Associate of Arts (Co-op Optional)

at University of the Fraser Valley - Abbotsford Campus Canada

Get a broad, high-quality foundation in the Arts and add a valuable credential to your résumé by earning an Associate of Arts degree at UFV.

Within the degree, you can choose from the following options:

• General option
• International and Development Studies option
• Media and Communication Studies option
• Theatre option

This program includes a breadth of intellectual and academic experience worthwhile if your educational or career goals lie in the humanities, the creative and performing arts, or the social sciences.

In addition, practicum opportunities and optional paid co-op work placements throughout your studies allow you to gain valuable work experience.

The Associate of Arts degree may serve as a stepping stone if you plan to continue your studies to earn a Bachelor of Arts at UFV or elsewhere.

Develop your artistic skill, become a creative problem solver, and learn how to flourish in the creative arts industry by earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA). In your first year, you can explore a range of Fine Arts discipline while you complete the BFA general requirements in writing, logical reasoning, and science.

Before the end of your second year, you focus your degree, based on your career goals and personal interests, by choosing a major or two extended minors from the list below:

• Majors
  • Visual Arts
  • Graphic and Digital Design
• Extended Minors
  • Art History and Visual Studies
  • Creative Writing
  • Graphic and Digital Design
  • Media and Communication Studies
  • Theatre
  • Visual Arts
• Minors
  • Art History
  • Business
  • Creative Writing
  • Graphic and Digital Design
  • Media and Communication Studies
  • Theatre
  • Visual Arts

In your third and fourth years of study you deepen your knowledge by completing the requirements for your major, minor, or extended minors, and by selecting your choice of electives to meet the credential requirements of your degree.

UFV's two-year Social Services diploma prepares you to work at the para-professional level in the human services field.

You establish a strong foundation of professional practice in areas of addiction, child welfare, community services, corrections, family and home support services, immigration and refugee services, Indigenous services, mental health, residential care, schools, and social assistance.  Two 13- to 15-week practica allow you to develop job-ready skills and connect to social service agencies and community groups in your local area. 

You may pursue the Social Services diploma full- or part-time. After you graduate, you are ready to enter the workforce. You can also continue your studies and ladder into the UFV Bachelor of Social Work degree program after you have taken the required pre-requisites.

Gain a deeper understanding of our earth by earning a Bachelor of Arts with a major, minor, extended minor, or honours in Geography.

Geography is the study of the earth’s physical features, climate, and various phenomena. As a Bachelor of Arts student in Geography, you get to explore the links between the natural environment and various other disciplines such as politics, history, culture, economics, and science.

Geography major
In your first and second year, you are introduced to various aspects of the earth such as its: climate, evolution, landscapes, or rock formation. You also learn how people interact with their environment and what impact humans are having on the planet.

In your third and fourth year, you choose from a variety of upper-level electives from the geography of food, climate change, soil, and swamps to religion, tourism, and urban planning.

When taking a Geography major in the Bachelor of Arts, you can also choose to specialize in one or more of the following areas: Environmental Science, Global Studies, and Urban Studies and Planning.

Get a broad, high-quality foundation in the Arts and add a valuable credential to your résumé by earning an Associate of Arts degree at UFV.

Within the degree, you can choose from the following options:

• General option
• International and Development Studies option
• Media and Communication Studies option
• Theatre option

This program includes a breadth of intellectual and academic experience worthwhile if your educational or career goals lie in the humanities, the creative and performing arts, or the social sciences.

In addition, practicum opportunities and optional paid co-op work placements throughout your studies allow you to gain valuable work experience.

The Engineering Physics Diploma in Mechatronics is designed to teach you how to connect mechanical, electrical, electronic, and software systems to create smart technologies and drive innovation. The program is self-contained, enabling you to enter the workplace immediately, but gives you a background in math and science that is adaptable for completion of a full BSc degree in Physics at UFV, or an Engineering degree from another institution. You learn topics such as mechanics, circuit analysis, sensors and actuators, and optics, and acquire a strong theoretical grounding in physics.

FEATURES:-

• Program eligible for financial aid.

UFV’s Bachelor of Arts in Child and Youth Care (BA CYC) is a four-year program that prepares you to become a skilled child and youth care professional, ready to provide guidance, support and help children, youth, and families overcome emotional and physical challenges.

Starting with a focus on development and social competence for therapeutic intervention through relationships, you examine and address the issues that affect children and youth who are facing social and developmental difficulties.

With core courses offered in the afternoon and the evening, the BA CYC can accommodate your work schedule if you are currently employed in the human services field and wish to grow your career and gain skills you can apply in your work setting.

In the third and fourth year, the program culminates in two 300-hour practica that provide you with opportunities to gain direct experience working with one of UFV’s learning partners. Through both practica, you benefit from the structured supervision of experienced professionals, who can provide valuable guidance and feedback.

After you graduate from the Bachelor of Arts in Child and Youth Care, you have acquired the skills to take on consultations, case assessments and interventions, counselling, advocacy, policy development, and to become a well-rounded practitioner in any agency or program. 

You may also pursue further studies in child and youth care, public administration, criminal justice, social work, or any related field.

UFV’s Early Childhood Education diploma builds on the knowledge and skills obtained through the ECE certificate program. Having established a strong foundation of professional practice with the ECE certificate, you can choose to further your knowledge and competencies to work specifically with infants or children with special needs. These two program options share a common set of three core courses and each requires a different set of three specialty courses, including a 26-hour seminar and a 200-hour practicum.

UFV ten- to eighteen-month* Data Analysis post-baccalaureate program equips you with the practical skills needed to extract reliable information from large data sets.

By taking carefully designed courses with the right mix of computing and statistics, you gain the database skills you need to house, extract, manipulate and maintain data.

More importantly, you also learn the statistical techniques needed to collect data correctly, assess its quality, analyze it, and turn it into the business intelligence that companies and institutions highly value in the marketplace.  Beyond knowing how to use specific programming languages and tools, employers need you to identify meaningful patterns, so that you can draw actionable conclusions to guide decision-making.

The Associate of Arts, Media and Communication Studies option, focuses on the study of information - how it is created, packaged, distributed, and used.

You will learn about different media industries, including social networks, and how they are changing. You will learn how advertising and other commercial images affect you, how Canadians fit into the global village and what it means to be literate in the new media; in short, you will learn how your life and society are changing in response to innovations in communication.

Students seeking careers in the technical areas of media production will find these courses very valuable, but will need courses from elsewhere to provide instruction in the mechanics of production. For example, while the music industry is studied, sound recording is not.

Graduates of the Associate of Arts, Media and Communication Studies option are prepared to seek employment, to transfer to one of the many degree programs in Canada, or to ladder into the Bachelor of Arts (MACS minor or extended minor) at UFV. Graduates are also eligible to apply to enter into the third year of the Bachelor of Arts in Professional Communication at Royal Roads University.