20595. Topics in Spatial Regression Analysis (Winter)
  • SOCI 20602. Thinking like a Computational Social Scientist (Spring)
  • SOCI 20596. Social Networks (Spring) 

Students may also take STAT 22000, STAT 23400, and above to satisfy this requirement. Note that this is the only requirement that can be satisfied with a non-SOCI course. 

  • SOCI 20547. Involved Interviewing (Autumn)
  • SOCI 20508. Working with Found Data: Library/Internet Research (Winter)
  • SOCI 20616. Introduction to Comparative Historical Inquiry (Winter)
  • SOCI 20548. Coding and Analyzing Qualitative Data Using MAXQDA (Winter) – third and fourth years only
  • SOCI 20140. Qualitative Field Methods (Spring) 
  • SOCI 20575. Logic of Social Inquiry (Winter) 
  • These electives can be satisfied by taking any course in the major, including cross-listed ones—i.e., they must have a course number prefaced by SOCI. 
  • SOCI 29998. BA Seminar. See BA thesis policies outlined on this page below.
Policies

To attain honors in the major, students will need to meet four conditions: (1) a GPA of 3.25 or higher in the college, (2) a GPA of 3.5 or higher in the major, (3) completion of the BA Seminar (SOCI 29998), and (4) their advisor’s determination that their BA thesis merits Honors. 

Courses must be taken for a quality grade in order to count toward the sociology major. However, additional courses beyond the 9 required may be taken for a Pass/Fail grade.

We support sociology students wishing to study abroad during their time at UChicago. However, for students interested in completing the BA Seminar, we recommend studying abroad before Winter Quarter of their third year.

Students pursuing Honors in Sociology are required to take SOCI 29998, the department’s BA Seminar course, which runs from Spring Quarter of a student’s third year through Winter Quarter of their fourth year. Ideally, students interested in pursuing the BA project will have fulfilled their Methods and Logic requirements by Winter quarter of their third year, as these courses provide necessary preparation for the experience of doing original research.

Students will register for SOCI 29998 in Spring Quarter of their third year but will not be given a grade until the conclusion of the thesis process. This grade incorporates the BA thesis grade they receive from their faculty advisor as well as an evaluation of the student’s work in the SOCI 29998 course. Students who drop SOCI 29998 mid-year may qualify for a grade of “P” if they complete the requirements of the first quarter.

The BA seminar does not count as a sociology elective. However, we encourage students to take advantage of SOCI 29997 to get elective credit for work done in support of their thesis.

More information about the BA project can be found here.

Undergraduate sociology majors enrolled in the four-year combined BA/MA program typically write an MA thesis in their fourth year. They cannot also write a BA thesis. The reasoning is as follows: To preserve the integrity of the BA and MA programs, the BA and MA theses must be distinct intellectual products. It is very difficult, and, in any case, ill-advised, to pursue two separate research projects in the same year. Thus, we ask students to choose: pursue the BA thesis for honors in the major, or the MA thesis for an MA degree. Note that the BA Seminar is attached to the BA Project and cannot be taken by students writing MA theses.

Students enrolled in a five-year BA/MA program (such as MACSS and CMES) may, if they so choose, write a BA thesis in their fourth year and then an MA thesis in their fifth. But again, the two theses should represent distinct research projects. While the two projects may be related, the MA thesis cannot be a duplication of BA work. 

Students must complete all BA/MA requirements, including the MA thesis, by June in order to graduate by August. 

Students are permitted to submit a single BA thesis to fulfil the thesis requirements of Sociology and another major. However, we remind students that they must be active participants in Sociology’s BA seminar (SOCI 29998) to meet the requirements for Honors in Sociology.