Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in English (Co-op Optional)

at University of Ottawa Canada

Chemical engineering is at the intersection of many disciplines, linking knowledge of basic and applied sciences, economics, and health and safety. Chemical engineering graduates use a series of operations to sustainably process raw natural materials into finished products. They work in any number of industries, and during their careers, they may face a variety of challenges, including optimizing processes, monitoring pollution, converting renewable energy, processing foods and drugs, and manufacturing new materials.

Upon completion of a Bachelor of Applied Science in Chemical Engineering, a student who completes the requirements specified below for 30 extra units will be eligible for a BSc in Computing Technology, as a second degree. The remaining 132 units are from their engineering degree; students follow the engineering degree requirements and the Computing Technology degree requirements in parallel. It is not allowed to obtain the Computing Technology degree without also completing the corresponding engineering degree.

The University of Ottawa School of Music is among the few offering a full master’s in musicians’ health and well-being, particularly in prevention and treatment of pain and injuries, as well as performance anxiety. Through innovative research, professors apply academic rigour to music pedagogy.

The school has launched a Musicians’ Wellness Centre dedicated to clinical research and professional training, not to mention a network of health care services. You can complete an internship there to gain professional experience and work with experts in fields such as physiotherapy, yoga, Feldenkrais Method, Alexander Method, audiology and mindfulness meditation.

Psychology is the science that studies human behaviour and mental processes, and it is one of the richest fields of scholarly and scientific research. The BA in psychology deals with the fundamentals of psychology with a particular focus on how we learn, communicate and interact with one another, preparing you for graduate studies in experimental psychology, clinical psychology, in health sciences, in education or in administration. 

Where does language come from? How does language work? What is the nature of language structure and how is meaning encoded into language? Advances in research and new technologies are revolutionizing the way we try to answer these questions. Using the latest equipment and investigative approaches, our research laboratories make it possible for you to analyze spoken sounds, track eye movement and brain activity during language processing, explore language variation and acquisition, and probe dozens of other theoretical and empirical aspects of language including unfamiliar languages. 

These programs can serve as an entry point for a master's degree in either speech-language pathology or audiology, as well as for subsequent graduate study in theoretical and empirical linguistics.

In the three-year Bachelor of Social Sciences program, students cover the fundamentals of the social sciences while studying three specific areas of their choice, including at least two from the following areas: anthropology, criminology, economics, political science, psychology, public administration, sociology and women’s studies. In addition, the Bachelor of Social Sciences is an excellent springboard to studies in law or education.

Why is our world the way it is? How can we understand and explain what we observe around us, from the smallest sub-atomic particles to the largest galaxies? How can we apply this understanding to manipulate our world? Studying physics gives insight into the fundamental laws of nature. 

But an education in physics gives so much more. The rigorous training our students receive in analyzing and understanding complex problems is valuable in many future careers. While many of our graduates have established careers in universities and in the high tech sector as research and development scientists, others have used their physics degrees as a springboard to careers in finance, administration, medicine, management or education. The range of career opportunities is perhaps wider than for any other students with a science education. 

Physicists have revolutionized the way we live our lives, with groundbreaking discoveries and new technologies, transferable to other fields such as biology or finance. Our professors and graduates are an important part of this chain. Many of our professors have also been recognized for their teaching and are seen as world-class researchers in their fields of expertise. 

The research conducted by the professors in the Department of Physics is concentrated in several sub-specialties, including the physics of biological and complex systems, condensed matter physics, photonics and the physics of geomaterials. Depending upon your choice of program, you have the opportunity to take courses and participate in research projects in these specialized areas. 

In addition to the Honours BSc in Physics, we offer three other Honours BSc programs. The first is in physics-mathematics, which provides enriched mathematics training within a physics program. The second is the option in photonics, which gives students a solid training in physics and a more applied and industry-related training in photonics. The third is the option in biological physics, which teaches students to apply a rigorous education in physics to various areas of life sciences. We also offer a Major in Physics that can form the core of an Honours BSc when combined with a major or a minor in another discipline in the Faculty of Science, or in another faculty. Finally, starting in fall 2016, we will offer a five-year integrated program in physics (BSc) and electrical engineering (BASc), jointly with the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (SEECS). This unique program will offer a full education in physics and electrical engineering. Graduates will be sought after by industry and academia, as they will have the capacity to develop technology from a basic physics idea to the final product. 

The Department of Physics also has strong graduate programs, leading to an MSc or PhD. They give students the opportunity to work on cutting edge science in a research group led by one or more department professors.

Politics is omnipresent in our lives. Political science seeks to describe, analyze, understand and assess the principles and power relations that govern social life. It revolves as much around the structures and institutions that define these relations and principles as around the ideas and practices that drive them. It studies everything that influences political life and institutions (ideologies, groups, social movements, etc.) on a local, regional, national and international scale.

Our programs offer in-depth training in political science and encourage critical reflection on pivotal issues like citizenship, identity, political participation, globalization and development, governance and the state, and ethics and democracy. A discipline open to many theoretical and methodological approaches, political science constantly exchanges and shares with other fields. At the University of Ottawa's School of Political Studies, you build your knowledge in four subfields of political science: political thought, Canadian and Quebec politics, comparative politics, and international relations and global politics.

Established in 1983, the Ottawa-Carleton Institute for Physics (OCIP) combines the research strengths of the University of Ottawa and Carleton University. The Institute offers graduate programs leading to master’s (MSc) and doctoral (Ph.D.) degrees in Physics.

Research facilities are shared between the two campuses. Students have access to the professors, courses and facilities at both universities; however, they must enroll at the “home university” of the thesis supervisor.

Mathematics and statistics are not only powerful problem-solving tools, but also highly creative fields of studies that combine imagination with logic, and precision with intuition. 

Mathematics is much more than numbers! Its basic goal is to reveal and model general patterns to help explain our world, whether they be found in electrical impulses in the human nervous system, the evolution of animal populations in their habitats, fluctuations in stock-market prices, or electronic communications. Mathematics reaches far beyond science and engineering into medicine, business and the social sciences. 

Advances in mathematics and statistics lie behind many discoveries that are now part of our daily lives, such as MRI scanners, digital compression of music and video, secure electronic communications, data mining, genomic algorithms, futures pricing, and many other innovations. 

The Department of Mathematics and Statistics offers Honours, majors and minors both in mathematics and in statistics. Our Honours program in statistics is accredited by the Statistical Society of Canada, allowing graduates to earn the A.Stat. professional designation. Moreover, the Department offers a joint honours program in mathematics and economics, a joint honours program in mathematics and computer science, as well as a multidisciplinary program in financial mathematics and economics. All our honours programs also include the co-operative education option.

The option in management is designed to provide students with general management skills while balancing practical and analytical concerns in the search for improvements to the decision-making process. It emphasizes creativity, innovation and the ability to generate project ideas, to evaluate them and to bring them to fruition.