Victoria University of Wellington

This course integrates the physical, social, economic, and political factors associated with environmental change. First, the course introduces the earth systems associated with environmental change (both natural and human induced). Second, the course explore the social, political and economic implications of contemporary environmental issues and human-environment relations.

This is an introductory course for students interested in exploring the role of the media in shaping society and politics. The course discusses the rise of the mass-media, the control and regulation of media institutions, and the role of the media in shaping public opinion. Students assess the impact of current developments such as independent media, convergence, digitization, globalisation, and the concentration of media ownership.

This course provides an introduction to practical aspects of survey sampling. Topics include proposal writing, costing, non-sampling errors, rudiments of sampling theory, questionnaire design, fieldwork, basic analytic techniques, and report writing. This course is co-taught with STAT 392.

This course examines knowledge, power, and the importance of critical self-reflection as it relates to liberation and democracy. This course draws on a variety of critical approaches and theories to examine key concepts and issues as they relate to the grander dialogues that exist within the discipline of sociology. Course content includes a range of issues, including: power, knowledge, educating for critical consciousness, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, capitalism and neoliberalism.

This course is an introduction to the study of language, and language issues in the community. The course covers general features of language, such as the inevitability of language change and the importance of structure dependence. Students explore popular misconceptions about language, examining why they are erroneous.

This course examines child and adolescent development within an applied developmental psychology framework. It also evaluates key theories and evidence on a range of issues and challenges that influence child and adolescent development.

This course explores American literature of the 19th century with special attention to major works and writers. Topics include gothic, race, indigenous populations, transcendentalism, and national identity through a range of literary forms, including poetry, short stories, novels, and the essay.

This course introduces the practice of digital asset creation and animation for narrative media. The course develops basic skill sets central to animation and visual effects production, including polygonal modelling, surface shading, texturing, lighting, and animation using 3D digital content creation software. Practical skills are complemented with design principles and technical concepts related to this studio practice.

This course explores the understanding of landscape and site analysis/development. Focus is on the testing and development of ideas involving experimentation with various iterative design strategies for testing designs, and informing the creation of critically aware design solutions. Students work on creative processes that involve physical model making, line drawing, and montage. Through these processes students explore the relationship between form and environment. The three projects in this studio course explore site, light, thermal, and acoustic environments.

This course provides an introduction to the fundamental skills in sound engineering, recording, synthesis, and production. Students learn a range of basic music technology skills that can be used in disciplines such as audio production and post-production, as well as sound design and synthesis for electronic music production, film, and game audio.