Bachelor of Arts, Major in Archaeology and Biological Anthropology

at EduCo - Western University Canada

When you can dive into a many-layered narrative and surface holding the threads of revelation—what it means to be gendered, how love and will can transform hell into heaven, or how simply to go on—those are threads with which you can weave your life.

Studying literature nurtures, strengthens, and matures the skills needed in every profession:

• Communication
• Balancing complexity
• Empathy across differences
• Persuasion
• Storytelling

Not to mention the ability to track, analyze, and critique long collections of words! At Western, we study Canadian, British, American, global, and Indigenous literature. You can start with the earliest classics, like Beowulf. You can follow a contemporary novel, like Room, as it is adapted to stage and screen. English Studies at Western will make you a stronger professional and a clearer citizen, and it will support your humanity throughout your life.

Computation is now fundamental to scientific discovery and engineering design alike. The Boeing 777 Dreamliner, for instance, was conceived mostly on a computer, complete with detailed calculations of aerodynamic and control properties. Drugs can also be designed on computers as can modern materials. To become an expert in the algorithms behind these innovations, take our Scientific Computing and Numerical Methods program.

Personalized medicine informed by genome analysis. Designer organisms that produce valuable medications or clean up environmental toxins. Rational drug discovery to correct specific cellular malfunctions. Crucial to all such advances in biotechnology is an understanding of how life works at the molecular level. Join us in Biochemistry at Western as we explore the intricate interplay among the molecules that sustain life.

Explore the dynamics that shape your everyday experiences as a gendered person in contemporary culture. In our courses you will learn how to develop a critical perspective that takes factors such as sex, gender, sexuality, race, class and (dis)ability into account. You might find your worldview transformed as you apply these perspectives to your study in other classes and to all aspects of your life. Our courses reflect an expanding field of feminist research including feminist theory, sexuality studies, health, queer and legal issues, philosophy, violence against women, women and equity in the workplace, and women and the creative arts.

Women's Studies and Feminist Research officially became a department at The University of Western Ontario in July 2006. The Women's Studies program was established in 1987 and is a department in both the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, and the Faculty of Social Science. The Department offers a variety of degree modules and promotes feminist scholarship through provision for resident scholars, a Distinguished Speakers Series, faculty colloquia, annual conferences, and publications. It also has an active and lively Women's Studies Student Council.

Medical Biophysics is best described as a discipline that improves people’s lives. And it draws on many research areas, techniques and technologies to improve human health. In studying medical biophysics you will apply the principles of biology, mathematics, physics and engineering to solve problems. When you study Medical Biophysics, you learn how to apply your knowledge of mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics to areas such as medical imaging, cancer therapy, biomechanics and cardiovascular disease.

Medical Biophysics students take basic principles from mathematics, the physical and biological sciences, and computer science, and apply them to improving medical diagnosis, treatment and patient health. The experience of students in Medical Biophysics goes beyond “textbook knowledge” and places them in settings where they solve real-world problems such as: how blood flows in arteries and veins, designing a better joint replacement, improving lung ventilation in asthma, how MRI forms images of the brain, and targeting radiation therapy in cancer to protect the healthy surrounding tissue.

Build on a foundation of normal anatomy, biochemistry, cell biology and physiology to look at the structural and functional changes that occur in human disease. Learn about human illness that can also result from adverse effects of biological and chemical toxins, environmental pollutants, and occupational exposures to toxins.

The Major in Kinesiology provides flexibility in selecting Kinesiology courses allowing students to initially investigate courses throughout the broad scope of Kinesiology. With fewer Kinesiology course requirements than other modules students enroled in the major have the flexibility to incorporate more external electives within their degree. Students often combine a major in Kinesiology with a major from another discipline.

Western's School of Kinesiology offers undergraduate and graduate programs that allow students to explore the bioscientific and sociocultural aspects of human movement. Flexible program options at both the undergraduate and graduate levels allow students to tailor their program of study to achieve specific learning goals while learning from researchers and teachers who are experts in their fields.

The Honors Specialization in Health Sciences with Biology is designed for students who want to combine the socio-cultural perspectives on health offered in Health Sciences courses with the life sciences (Chemistry, Biochemistry and Biology). This module is ideal for students who want to pursue careers in medicine and dentistry. Approximately half of the module’s courses cover key Health Sciences topics such as health ethics, health promotion, childhood and adolescent health, health in aging populations, and anatomy. The other half of the module is made up of core life sciences courses, covering topics such as organic chemistry, biochemistry, and genetics.

High Energy Physics
Topics of interest to high-energy physicists include the phenomenology of elementary particle interactions, quantum field theory, the dynamical breakdown of quantum field theoretical symmetries, the quantization of gravity, string/brane models underlying known-interaction physics, and the unification of fundamental interactions of nature.
The high-energy physicists in our department participate in the Collaborative Ph.D. Program in Theoretical Physics, and have strong ties with the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in nearby Waterloo, Ontario.

Materials Physics
Water droplet graphicAt the other end of the spectrum, materials physics is a research area that connects physics with chemistry and computational mathematics. The Material Physics group in our department uses computer simulations of nano-scale phenomena to make important discoveries about the properties of materials we use every day.
Overall, the research in theoretical physics is devoted to the study of soft condensed matter physics, physical chemistry and fluid mechanics. Research topics include microfluidic devices, colloidal systems, nanotribology including friction in biological systems, ceramics under high pressure, quantum-mechanical many-body systems, quantum chemistry, polymers, liquid crystals, disordered systems, phase transitions, wave propagation and nonlinear interactions.

Language is the chief means which members of the human species use to communicate with each other. Its scientific and humanistic study is called linguistics. The history of linguistics goes back to ancient times, and during the 19th and 20th centuries it flourished and came to be associated most strongly with the scientific study of individual languages of the world as well as with the search to identify those traits which are common to all languages.

The study of linguistics is indispensable for anyone interested in a particular language or in a discipline with a focus on language in general. Students in many different fields of study find that linguistics makes an interesting and engaging elective or optional course (when combined with the discipline of language study, it is excellent preparation for law school, for example). In terms of careers, this means that anyone interested in language teaching of any sort (such as a Bachelors of Education, or TESL certification), in communicative disorders (including both Audiology and Speech Pathology), in translation or in interpreting should be sure to include some linguistics courses in their undergraduate preparation. The addition of linguistics, the scientific study of language, further enhances your academic program with critical and analytical skills, while contributing to your better understanding of human language (English, French and others), not simply from a grammatical or spoken perspective but also from a scientific approach.