Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Political Studies and Legal Studies Option (Joint Majors)

at Trent University Peterborough Canada

Create a unique educational focus based on your passions and interests, with an interdisciplinary knowledge base
Trent’s joint major programs give you full license to create a degree that's uniquely your own, by combining courses in the arts, sciences, or professional programs. Have a passion for social justice? Combine your Politics degree with Gender & Women’s Studies. Interested in all things tech? Join Media Studies and Computing Systems. Mix and match programs that best appeal to your interests, preparing yourself for a future with more possibility.

Combine degrees. Expand your horizons.
At Trent, you have the flexibility to combine nearly any two programs of your choice. To help you narrow it down, here’s a list of some of our most popular combinations:

• Media Studies and Psychology 
• Anthropology and History 
• English and Media Studies 
• Biology and Psychology 
• Anthropology and Psychology 
• Environmental Studies and Biology 
• Anthropology and Sociology 
• Geography and Canadian Studies 
• Computing Systems and Media Studies 
• Economics and Philosophy 
• Economics and Psychology 
• English and Psychology 
• Psychology and Sociology 
• Computing Systems and Economics 
• English and Sociology 

You can also explore the popular joint major combinations within our professional programs like Business Administration and Forensic Science.

Political Studies:-
Politics shape everything society touches, influencing what we believe, how we live and what we do to create order in a chaotic world. In this program, you’ll learn to make a positive impact through shaping and influencing social policy, focusing on Canadian politics, world politics and political theory. You’ll find yourself debating and exploring ideas surrounding democracy and global politics, closely examining power relations and relationships between state, business, and citizens.

Legal Studies (Option):-
Understanding the legal system in Canada is valuable for everyone, not just lawyers and policy makers. A complement to virtually any B.A. or B.Sc. degree, this option provides students with fundamental knowledge about Canadian law. You'll learn about rights and freedoms, what it takes to draft and pass new laws, and how the law influences and is influenced by society and culture.   

An option is a “mini-minor” – a set of courses in one discipline that can be completed in conjunction with any undergraduate degree program, allowing you to focus on an additional subject of interest.

Resume Boosters:-

• Gain the diversity of knowledge today’s employers are looking by studying and specializing in not one, but two academic disciplines
• Hands-on learning experiences abound in all Trent programs – gain the competitive edge on your resume

Knowledge in both arts and science is key to understanding the complicated issues of today’s world – from global warming and medicine to human rights and politics, and everything in between. In this unique program, you will gain the skills needed to take on the most complicated subjects and communicate about them effectively – key attributes of success for lawyers, doctors, journalists, business leaders, and environmental scientists. Here, you will have the opportunity to experience the very best of both areas of study, while benefiting from the ability to customize your degree with flexibility. The options are virtually endless.

Resume Boosters:-

• Develop a broad knowledge-base and skill set that is highly adaptable to any career path you choose
• Gain professional experience performing and presenting independent research for the Arts and Science Colloquium
• Take advantage of several internship opportunities within one or more of your chosen majors
• Participate in a community-based research project with guidance from faculty members in a variety of disciplines

Cultural Studies is a deep, critical dive into modern culture that will help you to uncover the hidden politics of everyday life, including opportunities to peek into how culture intercepts many aspects of professional life through the co-op stream. As a student in either stream, you will gain the tools to critique and create cultural objects and practices – everything from games to graffiti, print to painting, and music to film. You’ll study culture by reading, talking, and doing, taking lecture and workshop courses in literature, fine art, media, and theory. And you’ll ask (and seek answers to) the questions about how culture shapes our lives, and vice versa. Through the co-op stream, you’ll take these tools, theory and thinking into workplaces to investigate contemporary culture and political dynamics in environments from corporate to creative.

Resume Boosters:

• Explore your strengths and career interests, and graduate with 12 months of work experience (and income) through the new four-year B.A. co-op option, giving you the competitive edge for future job prospects.
• Gain work experience in fields like theatre, media production, and curation through our fourth-year Internship in Media and Cultural Studies
• Learn from professors who are defining the study of culture today, like Dr. Anne Pasek, the Canada Research Chair in Media, Culture, and the Environment
• Immerse yourself in courses led by renowned theatre directors, artists, musicians, writers, and filmmakers, as you gain hands-on experience with a variety of media including photography, theatre and podcasting
• Complete hands-on course work that gives you the opportunity to engage with a variety of media, including photography, theatre, music, film, radio, and podcasting

Trent’s unique Biomedical Science degree combines the study of biology and medicine, allowing you to examine the impact of disease on human health. In this program, you’ll study a range of medical and health-related topics such as cell biology, anatomy and biochemistry. You’ll gain a better understanding of how the many levels and approaches to health and medicine are complementary, and you’ll learn to apply these principles to assess and solve problems as they relate to real-world health issues.

Resume Boosters:-

• Gain valuable, real-world experience in a medical or health-care related setting through a capstone internship or placement courses, something that no other Ontario university offers in a four-year Biomedical Science degree
• Work alongside leading faculty in state-of-the-art research facilities, as well as healthcare professionals in the community
• Complete a fourth-year honours research thesis

With 220 million French speakers worldwide (projected to be more than 700 million by 2050), French language and comprehension has become a highly-sought after and important skill. In this program, you’ll immerse yourself in French, French Canadian, and Francophone literatures and cultures.

Quebec and Franco-Canadian Studies (Specialization):-
Learn more than just the grammatical and linguistic elements of the French language, examining the challenges and triumphs that have shaped the language culturally, socially, and politically around the globe.

Go beyond the boundaries of your French major, exploring French as a linguistic force that exceeds provincial borders and has influence across the globe as a language of power. Immerse yourself in the culture, literature, and history of Que?bec and French Canada to understand the social and political dimensions of Canada’s second official language.

Resume Boosters:-

• Take your studies even further by spending a year abroad in Quebec.
• Embrace French-based events, including presentations by guest speakers, public readings, and student-run mini-conferences.

Nurses play a pivotal role in everyday healthcare by working hard to positively impact the lives of countless individuals in need. Accredited by the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing, Trent’s B.Sc.N. offers aspiring nurses the option of pursuing either a collaborative or compressed degree with an emphasis on a holistic approach to healthcare, spanning a variety of nursing contexts. Starting in your first year, you’ll be immersed in both theory and practice, developing important skills through lectures, seminars, case studies, simulation labs, online coursework, and clinical practice. By the final year of study, you’ll have the opportunity to practice nursing in a range of hospital and community settings. Considering other pathways?

Trent’s P.N. to B.Sc.N. program enables students to fast track through the program in less than two years, after completing a two-semester Post-Bridge Practical Nursing to Bachelor of Science in Nursing bridge at George Brown College.

“In Nursing, I have the opportunity to go out into the real world and practice my skills in many different settings. I’ve been able to work in a long-term care setting as well as a maternity ward. In class we focus on the practical with weekly labs in the DNA building, working with simulation dummies, and we have theory based courses so we learn what it’s really like to be a nurse.” Joanna McMurchy, Trent/Fleming School of Nursing

Cultural Studies
In this program, the only one of its kind in Canada, explore both theoretical and practical paths into visual arts, media, film, theatre, and music. You'll study culture by reading, talking, and doing, taking lecture and workshop courses in literature, fine art, media, and theory. And you'll ask (and seek answers to) the questions about how culture shapes our lives. Gain work experience through our fourth-year Internship in Media and Cultural Studies.

Business
You want to become an innovative business leader or entrepreneur. No other program will help you get there better than Trent's exclusive Bachelor of Business Administration. By examining corporate, self-employment, online, small business, and other business models, you'll learn the fundamentals of leadership and management, gaining a deep understanding of the organization of business and its role in today's highly-digital world. Benefit from 100 hours of hands-on professional experience completing internships with business sector companies and organizations. Prepare for your CPA designation or springboard to an M.B.A., benefiting from the knowledge and expertise of a dedicated community of business leaders and mentors.

Build your future career by uncovering the ancient past, studying in one of the most robust archaeology programs in Canada. Your studies will focus on the history of human beings, examining artifacts, human and animal bones, architecture, and plants. You’ll learn the field methods and lab techniques used to study these materials, as well as theories archaeologists use to understand the ancient cultures and past civilizations of the Americas, Europe and the pre-Classical and Classical Mediterranean world.

Environmental Archaeology Specialization:-
Become an expert in the intriguing relationships between past civilizations and plants, animals and even climate change in this one-of-a-kind Archaeology specialization. You’ll gain hands-on experience applying geological, biological, and physical sciences concepts to archaeological field studies, expanding the extraordinary complexity of humanity's long-term relationship with our environment.

Resume Boosters:-

• Get your hands dirty studying comparative zoological collections and animal bones from archaeological sites
• Gain professional experience applying Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technologies to archaeological case studies
• Build an understanding of laboratory methods for measuring stable isotopes in archaeological materials
• Build knowledge of core concepts and ideas about ecology and its relationship to human culture

Pursue either a B.A. or B.Sc. degree in Economics with exclusive access to leading Economics professors and experts in small-group classes, seminars and workshops.

At both a national and global level, the most significant social issues involve economics. Through your studies in Economics, you’ll gain a thorough understanding of the methods and tools required to analyze complex economic issues such as unemployment, inflation, economic growth and the regulation of the market structure. Your studies will enable you to use national and international data to explore trends and tendencies, test economic models, and will give you the ability to recommend policies addressing inadequacies with market outcomes.

Resume Boosters:

• Participate in faculty and individual research projects
• Analyze statistical data provided by Statistics Canada, along with other national and international statistical agencies
• Get involved in FastStart, an extracurricular program for business-minded students
• Meet top economic thinkers through guest speaker series and events – in 2018 we welcomed Bank of Canada former governor David Dodge

In this program, the first-of-its-kind anywhere in North America, you’ll study a unique mix of Indigenous knowledge and Western teachings, learning from Indigenous and non-Indigenous faculty, elders, guest speakers and other scholars.

IES brings together the principles of both Indigenous knowledge and Western science. Here, you’ll explore complex topics such as climate change, sustainable communities and Indigenous health and environment. By applying a cross-cultural approach, you’ll learn to generate solutions to the complex local, regional, national, and international issues facing Indigenous peoples and communities around the world.

Resume Boosters:-

• Take hands-on environmental fieldwork courses in Trent’s 12 on-campus nature areas
• Lead a community-based research project and apply your knowledge to assist a local organization
• Volunteer with Trent Aboriginal Cultural Knowledge and Science youth outreach summer camp