The SoCIETIE Initiative — A guide for student advisors
For-credit, transdisciplinary electives open to students from any degree. Students build skills through KNoT workshops and apply them to a real project that creates positive change.
Students choose a pathway that is shaped by their learning goals
Build broad skills across a range of KNoTs — best taken across a semester.
Go deep on one project, supported by fewer KNoTs — any semester or session.
Students work on a collaborative project
Every project is collaborative — with a partner or peers — and geared toward positive change on an issue that matters to the student. A project can come from any of four sources:
An advertised project with a McCusker Institute partner.
Advancing a role the student already holds in community.
A student leadership activity they are driving on campus.
A project we organise inside the course — ideal for students who don't arrive with a project.
Students develop skills through our workshops
Our classes, called KNoTs (to Know the Nature of Things), are morning or afternoon workshops that students choose and complete. Each is roughly three hours plus a pre- and post activity. Some topics on offer:
- Collaboration in Action
- Systems and Feedback
- Unravelling Complexity
- Creating Change
- Building your BS Meter
- Inclusive Design
- Respectful Dialogues
- CyberNations
- Developing your Personal Brand
- Presentations that Don't Suck
- Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Ways of Knowing
- …and many more, including on-campus KNoTs
How we teach and assess
Any year level, any session — there is no fixed starting point.
No marks and doesn't contribute to GPA — the work itself is the point.
We value multiple perspectives and look at problems that don't have right answers
Students revise and resubmit until the standard is met.
Structured reflection is threaded through every KNoT.
Find out about the next information session on our website.