Five reasons to study Sex, Gender and Sexualities MSc

1. Interdisciplinarity: collaborating across disciplines

This masters programme embeds interdisciplinarity right from the start. This not only means we accept graduates from a wide range of disciplines and with various types of experience, but also that students can benefit from learning from a range of areas throughout. Our programme offers modules from the Department of Sociology, the School of Literature and Languages and the School of Psychology. So students get lots of choice about what modules they’re interested in and can tailor the degree to their own interests. We believe that by working in interdisciplinary ways, we better reflect how to actually understand sex, gender and sexuality – these are broad topics that can be looked at from so many disciplinary angles.

2. Research-led teaching

Our programme is developed directly from the research that we conduct here, meaning students get first hand and cutting edge knowledge from the people who are working in the field right now. This is also another reason why we’re so interested in interdisciplinarity – because that’s the way we often conduct sex, gender and sexualities research. It’s precisely because we realised there was so much research in the area going on at Surrey that we decided to collaborate further and offer this masters programme.

3. The culture and environment

The masters is closely tied with the University’s Sex, Gender and Sexualities (SGS) Research Group. This is a University-wide group who collaborate, research, and support one another. Being at Surrey means students benefit from the wider cultures of research and interest being carried out here at the University, including SGS events. The University has an active portfolio of events for key times of the year such as LGBT History Month, IDAHOBIT, and Pride. There are also other research-informed initiatives going on, for example, FUTURESEX is led by Dr David Griffiths and it aims to foster more communication and collaboration between academics and activists.

4. Learning in a supportive and inclusive environment

Our goal in setting up this masters is to ensure as far as possible that students are learning about sex, gender and sexualities in a supportive and inclusive environment. Our principle aim is that students feel able to fully engage with course materials. We want all students to feel welcome and supported by highly approachable and understanding members of staff. The University Equality, Diversity and Inclusion team work hard at the University to update relevant policies and work closely with various equality groups (including the LGBTQI Equality group, Rainbow Staff Network, Students’ Union and LGBTQ+ Student Society). There is also an Allies Programme at the University and important relevant trainings available to all staff (including LGBT awareness training).

5. Employability

The programme has been designed with employability in mind from the start. For example, compulsory modules in the second semester (Queer Feminist Approaches and Trans/cending Gender) deliberately set out assessments which are authentic to real life working environments. Similarly, the dissertation project requires a very wide range of skills applicable to professional life. We specifically consider archiving and collections work in a field trip to the Surrey History Centre and provide development for potential doctoral level study. The interdisciplinary nature of the programme also means that knowledge and skills gained are applicable to a wide range of sectors. This masters programme allows students to engage with specialist content around the topics of sex, gender and sexuality suitable in a vast variety of careers. Students on this programme graduate in Guildford Cathedral and can be confident that they’ve been provided with an excellent masters programme.