legal vs society (1 Viewer)

[moonbow]

deciding between legal studies and society/culture but i like them equally so is there much difference between scaling (if u get the same mark for instance)? is there a course that is better for my preferred uni courses (international relations / political science / international law / political economy)? or is one a lot more interesting? any bits of random feedback or experience about which subject is good for different types of people would be great

 

[jimmysmith560]

Essentially, Legal Studies allows students to gain knowledge regarding the nature and functions of law/law-making, in addition to the development of Australian and international legal systems. By exploring the key areas of law, justice and human rights (by considering the ways through which changes in societies influence law reform for instance), students will gain foundational knowledge relevant to the field of law.

On the other hand, Society and Culture focuses on providing students with the opportunity to develop social and cultural literacy in addition to gaining an understanding of human behaviour. Cross-disciplinary concepts, in addition to social and cultural research methods (such as those from fields including anthropology, communication, philosophy, social psychology and sociology), are covered within this subject.

As far as I'm aware, neither Legal Studies nor Society and Culture scales great. However, scaling should not be the primary consideration when choosing subjects. You mentioned that you are equally interested in both which is a good thing. You may also consider your performance potential in both subjects, i.e. how well do you feel you can perform in Legal Studies or Society and Culture? A different approach (since you are equally interested in both subjects) would be to take both subjects as you commence and progress through year 11. Subsequently, after gaining further insight into each subject, you will become able to make an informed decision regarding which subject to keep and which to drop.

It seems that the knowledge gained by taking Legal Studies would be more relevant in terms of the university degrees that you are interested in, particularly international law. However, this does not mean that you will be put at a disadvantage if you choose not to take Legal Studies and/or take Society and Culture since it is likely that neither of these subjects is treated as assumed knowledge or a prerequisite for the programs that you are interested in.

I hope this helps!

 

[cyniczny]

i do legal studies, and it's genuinely one of my favourite subjects. i don't plan on doing law in the future, and even if you do want to do law, those degrees tend to blitz through most of the legal studies course content in the first term, so it's not strictly necessary. however, if you're interested in the way the law works, it's going to be a great subject for you because of just how in-depth it can get. however, a lot of the enjoyment does come from how good the teacher is; if they go through content with background knowledge and give you constant feedback, that's great, but for some of my friends' whose year 11 teacher wasn't as experienced, they had to self-study a lot more and found that their feedback wasn't as good.

in terms of international studies/poli sci like you mentioned, it'll be relatively relevant (more so in year 12), providing one of the electives your school does is either world order or global environmental protection - you'll want to ask your teacher about that one.

not too sure about the exact differences between legal and sac, but i can generally say that in legal essays, you need to be quite good at summarising and picking up the right information. sac also has a major work and there's a lot more personal research/surveys involved, so it's up to you whether you'd be cool with that (legal has no major work/personal research, although some assessments could be hand-in research essays).