Cambridge Human, Social and Political Sciences (HSPS) Students and Applicants

Scroll to see replies

I think you may have misunderstood? The HSPS course is replacing the arch/anth course, so it's not an eithe or option. I may have misunderstod you though :confused:

You can do virtually exactly the same course within HSPS though, there's just the option of other things too. :smile:

Holy **** really? Oh okay, that makes more sense. People who did PPS were often better prepared for part 2 anthropology anyway...

Reply 21

Languages Nutter

Hi - I'd try asking in the new HSPS thread! Hope this helps :smile:

Reply 22

iammichealjackson

PPS is great. Im not doing the politics/IR papers, but in the first year you basically study four different ways of analysing society in the social sciences and your not constrained to go down a particular route. The papers politics people tend take with the "Politics" paper are: International relations, social anthropology, Sociology, British Economic History (requires economics a level equivelent apparently), and perhaps also human geography although that may not be on the course anymore. You can also study psychology/biological anthropology/archeology but they're less relevant. So it depends, would you rather do economics and philosophy with politics instead?

Reply 23

jamesyflo

Original post by iammichealjackson

Thanks for the help everyone! Yes it seems like there's a huge amount of flexibility in the course. But I'm just torn between Philosophy and Sociology! I certainly have no interest in uni-level Economics since it's so mathematical - but philosophy is a great interest of mine and I would love to study it further.

The course website for HSPS seems to include Political Philosophy as an optional paper as well - but I was wondering whether this would be substantial? Or would it just be a peripheral part of the course?

Argh, such a difficult choice...

Reply 24

iammichealjackson

Original post by jamesyflo

It doesn't have political philosophy as a first year paper (i.e. are you looking at this: http://www.hsps.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate/subjects/polis.html). A paper for politics seem to count for 1/4 of the years work, to put that into perspective. Sociology is pretty good, and is pretty eye-opening if your looking at methods of studying society/inequalities that exist/etc.

Reply 25

JumbleJumble

Original post by iammichealjackson

Holy **** really? Oh okay, that makes more sense. People who did PPS were often better prepared for part 2 anthropology anyway...

Yeah, I thought that's what you might of got confused. So are you doing PPE at the moment? If so, is the course an especially popular one? thanks!

Reply 26

iammichealjackson

Original post by JumbleJumble

Yeah, I thought that's what you might of got confused. So are you doing PPE at the moment? If so, is the course an especially popular one? thanks!

It says nothing on the arch and anth website about it being replaced... But im not sure. Im doing PPS, there is a pretty high applicants/offers ratio, but its not the hardest course to get into at cambridge.

Reply 27

jozef161

Hi everyone.

The following academic year i will be applying to Cambridge HSPS course, i want to study Politics and International relations.

Now, i am doing 5 AS levels:

History
Government&Politics
Russian language
Sociology
Psychology

I am not doing A level Maths because i hate pure Mathematics, and now im wondering whether not doing Maths is a disadvantage compared to applicants who are doing A level Maths. I am asking because i am aware of the english ironic perception of Maths as being 'Golden' A level.

Your opinions ? Please, be objective !

Reply 28

riri_xx

This course is so cool. When i first looked at Cambridge I was slightly hesistant as psychology and sociology aren't subjects i wished to dedicate most of my time to. But when I found out they were changing it to HSPS i was pretty relieved as it means I can retain all the subjects Im doing/enjoy.

Planning to apply for 2013 entry:
A levels: Archaeology, History, Politics and Classical Civilization. Also gonna do an EPQ next year

Want to specialise in politics.

Reply 29

iammichealjackson

Original post by jozef161

You can get into cambridge without maths (people have), and im sure many tutors won't think it is any more essential as something like english lit or history.

Reply 30

Kavalier

Original post by bíborcsiga

I believe this might be useful for you guys: http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/index.php?pageid=86&subid=3
Trinity College have already updated their website and say that "Students applying to the HSPS programme at Trinity will be asked to indicate their interests in some more detail on a questionnaire they will be sent".

I guess it would make sense for all the colleges to do this, as it might solve the problem of writing a personal statement for such a broad course.

So does this mean that we should just write the personal statement as if we were applying to one or two of the subjects the course offers, and then they will send us the questionnaire later on to clarify exactly which subjects we're interested in?

Say, if I wanted to just study social anthropology, this would be the only subject I'd write about in my PS?

I'm sorry if I'm being stupid, I just want to understand it properly :colondollar:

Reply 31

JumbleJumble

Original post by Kavalier

Ahough I'm not entirely sure myself, I assume (and also seem to remember it being metion at the open day Q & A) that yes, if you have no interest in, say, sociology, then you don't have to write anything about it in your PS. I suppose it would probably be good to indicate an interest in a couple of subjects in your PS anyway though, so that you don't look too narrow. So, perhaps if you were keen on anthropology you should also indicate and interest in archaeology or something because you can't fill your timetable exclusively with anthropology (at least not in 1st year).

Really though, we need to email the admissions office to see what they suggest as I'm sure they'd be happy to help with this and would completely understand how confusing it is for us!

Reply 32

Kavalier

Original post by JumbleJumble

Ah, thank you!

I actually did email them a couple of days ago and was told that it was perfectly fine to focus my PS on the subjects I wish to specialize in. That makes it so much easier. However, I think you might be right in that it's probably not a good idea to seem too narrow in my interests - it's just difficult when I really only want to study anthropology :tongue:

Both biological and social though, so maybe it would be good enough to focus on those two? Oh, the confusion.

Reply 33

moonkatie

I think the important thing to bear in mind with regards to your PS is that unless you're only applying to Cambridge it needs to be relevant to all of your University choices.

You'll have the opportunity to put across more detailed information in both the SAQ and/or the interview.

Reply 34

JumbleJumble

Original post by moonkatie

Good point! It's easy to get too hung up on your PS I guess but there are other factors too. We got told at the open day that they would probably try to interview virtually everyone who applies so you'll get a chance to say more cambridge specific things then.

Reply 35

soindie

asking for a friend who goes to a private school. They said that they will probably get between 5 and 7 a*s at GCSE because they struggle with science. Do they still stand a chance for HSPS at Cambridge with a good set of a levels?

Reply 36

JumbleJumble

Original post by soindie

I would have thought so! I don't think GCSEs are THAT important as long as they get good a levels... There's no point not applying then regretting it later anyway :biggrin: