Bachelor of Social Science (Joint Honours) in Public Administration and Political Science

at University of Ottawa Canada

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.

Psychology
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. 

Linguistics
Where does language come from? How does language work? What is the nature of language structure and how is meaning encoded into language? Advances in research and new technologies are revolutionizing the way we try to answer these questions. Using the latest equipment and investigative approaches, our research laboratories make it possible for you to analyze spoken sounds, track eye movement and brain activity during language processing, explore language variation and acquisition, and probe dozens of other theoretical and empirical aspects of language including unfamiliar languages. 

These programs can serve as an entry point for a master's degree in either speech-language pathology or audiology, as well as for subsequent graduate study in theoretical and empirical linguistics.

Geology is a modern, dynamic and diverse science that involves investigating the composition and evolution of Earth and other planetary bodies.

Geologists and Earth scientists study the Earth, including its chemical, physical and biological evolution. Our programs teach students how to analyze Earth materials, probe the Earth from surface to core and model the processes that produced and shape its oceans and continents. The Ottawa region is a natural laboratory where students investigate resources (water, metals, minerals, petroleum), hazards (earthquakes, tsunamis, eruptions, landslides) and a variety of geological environments.

The Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences offers programs in geology and, along with the Department of Physics, a program in geology-physics. These programs balance field-based learning with theoretical and analytical investigations directly relevant to the needs of society. The final year involves an independent research project or equivalent units (credits) in advanced courses in the discipline.

The honours requirements meet the professional accreditation requirements of the Association of Professional Geoscientists of Ontario and l’Ordre des géologues du Québec.

Civil engineers design the infrastructure on which their communities depend, such as buildings and their foundations, bridges, canals, dams, transportation facilities, municipal sewer and water networks, and wastewater and solid waste treatment systems. 

Civil engineering students at the University of Ottawa can take advantage of world-class teaching laboratories, multimedia classrooms and outstanding computer facilities. Students develop expertise in computer applications, field and laboratory testing, and project management, and they are well-equipped to serve their communities upon graduation.

Politics is omnipresent in our lives. Political science seeks to describe, analyze, understand and assess the principles and power relations that govern social life. It revolves as much around the structures and institutions that define these relations and principles as around the ideas and practices that drive them. It studies everything that influences political life and institutions (ideologies, groups, social movements, etc.) on a local, regional, national and international scale.

Our programs offer in-depth training in political science and encourage critical reflection on pivotal issues like citizenship, identity, political participation, globalization and development, governance and the state, and ethics and democracy. A discipline open to many theoretical and methodological approaches, political science constantly exchanges and shares with other fields. At the University of Ottawa's School of Political Studies, you build your knowledge in four subfields of political science: political thought, Canadian and Quebec politics, comparative politics, and international relations and global politics.

Environmental studies delve into some of the most significant issues of our day, such as anthropogenic climate change, urban pollution and possible threats to human health. You learn how to use applied research tools and management principles that can be applied in a variety of areas, such as conducting environmental impact assessments and resource management.

Why is our world the way it is? How can we understand and explain what we observe around us, from the smallest sub-atomic particles to the largest galaxies? How can we apply this understanding to manipulate our world? Studying physics gives insight into the fundamental laws of nature. 

But an education in physics gives so much more. The rigorous training our students receive in analyzing and understanding complex problems is valuable in many future careers. While many of our graduates have established careers in universities and in the high tech sector as research and development scientists, others have used their physics degrees as a springboard to careers in finance, administration, medicine, management or education. The range of career opportunities is perhaps wider than for any other students with a science education. 

Physicists have revolutionized the way we live our lives, with groundbreaking discoveries and new technologies, transferable to other fields such as biology or finance. Our professors and graduates are an important part of this chain. Many of our professors have also been recognized for their teaching and are seen as world-class researchers in their fields of expertise. 

The research conducted by the professors in the Department of Physics is concentrated in several sub-specialties, including the physics of biological and complex systems, condensed matter physics, photonics and the physics of geomaterials. Depending upon your choice of program, you have the opportunity to take courses and participate in research projects in these specialized areas. 

In addition to the Honours BSc in Physics, we offer three other Honours BSc programs. The first is in physics-mathematics, which provides enriched mathematics training within a physics program. The second is the option in photonics, which gives students a solid training in physics and a more applied and industry-related training in photonics. The third is the option in biological physics, which teaches students to apply a rigorous education in physics to various areas of life sciences. We also offer a Major in Physics that can form the core of an Honours BSc when combined with a major or a minor in another discipline in the Faculty of Science, or in another faculty. Finally, starting in fall 2016, we will offer a five-year integrated program in physics (BSc) and electrical engineering (BASc), jointly with the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (SEECS). This unique program will offer a full education in physics and electrical engineering. Graduates will be sought after by industry and academia, as they will have the capacity to develop technology from a basic physics idea to the final product. 

The Department of Physics also has strong graduate programs, leading to an MSc or PhD. They give students the opportunity to work on cutting edge science in a research group led by one or more department professors.

Psychology is the science that studies human behaviour and mental processes, and it has become one of the richest fields of scholarly and scientific research. The BSc curriculum deals extensively with pure-science fundamentals of psychology with a particular focus on the biological, chemical, physiological and cognitive factors surrounding human and animal behavior, preparing you for graduate studies in experimental psychology, in the neurosciences, or in health sciences.
 

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 Extended French Stream (EFS) 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.

Criminology involves the scientific analysis of crime, of the criminalization process, and of social control. Criminology is also an applied discipline in which students explore various forms of intervention to help resolve problems and conflicts. It focuses on five broad phenomena: the nature and dynamics of behaviour that contravenes social norms; the social construction of norms and of the notion of crime; the criminalization of specific behaviours; individuals and groups in social relations; the goals and workings of the criminal justice system; and contemporary forms of intervention.