By Karen Sternheimer

I had a really cool social studies teacher in high school, and he taught a sociology class as an elective. I didn’t take it. Why?

It could have been the age-old “didn’t fit my schedule” or someone mentioned it was “hard.” I took his psychology class instead, maybe because I thought I knew something about psychology (I didn’t) or thought it might be easy (it wasn’t).

Looking back, I suspect I would have loved his sociology class, and it would have given me a little more of a background into what sociology is about. This is a question I get all the time from prospective students: what exactly is sociology? If there is no sociology class in your high school, how can you prepare if you are thinking of majoring in sociology?

First, sociology is the empirical study of groups, institutions, and how individuals navigate their lives within them and with each other. The American Sociological Association’s definition is:

The study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior. Sociologists investigate the structure of groups, organizations, and societies and how people interact within these contexts. Since all human behavior is social, the subject matter of sociology ranges from the intimate family to global communities; from deviance to organized crime; from religious traditions to state institutions; and from the divisions of race, gender and social class to the shared beliefs of a common culture.

Second, explore. What interests you most about the world around you? A sociologist is someone who observes and asks questions. You might do this naturally. When I was growing up, a friend and I used to critique television commercials, looking at assumptions made about who was supposed to use the product (like why were women always in cleaning ads but men hardly ever were?).

The task of becoming a sociologist involves developing a sociological imagination, learning to ask sociological questions and how to think like a sociologist. But sociologists don’t all think the same way—start looking for debates and challenges within a topic that interests you. And keep in mind that sociology is a science, and science means that we are always asking more questions and conducting more research, rather than presuming that one study will yield everything we need to know about an issue.

Third, read work by sociologists. I recommend starting with blogs, articles and books that are written for general audiences and when you are ready dig into content geared primarily for sociologists.

If you’re reading this post, you have taken the first step: read sociology blogs like ours! Also, check out The Society Pages blog and Contexts, a sociological magazine with articles written by sociologists for general audiences.

Fourth, read books on topics that you find interesting. A search for “best sociology books for beginners” yields a list that I would recommend saving for classroom reading: the theoretical works of Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Goffman, and Berger & Luckmann are great for new graduate students but many high school students might be better off starting with more accessible reads.

Many sociologists (like me) have written books geared for readers who might not have a background in sociology. If you search your local library’s catalogue, choose nonfiction and sociology as categories to sample what books come up. Beware: some will not really be works of sociology but might be categorized as such if they deal with topics in current events. You might start with memoirs written by sociologists, which are very relatable as human stories from a sociological perspective (click here to see a few I recommend).

Fifth, take a class. This might be an actual class in your school, at a community college, or an open-source class online. I’m a fan of the Great Courses audio books and often listen to them while commuting. If you don’t have time to do a whole class, take a look at an introduction to sociology textbook to get an idea of the multitude of topics that sociologists study.

Becoming a sociologist doesn’t have to mean that you have to become a sociology professor—there are many pathways to consider, and many tools you will develop as a student of sociology. Although I’ve been a sociology professor for more than 25 years, I am still a student of sociology and sharpening my sociological imagination.