Bachelor of Arts in English

at Carleton University Canada

How are new technologies changing the ways we interact with each other and live our lives? Why are many jobs becoming increasingly short term and how is this situation affecting people’s families, communities, and self-identities? Why do social problems like poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, and ageism persist in the modern world? What can we do to address these problems? What is it like to live with discrimination when many of the doors to social participation are closed to you? How do we define what is ‘normal’ and what happens to those who don’t fit within these definitions?

Sociology asks these and other questions in order to understand the powerful forces that shape the world and societies in which we live today. It is also the study of our personal and lived experiences of those worlds and societies, and how our self-identities, future opportunities and ways of life are shaped accordingly. If you are interested in these kinds of questions, sociology is a good fit for you.

The field of health care relies increasingly on technology, with biomedical and electrical engineers leading the way. Carleton’s program teaches you principles of electrical engineering and science as they apply to biotechnology and medicine. You will learn about the design of diagnostic and therapeutic devices, bioinstrumentation, automated signal and image analysis, computing and display devices and biometric data readout systems. The program is also designed to meet the prerequisite courses for many medical schools in North America.

Real-world software systems, such as massively parallel Internet applications and mission-critical avionics control systems, require robust and provably correct software architecture design. Our Software Engineering program goes beyond teaching simple programming, and instead focuses on modern software engineering principles, tools, and analysis techniques for the design of large and complex software systems.

Our students acquire a comprehensive, multidisciplinary understanding of the causes and definitions of crime and criminal behaviour, criminal law and its administration, and social and institutional responses to crime. You will personalize your program by choosing one of three concentrations: Law, Psychology or Sociology. In addition, possible field placements in organizations such as the Crown Attorney’s Office, criminal law offices or the Royal Ottawa Hospital (Forensic Program) give you hands-on experience in real-life situations, including front-line work with offenders, police, victims, and lawyers, to name a few. Other placements can match you with researchers and policy analysts involved in criminal justice and crime prevention. Carleton’s location in Ottawa gives you research and employment opportunities that align with your degree.

The biomedical and mechanical engineering program integrates life sciences with the traditional mechanical engineering topics of solid mechanics, dynamics, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, heat transfer, materials, robotics and control systems to analyze and solve problems related to biomechanical engineering, biotechnology and medicine. The program provides students with a skill set that enables the development of advanced components, systems and techniques for biomechanical applications that are crucial to modern health care. The curriculum is designed with an emphasis on the development of practical and problem-solving skills based on hands-on laboratory and design work.

Anthropologists study human beings, globally and cross-culturally, and recognise that each way of life is but one possibility among many. In a pluralistic world, where people from different places and backgrounds frequently interact, anthropology is an important tool for helping us understand each other and the rapid changes going on around us. Anthropology offers the potential to broaden our understanding of what it means to be a person, to question what passes as “normal” or “natural”, and to examine the world we inhabit as interconnected by environmental, political, economic, cultural and social forces.

While anthropologists have traditionally studied in small scale, non-Western societies, today we apply our participatory research methods and a combination of humanistic and social scientific perspectives to all kinds of situations: if people do it, you can study it as an anthropologist.

Carleton’s anthropology program specializes in socio-cultural anthropology, which is the study of contemporary societies and cultures through direct engagement, participant-observation and other qualitative methods. Our faculty work in various contexts and communities in Alaska, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Thailand, the Andes, and Sub-Saharan Africa, among others. Our faculty specialize in a range of topics including:

• The study of Indigenous people’s lives in context (e.g. indigenous-state relations; governance & colonialism; language; urban indigenous communities).
• Environmental issues (e.g. human-environmental relations; subsistence politics; the Anthropocene; climate change; natural resources)
• Transnational & global issues (e.g. transnational adoption; development; migration; diaspora; sex tourism)
• Race, ethnicity, and nationalism (e.g. ethno-history; ethno-politics)
• Selfhood, personhood, subjectivity, identity, psychiatric anthropology, and phenomenology;
• Genders and sexualities (e.g. motherhood; reproductive health; gendered childhood; feminist theories/methodologies).
• Political economy (e.g. global capitalisms; processes of commodification; capitalist and non-capitalist societies)

Carleton’s Bachelor of Health Sciences (BHSc) is a wide-ranging and career-focused program that will provide you with the skills required to succeed in the rapidly changing worlds of medicine, biomedical research and healthcare research. You will gain a strong foundation in the scientific knowledge and methods involved in the study of human health, along with the capacity to engage in broader multidisciplinary, multi-sector, and multicultural approaches to finding solutions to some of the most crucial health issues of our time.

Biomedical Sciences
This concentration provides a strong foundation in the biomedical sciences and allows you to explore the genetic, biochemical, immunological, physiological and developmental aspects of human health. In addition, a broader view of health sciences is gained by addressing current issues from cultural, psychological, technological and environmental perspectives. Training in the dynamic field of biomedical sciences will provide you with the skills needed to be part of the exciting and rapidly changing world of biomedical research and medicine.

African peoples, cultures, societies, places and histories have been deeply affected by the global world, while also actively contributing to it. In this multidisciplinary specialization, you will study a wide range of issues as they apply to Africa, including democratization, human rights, international development, cultural change, migration and refugees, colonialism and post-colonialism, and social justice. You will also acquire an understanding of the larger issues of the politics of development and the relationship between the global north and south. This specialization is administered by the Institute of African Studies, which is the only stand-alone, degree-granting, institute devoted to the study of Africa in Canada.

Biology in the 21st century is among the most diverse and exciting of the sciences. Many of the challenges we face as a society, from climate change to the development of novel health therapies, involve biological solutions. As a Carleton Biology student, you will gain broad experience through core science courses and options that suit your individual interests and needs.

Economics may be a specialized area of knowledge, but it is relevant to almost every aspect of our lives. At its core, it is the study of reasoned choice in the context of scarce resources and competing interests. The need to make such choices pervades the day-to-day lives of all of us—as individuals and in society as a whole.

In Carleton’s Bachelor of Economics (BEcon), you will study the operation of market-based economies, examining the causes of economic growth, inflation, unemployment and international trade.