Bachelor of Arts in Canadian Studies

at York University - School of Continuing Studies Canada

Study the health of the world’s population that is intertwined with broader issues, including wealth disparity, environmental degradation, government policy and human rights. Students in York’s Global Health degree examine these and other issues in small classroom settings benefitting from direct interaction with their professors and fellow students. Combine your classroom learning with a fourth-year field placement offered with organizations locally or internationally.

Global Health Courses
All students, whether in the BA or BSc options, are exposed to the major issues that are at the forefront of global health through core courses, including:

• Global Health Governance and Leadership
• Global Health Policy, Power and Politics
• Health and Human Rights
• Determinants of Health: Local to Global
• Chronic Diseases and Care
• Communicable Diseases and Care
• Healthcare Planning for Communities
• Healthcare Ethics
• Agents of Change in a Global World (strongly recommended as an elective course)

Pathways to Medical, Professional Schools & Post-Graduate Training
Taught by professors in all areas of the Faculty of Health – Health Policy & Management, Kinesiology & Health Science, Nursing and Psychology – the Global Health degree provides an excellent foundation for medical school, professional schools (e.g. law, teaching), graduate school and post-graduate training (e.g. nursing).

Global Health as a 2nd Degree
Students who hold an undergraduate degree from an accredited institution and are admissible according to Faculty of Health and York University policies may pursue a second degree in Global Health at York University. With full-time study (i.e., 15 credits per term), students may be able to complete an Honours BA/BSc degree in Global Health in as little as four terms (two calendar years). Students pursuing a Specialized Honours BA/BSc degree in Global Health may complete the program in six terms (3 calendar years).

Students will be assessed as eligible for an Honours or Specialized Honours degree in Global Health if they have graduated with an Honours or 90-credit bachelor’s degree. Students will be granted transfer credit in accordance with the University’s residency requirement. Depending on the program of study from an applicant’s first degree, it is likely that all general education and many elective course requirements will be waived. This will allow students to focus exclusively on their Global Health major course requirements as they fast-track their studies.

An actuary is a professional concerned with: the design and administration of insurance policies, pension plans, government welfare plans and similar programs. The main responsibility of actuaries is to ensure that these programs operate on a sound financial basis. To do this, they use many areas of mathematics and statistics, as well as general principles of economics and finance.Actuarial Science is the area of mathematics that applies quantitative methods to assess risks in the insurance and finance industries. It became a formal discipline in the late 17th century, when the increased demand for such long-term insurance coverages as life insurances, annuities, and burials expense coverages emerged. Since then and for a long time, actuaries have been interested in studying the present monetary value of future obligations as well as the variability of these present values in the contexts of life and health insurance, property and casualty insurance, pension funds and social wealth-fare programs. Today actuaries are also being employed in the areas of enterprise risk management, and even in general finance and investment.

Crime, criminality, and criminal justice are central concerns in contemporary Canadian society. In politics, law, policy and popular culture, the problem of crime and what to do about it command increasing attention and interest. The Criminology program will provide you with an exceptional opportunity to pursue study in this evolving and expanding field. You will explore the ways in which concepts of crime, criminality and criminal justice have developed over time. You will also investigate how crime is understood legally, politically, economically and culturally.

The program’s interdisciplinary approach is reflected in complementary relationships with a number of other academic disciplines including anthropology, history, philosophy, political science, psychology, socio-legal studies, and sociology. Students are able to choose courses from these disciplines as well as from the core program courses, each of which draws from a range of disciplines and is devoted to making connections between different areas of study.

Note: Criminology is not a pre-law preparatory program.

The Criminology program will focus on the analysis of:

• Crime
• Criminality
• Processes of criminalization and social control
• Organized crime
• Systems of justice
• Criminal justice systems

Biology was the pioneer science at York, offering the first undergraduate and graduate programs in the 1960s.
Biology studies living things and the discipline defines a living creature, technically called a living "organism", as one that has a metabolism and reproduces. Biologists study living organisms from many different angles, including behaviour, evolution and ecology as well as cell and molecular biology and genetics. They study all different kinds of species from plants to insects, viruses to humans. Biology can also be combined with other fields. For example, biochemistry, biophysics, biotechnology and biopsychology are all important fields related to biology.

Biologists can be found working everywhere — on and off the planet:

• In a variety of environments to investigate ecosystems;
• In the laboratory to examine how organisms work;
• In the microscopic world to explore cells and the submicroscopic to explore molecules in cells;
• In space to study the effect of space travel on organisms;
• Back in time to investigate the history of life.

The Biology program, York’s longest-established scientific program, is home to internationally recognized teaching and research faculty. It offers you a diversity of courses from across the discipline, providing you with the flexibility to choose courses from many different areas or to specialize in a particular field of life science. In your upper years, you can choose to specialize in such areas as:

• Biotechnology
• Biochemistry
• Biomedical Science
• Biophysics
• Environmental Biology

The School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD) is pleased to announce a new degree stream, the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Media Arts in the Department of Cinema and Media Arts.

The cultural effects on technology mean that cinema is no longer a stand-alone art form. It increasingly overlaps with other evolving areas, such as video games, mobile media, social media, streaming media distribution, 3D graphics and computer generated imaging, and digital archiving.

In AMPD’s new Media Arts program, students are invited to become critical thinkers by doing, making and collaborating. In this program, for example, students will have the opportunity to create multimedia digital publications, practice social justice by using social media to engage with a community, write a trans-media story meant to cross film and game platforms, render 3D for animation, virtual reality or a gaming environment, and produce interactive documentary. Drawing on the powerful legacy of cinema history, criticism and theory, students will actively create in the expanded field of media studies, media culture and media industries, in which cinema is an integrated element.

This new program is framed around a series of flexible media practice courses taken concurrently with media history, theory and criticism, culminating in a capstone project and a media industry placement.

The resulting BFA will offer students a broad, expansive view on multiple types of contemporary practice including television, Internet practices, mobile media, gaming, interactive media, and cutting edge digital technologies such as 3D and virtual reality. Students will graduate with the ability to blend curatorial, producing, and media-making abilities with the historical investigation of contemporary media, especially screen-based and social media.

With its unique interdisciplinary approach that bridges studio production, art history and curatorial practice, AMPD's Department of Visual Art & Art History offers students the opportunity to become well-rounded professionals in the field, able to lead in the creation, exhibition, critical understanding and communcation of visual culture in diverse environments.

Through intensive studio training supported by studies in the history and theory of art, students receive a thorough grounding in the production of art works and comparative cultural analysis across a wide range of traditional and contemporary media. In the initial foundation year, students take courses in all artistic media -- painting, sculpture, print media, drawing, photography and interdisciplinary art -- and then can choose to specialize in one or more areas. At all levels, students are mentored by faculty mambers who are highly regarded artists with active professional practices.

York's Visual Arts students are supported in their exploration and creation with access to facilities unrivalled in Canada, including the Joan Goldfarb Visual Arts Study Centre; the L. L. Odette Centre for Sculpture; spacious, state of the art studios; five student-run exhibition galleries and the award-winning Art Gallery of York University.

Software is used to control many aspects of the modern world, ranging from medical devices, nuclear power plants and airlines to Google and Amazon. It is valuable in developing software for prosthetic limbs to improve mobility or write the code for the next breakthrough in mobile communications. Software engineering makes the complex systems possible, safe and reliable. 

Our Software Engineering program is accredited by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB). 

What You'll Learn
Lassonde’s Software Engineering program prepares students for a career using state-of-the-art computing labs, a full suite of software development tools, and hands-on experience in the design and development of software products.

In a capstone project, you work with a team to design, test and deploy a significant and exciting product using all the knowledge and skills you have gained.

After second year, you can take part in the co-op program, giving you an early start to becoming a licensed Professional Engineer.

Some Courses You'll Take:

• Advanced Object-Oriented Programming
• Software Development Project
• Design and Analysis of Algorithms
• Operating System Fundamentals
• Software Design
• Software Engineering Testing
• Mission Critical Systems
• Building E-Commerce Systems

Public management leaders must have multidisciplinary knowledge, critical skills and abilities to realize their vision to advance the public interest. At York, we prepare leaders for the broader public sector that spans all levels of government, public institutions and non-profit organizations, who can excel and thrive in a dynamic multicultural environment. Our graduates also work as policy analysts, legal and regulatory compliance officers, consultants and government relations managers in the private sector.

Through courses in areas such as public administration, Canadian government and public law, you’ll examine current and emerging debates regarding public institutions, law, human rights and diversity. You’ll also gain a clear understanding of the theory and practice of government while acquiring expertise relevant to policy analysis, program evaluation and other public service functions such as project management, human resources, budgeting and finance.

The Bachelor of Public Administration is an Honours only program and students also have the option to specialize in one of three streams:

• Law, Justice and Public Policy
• Management
• Policy Analysis

Many courses involve simulations and exercises drawn from real world scenarios at all three levels of Canadian government. A limited number of practicum and internship placements are available for qualified students.
Staffed by faculty with strong research records and many years combined experience in active public service, the School provides a sense of community for students who share a fascination with questions of governance, administration, public ethics and the law.

Study in one of the largest Geography programs in any university in Canada. Whether you're pursuing your Bachelor of Science and focusing on physical geography or gaining expertise about human geography through a Bachelor of Arts, York's program offers you the world at your doorstep.

Geography is the science of place and space. Geographers ask where things are located on the surface of the earth, why they are located where they are, how places differ from one another, and how people interact with the environment. There are two main branches of geography: human geography and physical geography.

Geographers also study the linkages between human activity and natural systems. Geographers were, in fact, among the first scientists to sound the alarm that human-induced changes to the environment were beginning to threaten the balance of life itself. They are active in the study of global warming, desertification, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, groundwater pollution, and flooding.

In the Faculty of Science, the Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree emphasizes physical geography, which examines the physical, chemical and biological processes that occur in the immediate vicinity of the Earth's surface. Physical geographers study patterns of climates, land forms, vegetation, soils, and water. They forecast the weather, manage land and water resources, and analyze and plan for forests, rangelands, and wetlands. Many human and physical geographers have skills in cartography and geographic information systems. Field work is also emphasized, including outdoor laboratory sessions, field trips and periodic field courses in Southern Ontario as well as to remote and exotic regions.

Put most simply, religious studies is the academic study of religion, exploring the range of phenomena that fall within the categories "religion" or "religious" from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. It brings together perspectives and approaches from history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and literature to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the individuals and traditions that constitute religions and cultures.

Because religions and the religious deal with questions of meaning and orientation, religious studies provides a place for you to explore in a disciplined fashion how and why humans have appealed to spirituality and the divine as they’ve struggled to make sense of themselves and their world. To study religion is to study responses, both behavioural and intellectual, to some of the great riddles and questions that face human beings, including: death, suffering, tragedy, and the nature of the self and the universe. Religious Studies is also a "teachable" subject for students who wish to combine their BA with a teaching qualification from York's Faculty of Education.

You can focus on the major religious traditions of the West and Near East such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam - or those of the Far East such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism or pursue a more comparative approach. You will also have the opportunity to learn about a variety of religious cultures including Chinese, Korean, Caribbean and Native North American.

In the core course, you will learn how to use various analytical methods to explore the rich variety of the world's religious traditions.

Our program gives you a thorough grounding in sophisticated text analysis and improves your writing skills - excellent preparation for any number of careers, including the clergy and law. Our classes are small and emphasize personal contact between students and professors.

• Study religious expression in a variety of cultures including those of India, China, Korea and Native communities of North America, and visit the historical places discussed in class through a York International study abroad program.
• Leonard Wolinsky Scholarship is awarded annually to two York undergraduates for one year's full-time study in an Israeli university.
• In the area of research, Professor Amila Buturovic is in great demand by the media to comment on Islam in the modern world. Professor Buturovic also does research on Muslim poets from the former Yugoslavia.
• The Moderator of the United Church of Canada, Rt. Rev. Marion Pardy, is a graduate of our Religious Studies program.