Bachelor of Recreation and Leisure Studies

at Brock University Canada

Our BA in General Humanities is designed to allow you to pursue a more flexible selection of courses, with broad exposure to courses from across all of our Faculties.

At the same time, the degree provides the opportunity to focus on a particular area of study, with the majority of courses taken in disciplines within the Faculty of Humanities. You also have the option of including up to two minors in this degree.

Philosophy, defined as the pursuit of wisdom, encompasses the exploration of the nature of reality, consciousness, values, knowledge, reason, argument and evidence.

You’ll study not only the primary texts of the Western philosophical tradition, but also major texts of Indian and Chinese thought.

You’ll learn to be critical, reflective, thoughtful, skeptical, affirmative, knowledgeable, and, of course, wise. You’ll become a decision-maker, well trained for a variety of vocations, including law, public service and policy.

Labour Studies is an interdisciplinary field and is home to popular courses, including Labour of Sport, Labour and Employment Law, Animals at Work, and our simulation-based Collective Bargaining course.
You’ll find a mix of theoretical and applied courses designed to prepare you for a wide range of careers in labour and employment relations, workplace education and training, public policy and administration, and social justice and advocacy.
You may pursue a Labour Studies degree or a combined Labour Studies degree with a co- major in Political Science, Sociology, History, Geography, Economics or Women’s and Gender Studies.

Co-op Education
The path to a successful career starts in one of Canada’s most diverse co-op programs. Co-op at Brock gives you the opportunity to apply what you learn in the classroom to real-world situations. Our students test their skills daily, gaining experience and an edge in a global economy.

The Labour Studies Co-op program offers students a combination of rigorous training in academic theory and practical skills in an off-campus, work based setting. Co-op students gain an enriched understanding of their academic program through practical application. Students develop and refine employability skills, gain an understanding of career opportunities in their field, and gain an understanding of the realities of the workplace.

The Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film offers four separate programs of study in Business Communication, Media and Communication Studies, Film Studies, and Popular Culture. A four-year program leading to the Bachelor of Arts (BA) Honours degree, a 4 Year BA with Major, and a three-year program leading to the BA Pass degree is offered in all four programs. Majors in the Department may complete a Concentration in Digital Culture. Minor programs are available in Digital Culture, Film Studies, Media Studies and Popular Culture for majors in other Departments/Centres as well as a Certificate in Film Studies. In addition, the Department is involved in programs with community colleges which offer students the opportunity to earn a BA Honours Communication Studies, BA Honours Popular Culture or a BA with Major Film Studies degree and a college diploma or certificate.

Communication Studies
Business Communication
Students in Business Communication must attain a minimum 65 percent major average to continue in the program. Business Communication is an interdisciplinary program combining the study of communication with a study of some aspects of business. The program aims to equip the student with a sound theoretical basis for analysing and practicing communication within the business environment.

Media and Communication Studies
Media and Communication Studies is an interdisciplinary program that focuses on the impact of media and communication in the creation of meaning, identity and social change, emphasizing the study of media content, audiences and institutions in their political, economic, and social contexts in Canada and elsewhere.

Film Studies
Film Studies is a sequence of critical and historical courses that examine a variety of approaches to film. The courses explore the nature of film language and develop an analytical perspective on film as both an art and a medium. Other courses explore issues and theories in popular culture. Students may have opportunities to engage in media production in selected upper year courses.

Classics presents an integrated study of the worlds of ancient Greece and Rome in order to better understand the origins of many contemporary artistic and literary traditions and social institutions.

In Classics, we examine ancient languages, history, art and archaeology in ways that allow you to engage with the ancient world on many levels.

Our extensive experiential opportunities range from the preparation of ancient feasts to curatorial and archaeological experiences at Brock and overseas. In the summer, we offer courses on archaeological excavations and study tours in the Mediterranean region to explore ancient art and culture directly.

You may choose to specialize in one of the following areas:

• Ancient Art and Archaeology examines the culture of the ancient Mediterranean from the perspectives of anthropological archaeology and art history.
• Classical Civilization is an option for those interested in creating their own customized program of study in Classics. Courses in ancient Greek and Latin language are not required.
• Greek and Roman Studies combines the study of Greek and Roman history, religion and literature-in-translation.

The Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures offers this interdisciplinary program as a combined major.

Courses are taught in English and cover the literatures and cultures of Western Europe, as well as Romance Linguistics. French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish texts are read in translation and assignments are completed in English.

The Department of Music offers superb performance and academic instruction, pristine facilities in the Walker School and a professional auditorium in the 300-seat recital hall at the adjacent FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.

There are a wide range of courses in music history, theory, general musicianship, solo and ensemble performance, composition, conducting, music technology and music education.

The concentration in Music Education is the perfect lead into further studies in a Faculty of Education, school teaching, or for teaching privately in a studio setting.

The Music Therapy Foundations concentration is a kind of Music Therapy “pre-med,” and is excellent preparation for graduate studies and eventual certification in Music Therapy.

The Music Performance concentration (BMus only) is for performers of the highest calibre who aspire to go on to graduate studies in performance and an eventual career concertizing. Entry to this concentration is via a juried audition at the end of first year.

The Earth Sciences program trains geoscientists — scientists who study the Earth and other planets in order to better understand their origin and history.

We know the Earth’s history reasonably well, and that knowledge has helped us to discover natural resources, such as oil and gas, economic minerals and metals, and to understand phenomena, such as global climate change and volcano and earthquake hazards. The geological knowledge derived from the Earth also helps us to better understand other solar system bodies. Two of our professors are planetary geologists, including Dr. Mariek Schmidt who is a member of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Project that operates the rover Curiosity as it explores Gale Crater.

Brock’s program is designed to comply with the educational requirements for initial registration as a geoscientist-in-training, the licensing classification that leads to the PGeo designation established by the Association of Professional Geoscientists of Ontario.

Biophysics is the physics of life, of all living systems and their interaction with their surroundings, both natural and artificial. It is a rapidly advancing field, encompassing a wide variety of areas in natural and life sciences.

Biophysics uses all methods of scientific inquiry — theory, experiment and large-scale computer simulation — to understand living systems at the molecular level.

Biophysics also forms the basis of many aspects of medical physics, another rapidly developing field in much demand right now.

Brock’s Biophysics program will provide you with a superb learning environment and exciting research opportunities. Extended research opportunities are available through Brock’s participation in the Biophysics Interdepartmental Group (BIG), based at the University of Guelph.

The Bachelor of Accounting Co-op program prepares the students to get a public accounting license for themselves. The students can gain up to twenty months of practical work experience toward their designations, and the successful completion of the program gets them a degree in Bachelor of Accounting (Honours). The BAcc Co-op program designation will be awarded to those students who have completed a minimum of 12 months of Co-op work experience.