 Okay, people are just coming in, but I just want to welcome you all to this online presentation for the MA Religion and Global Politics. It's lovely to see you here. I'm going to give you a presentation of the program and some of the facilities that come with being a student at SOAS, and then we're going to have plenty of time for questions at the end. If you're not able to use your microphone, that's absolutely fine. You can put any questions that you've got in the chat function and I'll see those and pick those up. So anyway, very welcome to a kind of virtual SOAS at the moment. I'm the program convener of the MA. My name is Sean Hawthorne and you're very welcome to email me with any questions that you have any advice perhaps you might want to seek about your personal statement if you're applying or any really any questions to do with the degree. So do feel free to email me. I'm also very happy to have one to one appointments with you on Zoom. You can see my screen. Can you just put your hands up if you can see my screen? Yes, OK, that's marvelous. Thank you so much. OK, so just in terms of really what the focus of this degree is, it's very much focused on examining the relationship between religion or religious traditions and political formations, those are states, nationalist interests and so on, taking largely a contemporary focus but also of course never forgetting that the contemporary moment is always informed by history, particular sets of histories, particular relationships and power, particular regional differences and so on. So we have created a degree where you're really able to delve deep into the connection between religion and politics in the contemporary moment as well as historically. Another I guess quite unique element of this degree is that it is very much multi and interdisciplinary. You're able to take modules from every department in the school, as well as of course within the Department of History, and religious and philosophies, which is where the degree is based. Now because SAAS is a specialist institution focused on the areas of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, the focus of this degree, again, quite uniquely is not on a European context, although we don't ignore that given particularly the history of colonialism and shaping so much of the kind of global world order, but we really want to encourage our students to engage with the very specific and rich traditions from the rest of the world. As such, you're able to develop in this degree a regional specialism, perhaps you're interested in India, perhaps you're interested in Nigeria or perhaps Saudi Arabia or so on, or just more broadly perhaps the Middle East and so on. You're certainly able to select modules that enable you to develop that regional specialism and also to learn a language associated with that region, but you may also perhaps be more interested in developing a more thematic specialism perhaps you're interested in minority religious groups or you're interested in human rights as they pertain to negotiations between religious communities and legislative bodies and so on and you're certainly able to do that in this degree. In terms of the kind of value or the, what this degree will help you to achieve through after the degree. There's really two kind of main tracks that students go into as a consequence of doing this degree, and that is that they're engaging with some sort of career development perhaps wanting to shift career focuses into an area that connects religion and politics, whether that's consultancy NGO work, and so on, and we put a lot of work into ensuring that you're well equipped and well prepared to pursue careers in those directions also, for example, journalism and so on. But another strong track of course is that many of our students go on to do research degrees PhDs and get also a lot of support in helping you can shape your ideas towards that end. Now in terms of the structure of the degree. You have to take 120 credits of taught modules that means in the classroom doing coursework assignments and so on. You have to take a core course and it's a course that I teach that's called religion and global politics series and themes. Sorry, I'm just trying to admit people into the. Okay, good. That's compulsory. That's worth 30 credits, you then must take 30 credits of the modules that are in religions. And I'll show you the list of all of these in a minute. And then you must take 30 credits that are from a thematic or regional list that leaves you with a further 30 credits that you can select either from the religions list, the thematic and regional list, or perhaps you want to use that to learn a language and you're able to do that as well. So the list of our credit modules are divided up into either 15 credits or 30 credits, and you can just build a kind of combination in consultation with me as the convener of the program and give you some advice about really what you want to achieve from this degree and the kind of modules that will really help you do that and speak to your interests. And then all students on the program have to write a dissertation of 10,000 words on a specialist research subject, you work with a supervisor who has expertise in your area of interest. And that then really kind of pulls all of your interest together. And you complete that by the end of the year which ends in September. So the program runs from September to September. Obviously if you're doing it part time and I'll talk about that a little bit later. You would do your dissertation either your second or your third year depending on how you're registered. So the list of religious options or options in religious traditions are as follows, you can see that we have quite a widespread of different religious traditions that you can specialize in, whether that's Judaism, whether Islam, whether that's Hinduism, Buddhism, Chinese, Buddhism, Chinese religions, African thought, and also Zoroastrianism. But also, there's a thematic course on death and religion, which really looks at different religious traditions approaches to death and the kind of afterlife and satirology and all of that kind of stuff. So you have to select up to 30 credits from that list but you can of course select up to 60 credits from that list. Then when it comes to the thematic or regional modules, again, you can choose modules that come from all of the other departments in the school, whether that's development studies or history or politics and international relations. And so you can build together a program that helps you to really narrow in on that on the questions that you have particularly around either a region and it's religious and political culture, or themes that connect very closely to what we understand to be religious traditions within a political context. All of this information is on the website. I'm very happy to, in the question time, come back to this list if you want to take a bit longer to have a look at it. Now, more practically speaking, when you're a student here, we'd like to make sure that you're well looked after and we have various avenues in which we ensure that that happens. We have a very good, very conscientious set of student support services. These are, you know, range from help with finance to housing to career support but also to support for any disabilities or mental health issues, things like that. They're really wonderful resource. When you're here in London, working can be an MA can be quite a stressful degree and they're there to provide you with as much support as you need. You also get a great deal of academic support and guidance for me as the convener from your lecturers, you get assigned an academic advisor as well who will meet with you at least once a term. If you have any other goals, talk through any difficulties that you're having and ensure that you're getting the support that you need. And then, in addition to that, we have a sort of learning and teaching unit that is there to help you kind of rush up on your academic skills, essay writing, knowing how to read large amounts of text, various other kind of study classes as well they run workshops, but you can also have one to one advice sessions with the members that work in that department. And that can be a really helpful resource, perhaps if you're returning to university after a while out that that's a place to go to to ensure that you're able to really kind of make the most of your time with us here at SOAS. In terms of campus life, more generally, we have a very vibrant student union, which runs many events, many debates has many kind of societies that you can get involved in, whether you're interested in political activism, or perhaps you're interested in, you know, making friends and doing work on on societies that are engaging with you know perhaps South Asia, the Middle East, or more fun things like you know sports and other forms of cultural engagement. All programs at SOAS have student representation. That means that you're able to feed in to how the degree is is going. You're able to meet with me, you're able to meet with other members of the department, attend departmental meetings, and really kind of speak to the things that you would like to see happen at SOAS and we really can welcome our student input in that regard. SOAS is a research intensive university, and to that end we have a large number of research centers in our department connected to the study of religions, but there are of course also other research centers throughout the school and as postgraduate students you're always very welcome to attend the events that they put on, whether those are conferences, seminars, workshops with visiting speakers and all of that kind of stuff. So you really kind of get a sense of the state of the art in the particular fields that you're interested in meeting researchers from all around the world. Many of our courses also arrange for visits to centers of religious worship and practice in London, sometimes beyond, we're very lucky in London that we really kind of have the whole world here. There are many, many religious communities here with whom we have very warm relationships and it is a way I think of ensuring that the work that you do at SOAS isn't particularly abstracted. It remains about people, their values, the things that matter to them and how they orient themselves to the world. As a SOAS student you also get access to all of the University of London libraries, get access to the British Library, and many of our courses also make a great deal of the museum collections at the British Museum which is just around the corner, also the Victoria and Albert Museum and other museums related to the regions of Asia Africa and the Middle East, and you often can get behind the scenes and see some of the collections there and kind of talk through their relationship to the subjects that you're studying. And then of course we have an absolutely outstanding world-class reference library housed in SOAS, which is a very special library in as much as it is mandated by the government to ensure that it has collections that cover all published material related to Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. And we have some wonderful archives of students, you're always very welcome to go in and have a look at them, really kind of get your hands on, you know, even historical material manuscripts and so on. It's a wonderful, wonderful place to be. Now as far as what students go on to do in the aftermath of this degree, the MA Religion and Global Politics, really is very diverse what students do. Many go on to work with NGOs doing development work, the Red Cross for example, they get involved in teaching at higher education or further education. Many get involved with government research and outreach, working as consultants, researchers and so on, also working with think tanks on policy development, journalism and media, and so on. And as I said earlier, many of our students also go on to do PhDs after they finish their degree with us and it's a degree that prepares you very well, either for professional development or for further research. As far as the fees and funding are concerned, we are in fact currently setting up scholarships particular to students for sorry, students in our department. So, go to that website and have and watch that space for announcements that will be coming up soon but there are already existing scholarships that you can apply for for the program. And there, I give you an overview of the fees for the program, you're able to enroll either full time part time over two years or part time over three years. And most of our students tend to either enroll full time or part time over two, two years. And then, in that time you just divide up your required modules across the two or three years. And I think that's all I have to say this kind of whistle stop tour of of the program so I'm just going to stop sharing. This stuff going on in the chat. Okay, I'll just work my way through these but if you want to put up your hands and ask questions as well you're very welcome to. There isn't, as Katie says, there isn't a session for a PhD in religions and philosophy. I'm very happy to talk to you about whatever your interest is what the process is for applying for a PhD as well. So do just drop me an email, and I can help you kind of get that that moving. Okay, so that seems to be all of the questions in the chat. Any questions that any of you have that you would like to ask. Don't be shy. There's plenty of time as well. Hopefully you can see where to raise your hand. They're rough idea of how many weekly contact hours. Yes, sure. The first modules have sort of between two to three contact hours of teaching so that might be a two hour lecture in a one hour seminar, or it might be a one hour lecture one hour seminar. It really depends from module to module but maximum three contact hours per week. And then there's also, you're able to have kind of one to one sessions with your lectures in their office hours as well. All lectures hold office hours, and you can pop in to those whenever you want to. A couple of years ago course on genealogic philosophy is offered but it's not anymore. Is there any chance it will run again. There's a slight chance we're working on that at the moment, trying to get some endowments, so that that kind of course can run the member of staff that you might want to get in touch with is called Peter Flugel. He teaches that his email address and just put it in the chat. Do contact him. Yes, or you have to with regard to language modules. In fact, I can probably just find that for you now. There's undergraduate open options but don't worry about that. If there's an undergraduate option being run there will be a postgraduate option for that language being run as well. About the structure of the academic year when do we start to tackle the dissertation. So, there are three terms in the year. The first two terms are taken up with your taught modules. Quite intense you'll have a lot of kind of this quite a high workload. And so most students don't really actively start writing their dissertation until the third term through to September, although we do encourage you to start being supervised in the second term, when you choose your dissertation topic, we assign you a supervisor, and then you begin working with that supervisor. Any other questions that came to me Katie. Maralina, the recordings will be emailed out to you after this event. You want to know more about scholarship and funding. There's a dedicated scholarships page I'm just going to post the link here. Sorry. So there are quite a lot of scholarships offered by sauce there are some that are particularly from people from particular regions, people working on particular topics. There are general ones. And as I say we're currently developing scholarships for students on the programs in our department as well as a 60 credit dissertation, not included in the 120 that's correct so in total you do 180 credits. How much of a jump would you say masters level academic is from the kinds of things we do in the third year. Do you say it takes a while to adjust to the difference that's an excellent question. It depends on quite a lot of things that sort of first of all depends on whether you're kind of shifting disciplines. So if you did I don't know economics for your undergraduate, and now you're moving into religion and politics will take a little while to kind of adjust to the different way of doing things. But I think a third year undergraduate year is usually fairly good preparation for masters level, although you know we do make sure that we start fairly. Not simply but you know we do recognize that masters level is a step up that you might not feel like you're particularly prepared for it, we make sure that the first few weeks we're kind of introducing you both to the fields but also to do to the kind of what would the word be a kind of skills that you need to do the to do the work. I should say though, I'd say that the workload for a master's degree is quite a lot more intense than that of a third year undergraduate degree and just in terms of the amount of reading, particularly that you'll have to be doing every week. And I would sort of recommend that you just kind of treat it as a nine to five job. And that's usually good enough, but it also helps to kind of develop really good quick reading skills, and we do kind of teach you how to do that. Any other questions under the pandemic. That's another good question. At the moment, we're doing hybrid teaching which means that some of our offerings are online, and some are on campus and what we're trying to do is do the lectures online and then have the seminars in person and that seems to be working quite well. Next term, the plan is to move more and more to online teaching, sorry, not online, sorry, on campus teaching, but obviously we have to follow government advice and regulations and so when those change then we always have to change our plans as well. But the intention at the moment, I think, is to try and put as much on campus as we can, whilst ensuring that people that are unable perhaps to come to the UK, or perhaps who are shielding have an online option available to them. If taking it as a one year program is it feasible for students to also work part time, less than 10 hours to fund living in London. That's absolutely possible. And a lot of people do it. I think you should just be prepared to not have a lot of fun in the year. I mean, mostly your contact time in a given week will usually be between 8 to 12 hours, and it's really the kind of learning that you do by yourself that takes up the time. Any other questions? I'm very happy to stay here as long as you like. Well, actually only up until 11 because I have to go teach teaching on campus. I've got a seminar to run. Okay. Well, if there are any more questions, I think we can probably wrap up. As I say, I'm just going to put my email in the chat again, so that you can feel free to contact me whenever you want. If you have any questions you need advice, I'm really, really happy to talk to you about that. Have a Zoom appointment, etc. Okay, thank you all so much for coming. Hope you have a lovely rest of the day. And yeah, thanks for coming. Bye bye.