Program Overview

The Foundation Studies program is equivalent to Year 12 and prepares you for entry into first year degree studies.

Course Structure
In your Foundation Studies program, you’ll study four subjects in each of your two trimesters. You’ll also undertake independent learning to develop learning and research skills to prepare you for university.

Leading to: Bachelor of Arts

Shape your own future and pursue your passion

Get the flexibility, choice and support you need to turn what you’re passionate about into a rewarding career.

• Expand your opportunities with an array of around 50 majors and minors from humanities, social sciences, business, health and science.
• Gain real-world experience through an industry-placement at organisations like SBS Radio and the United Nations of Australia.
• We’re ranked in the world’s top 150 for linguistics and sociology, and the top 250 for politics.
• With StudyFlex, you have the opportunity to learn both online and on-campus.
• Studying regionally? You’ll benefit from enhanced online support services, local work placement opportunities and industry network connections with our Regional Connect program.

Major: Politics

The Politics major will train you to look at how power is used in different systems of government, at the way states relate to one another in the international system, and at the relationships between local, national and global institutions and how they operate. In this major you will compare the various institutions, processes, beliefs and cultures that societies have developed for settling conflict, ordering priorities and distributing wealth. By its nature, politics is an argumentative discipline, so you will learn how to navigate competing arguments and weigh up competing accounts of what actually happens with what ought to happen.

Undertaking a Politics major at La Trobe will connect you to experts in political theory, nationalism, democracy and democratisation, as well as Australian politics and institutions, international relations of the Asia-Pacific, and the politics of modern China, Russia and Southeast Asia.