Bachelor of Science, Major in Biology

at EduCo - Western University Canada

The increase in human population is placing greater demands on the capacity of our planet and is altering terrestrial and marine ecosystems on a global scale. These changes are already having serious effects on ecosystem and human health. The Major in Ecosystem Health will allow students to explore the relationships between ecosystem and human health and our global environment. Drawing upon expertise from the Departments of Biology, Geography and Political Science, students will be exposed to experimental and theoretical approaches to ecosystem health as well as to the economic factors and the policies that impact how humans interact with their environment.

Do you wonder how our technology works? Physics connects the microscopic rules of quantum mechanics to the macroscopic properties of modern materials. Participate in developing new types of solar cells, studying the interface between cells and matrix material, or building lasers based on quantum dots. Our experimental physicists are looking for students to contribute to these and other projects.

The BA (Major in Popular Music Studies) is a module unique to Western that engages students with the interdisciplinary nature of the study of popular music.

The program incorporates three dimensions:

• Practical subjects, including songwriting and analysis of popular songs and recordings
• recording practice
• Critical study of musical styles, recordings, artists, and genres in their broader historical and cultural contexts.

In addition to courses in popular music and culture, the program includes post-1945 popular music, musical theatre, jazz, and more advanced courses indigenous musics and musics of the world, film studies, literature, and sociology. Introductory and advanced courses in songwriting and desktop music production allow students to compose, produce, and record their own music.

Italian is a vibrant area of study. In addition to offering language instruction at all levels, the Italian Studies program is committed to introducing students to the richness of Italian culture and the multifaceted reality of contemporary Italy. The program’s offerings include a wide array of language, literature and culture courses, both in Italian and in English.

An interdisciplinary and dynamic field, Women’s Studies has undergone impressive expansion in recent decades. In the Department of Women’s Studies and Feminist Research at Western, students study gender, and sexuality in terms of cultural norms and their implications from a variety of feminist perspectives. We explore how gender intersects with other axes of identity such as class, race, ethnicity, socio-economic standing, (dis)ability, age, and more. Encouraging the development of critical thinking skills, our discipline asks students to consider how knowledge gets produced and to what effect. We question how gendered understandings shape and shift our world in relation to local experience, historical realities, and the global present.

Study art and visual culture in its social and political context. Western’s Art History program focuses on global networks of cultural exchange and is committed to interdisciplinary approaches informed by critical theory. This field of study develops cross-cultural understanding and a global perspective from the Renaissance and Baroque eras, in Mesoamerican, Hispanic American, Canadian, and Contemporary Art, Architecture, and Design, as well as Photography, Film and New Media.

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.

Writing Studies aims to provide students with the ability to affect the world, both inside and outside the university, by helping them become self-directed, creative, and intellectual agents able to engage effectively with and contribute to the resolution of problems through the use of language both written and spoken. Our program combines the core activities of our contemporary social, political, and cultural world with the study and mastery of the constitutive and social dynamics of writing, rhetorical theory, and texts to provide pragmatic and intellectual tools for our graduates throughout their professional, intellectual, and social lives.

Countless studies and surveys rank "communication skills," "clarity," and "writing/research skills" as the most sought after qualities among new graduates by leading employers. Welcome to what is arguably the most versatile and transferable degree option and menu of courses available to help you meet and even exceed those expectations, all while studying among world class intellectuals at one of Canada's most historic and beautiful campuses.

From the smallest microchip to the largest power station, Electrical engineers harness electrical energy for human benefit. As a Western Electrical engineering student, you will embrace the study and application of electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. Your knowledge will be applied to electronics, digital computers, robotics, power engineering, telecommunications, control systems, and signal processing. Electrical engineering will prepare you to tackle the world’s power and energy challenges.

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.