Bachelor of Social Science (Honours) in Economics (Co-op Optional)

at University of Ottawa Canada

The graduate studies in law are a joint endeavour of the Common Law and Civil Law Sections. We welcome law graduates from both legal systems and from countries around the world. Courses are offered in English or in French, and occasionally in both languages. Students may readily complete their graduate studies while learning something of Canada's other legal and linguistic traditions.

The Master of Education (M.Ed.), coursework option, is a course-based program designed to deepen your knowledge of education, improve your professional practice and expand your career choices.

The MHK program in Intervention and Consultation is the only course-based professional Applied Sport Psychology program in Canada. This program rigorously prepares students to meet the certification criteria of the Canadian Sport Psychology Association and its American equivalent, the Association of Applied Sport Psychology, two organizations whose mission is to ensure and promote the competence of mental performance consultants (e.g., by verifying successful completion of graduate studies in sport psychology - or an equivalent program - and a 400-hour supervised internship).

The program is course-based with an emphasis on a supervised internship that seeks to enhance the personal, academic, and career development of students. Academic goals include developing such cognitive skills as problem solving, critical thinking, analysis and synthesis and, most importantly, applying theory to practice through consultation internships.

The Department of Philosophy offers MA (with or without thesis) and PhD programs in Philosophy. The programs are offered in English and French. According to the University's policy, students may pursue their studies in the official language of their choice.

The Department participates in the collaborative programs in Women’s Studies (at the MA level), in Medieval and Renaissance Studies (at the MA level) and in Canadian Studies (at the PhD level). 

Sociology involves the study of societies, specifically their institutions, cultures, and transformations. Sociologists seek to uncover the processes, rules, and norms that govern social relations. They seek to understand issues such as the origins and consequences of social inequalities and collective behaviours. In our programs, students have the opportunity to apply theoretical approaches to real-world cases and learn how to use research tools such as interviewing, discourse analysis, surveys, and statistical analyses. The connection between theory and research enables students to understand a range of contemporary social issues, such as poverty, ethnic relations, deviance, gender relations, international development, power, and technology.

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.

Computer science at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science combines the study of computation and information processing fundamentals with their application in the world around us. Computer scientists build fast, reliable, scalable and secure software systems to organize and analyze information. The honours curriculum comprises advanced topics in databases, artificial intelligence, computer graphics, security, distributed computing and algorithm design, culminating in an honours project. 

This program teaches graduates how to use their creative and innovative talents to conceive, design and implement software systems. The French Immersion Stream is now available to all students in the Computer Science program. Our degrees are very flexible and include options, minors and a major, which can be used to explore connections between computer science and many other fields of study.

Students will acquire knowledge and have opportunities to apply what they learn to interventions in physical activity, education and coaching that enrich peoples’ lives. They will gain theoretical and practical training in why and how to encourage people to become more active and how to better peoples’ experiences in various contexts of physical activity, education and coaching. Students will critically examine how various intervening roles, especially in teaching and coaching, lead to improved health, well-being, development, learning, and performance in individuals and society, and will learn to develop, implement and evaluate programs. Students will receive training informed by social sciences (e.g., psychology, sociocultural, pedagogy, leisure studies). They will have opportunities to acquire motivational and consulting skills to work with individuals in different contexts. For example, they can learn behavioural change techniques to promote physical activity, or how to work with athletes to prepare them for competition.

Students will have opportunities to gain competencies in leading group interventions in sport coaching, recreation programming, and teaching physical activity. They can gain training that will allow them to contribute to the strategic promotion of healthy physical activity in communities, that can be applied to interventions and programming across the lifespan (from young children to older adults), in established and under-represented populations (e.g., persons with disabilities, at-risk youth). Students will have opportunities to gain skills in critical inquiry they will use to question whether interventions or social policies address individual, social and environmental considerations, and to facilitate change in current approaches.

Studies in this area of interest enable our graduates to pursue various career-paths in education, coaching and roles in promotion and programming of physical activity, sport and leisure. The emphasis of our program on both foundational knowledge and also how knowledge translates into action enables our graduates to pursue different occupational roles. For example, our graduates can become leaders in the development of recreation services and fitness programs in the community (e.g., community clubs, campus recreation departments, employee wellness programs), sport coaches, teachers of physical and health education in schools, mental performance consultants in high-performance sport (e.g., sport academies), and exercise consultants and health promoters working in community health centres. Our graduates can find roles in developing persuasive messages for ‘Active Living’ or ‘Get Fit’ media communications, and they can become advocates promoting the health benefits of physical activity, sport and leisure to policymakers in the public, private and non-profit sectors. Our graduates can also pursue research based or professional-based graduate degrees relating to interventions in physical activity, sport and leisure.

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. 

The Honours BA in Religious Studies will give you a thorough training in methods used to study religion and will allow you to specialize in one of three concentrations within the program: Spiritualities and Cultures; Religion, Politics, and Public Policy; or Religion in Antiquity. For courses included in these concentrations, see the program requirements. You will learn how human religiosity intersects with other areas of human activity and will be able to think critically and comparatively about those interactions—a skill that is valuable in many areas of work. The program will qualify you to apply to graduate programs in the study of religion.