Wondering whether a degree in sociology might be right for you? Contact our office to ask questions or set up a conversation with one of our advisors.
Location: Behavioral and Social Sciences Building 210
Phone: 530-898-6384
Email: sociology@csuchico.edu
The Sociology Online major is a degree-completion program for students who have earned at least 60 transferable units at a community college. The program offers a broad foundation in understanding social problems, data skills, and social change. Graduates earn a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology--your diploma will not specify that you completed the degree online.
The major requires a total of 43 units, 9 of which may be transferred from community college. Full-time students typically finish in two years, while about one-third of our students attend part-time while balancing work or family responsibilities.
Most classes are asynchronous. Our four core courses are offered in a “online, archives available” format—students may attend optional twice-weekly Zoom sessions or watch recordings later. We’ve found that this format improves student success, especially in theory and methods courses, by fostering interaction and connection.
Students can tailor their schedules based on interests and goals. Full-time students take both SOCI 300 (Classical Social Theory) and SOCI 310 (Social Research Methods) in their first semester; part-time students take one core course per term. All students complete the capstone course, SOCI 441 Public Sociology, in their final semester. All other major requirements offer students a choice of courses.
We are highly experienced in online education—we’ve been teaching online since 2000, long before the pandemic. Our instructors use a wide range of teaching approaches, including flipped classrooms, interactive reading through Perusall, hands-on activities, interactive Zoom sessions, recorded mini-lectures, video assignments, AI-integrated assignments, and more. Faculty stay current with emerging technologies and evolving student needs to ensure engaging and effective learning experiences.
The department includes nine tenured or tenure-track professors and ten lecturers. Five of our lecturers are proud graduates of the Sociology program who continued their education and returned to teach with us. Our faculty have been recognized for their excellence in teaching, earning awards such as Best Teacher, Outstanding Lecturer (2), and Exemplary Online Teaching (2).
Advising: Our award-winning advisors - including two Chico State graduates - meet with students each semester to ensure steady progress toward graduation. Because not all courses are offered every term, meeting with your advisor is important for planning. Advisors also assist with career guidance, personal challenges, and referrals to campus resources. In-person advising is available during the day, and online appointments are offered in the evenings and on weekends.
Tutoring: The department offers a dedicated Sociology tutor for all courses, with Zoom appointments available primarily on evenings and weekends.
Please see the Sociology Advising and Tutoring page for more information!
Students may opt into the Game-Changer Cohort (first-come, first-served), taking two theory (SOCI 300 & 301) or methods (SOCI 310 & 315) courses together with the same classmates, professor, and peer mentors over two semesters. This structure builds continuity, belonging, and supports academic success. Students in the cohort choose their other classes, just like all our majors.
Applicants who live outside of Chico, have completed at least 60 transferable units, and meet university admission requirements are eligible to apply to the Sociology Online program.
Fees for the Sociology Online major are the same as fees for on-campus students. For a thorough explanation of current costs, see Tuition and Registration Fees.
Financial aid is available for many of our online students. For information, please visit the Financial Aid website.
Yes. Entering the program with all of your lower-division completed, you can take all of your upper-division sociology courses, upper-division GE courses (3 courses required by Chico State), courses that fulfill your writing requirement, and electives all online.
In order to enroll in our distance education program, you must live outside of the Chico area. If, however, you are close enough to commute on some days, enrolling in the Distance Education program does not limit you to taking online classes. You may take either on-campus or online classes, and all will count toward your degree progress.
Our online courses have different instruction modalities. Some are completely asynchronous, with no meeting times, so you have flexibility to work on the material on your schedule within a given week. Other classes are synchronous, and have a meeting time. Called “online, archive available”, these classes allow you to log-in along with your classmates and participate live in the class. These sessions are recorded, so if you are unable to attend live, you can still get credit by watching the videos (“archives”) within 48 hours.
For some courses it may work to do all of the week’s work on weekend. For many courses, however, you will need to log in, watch class videos, do reading, communicate with group members and/or turn in assignments during the work week. So if you are only available on the weekends, our distance education program may not be the right fit for you. Keep in mind that the university has determined that a 3-unit course should have an average of 9 hours of work (including meeting times, videos, reading, and assignments) per week. And while some courses may have a bit less work than this, if you take 15 units, that’s more than most people can reasonably fit into a weekend.
No. Your diploma will list Sociology as your major, but will not be different from the diploma of an on-campus student.
Currently there are a very limited set of majors offered online. They are:
Yes, the tuition and fees are exactly the same as those for on-campus students.
Students enrolled in our distance education program have the same eligibility for financial aid as on-campus students. Additionally, the Sociology Department has a small number of scholarships and awards that it gives each year to sociology majors, and distance education students compete on equal footing with on-campus students for these.
You can transfer a maximum of 70 units total to Chico State, and a maximum of 9 units toward the major: EITHER Introduction to Sociology OR Social Problems, and 2 lower-division sociology electives. These 6 elective units do not have to match courses we specifically offer: we will give lower-division elective credit for any 2 lower-division sociology courses you have taken.
You must enter the program with a minimum of 60 lower-division units (the university allows a maximum of 70 lower division transfer units). Included in that, the Fundamental Core (Introduction to Sociology OR Social Problems) is usually transferred in, as well as up to 6 units of additional sociology classes, which count toward your electives. Thus, most transfer students have 31 units to complete in the major when they begin our distance ed program. Once enrolled in the program, if you take 15 units each semester, make sure you are taking the correct courses, and pass all your classes, you will graduate in 2 years (not including any minors or double majors). If you take 2 classes per semester plus one summer class each year, you will graduate in 4 years.
* Note that there can be variations in this timeline, depending on the units and courses you have transferred in, and the courses you take at Chico State. See a Major Advisor to plan your schedule to achieve the best possible personal timeline toward graduation.
The Sociology distance education program is not a cohort program in that everyone entering the program is not required to take particular classes in particular semesters—you are encouraged to individualize your schedule with the help of one of our major advisors to best meet your schedule, needs, and goals. That said, there are some courses in the Fundamental Core that are prerequisites to other courses in the major. Thus, most full-time students are encouraged to take both SOCI 300 (Classical Social Theory) and SOCI 310 (Social Research Methods) during their first semester in the program, while part-time students are encouraged to take one of these courses in their first semester. By default, then, as students move naturally through the Fundamental Core, they find that they repeatedly have classes with many of the same students, which provides an increased sense of community in classes, much like the cohort model does, while still maintaining maximum flexibility for individualized paths to graduation.
While we can’t guarantee you that you will always get the class you want, when you want it, with the professor you want it with, we do not generally have a problem with students being able to get classes.Every semester we offer multiple sections of every course in the Fundamental Core, and we offer all other required courses for the major every year, with at least one option for every requirement being offered every semester. We offer (non-GE) elective courses on a rotating basis, and upper-division GE courses generally every semester. If courses do develop a bottleneck, we relieve the pressure by offering a section during winter or summer special sessions.
Yes. We have a Sociology Department Tutor that books appointments with students online or in-person for all of our Fundamental Core classes, and also can provide help with any other class in the major.
Wondering whether a degree in sociology might be right for you? Contact our office to ask questions or set up a conversation with one of our advisors.
Location: Behavioral and Social Sciences Building 210
Phone: 530-898-6384
Email: sociology@csuchico.edu