Bachelor of Arts in Geography and Urban Studies

at York University - School of Continuing Studies Canada

Put most simply, religious studies is the academic study of religion, exploring the range of phenomena that fall within the categories "religion" or "religious" from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. It brings together perspectives and approaches from history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and literature to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the individuals and traditions that constitute religions and cultures.

Because religions and the religious deal with questions of meaning and orientation, religious studies provides a place for you to explore in a disciplined fashion how and why humans have appealed to spirituality and the divine as they’ve struggled to make sense of themselves and their world. To study religion is to study responses, both behavioural and intellectual, to some of the great riddles and questions that face human beings, including: death, suffering, tragedy, and the nature of the self and the universe. Religious Studies is also a "teachable" subject for students who wish to combine their BA with a teaching qualification from York's Faculty of Education.

You can focus on the major religious traditions of the West and Near East such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam - or those of the Far East such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism or pursue a more comparative approach. You will also have the opportunity to learn about a variety of religious cultures including Chinese, Korean, Caribbean and Native North American.

In the core course, you will learn how to use various analytical methods to explore the rich variety of the world's religious traditions.

Our program gives you a thorough grounding in sophisticated text analysis and improves your writing skills - excellent preparation for any number of careers, including the clergy and law. Our classes are small and emphasize personal contact between students and professors.

• Study religious expression in a variety of cultures including those of India, China, Korea and Native communities of North America, and visit the historical places discussed in class through a York International study abroad program.
• Leonard Wolinsky Scholarship is awarded annually to two York undergraduates for one year's full-time study in an Israeli university.
• In the area of research, Professor Amila Buturovic is in great demand by the media to comment on Islam in the modern world. Professor Buturovic also does research on Muslim poets from the former Yugoslavia.
• The Moderator of the United Church of Canada, Rt. Rev. Marion Pardy, is a graduate of our Religious Studies program.

As 21st century medicine and health care becomes increasingly sophisticated, the demand grows for highly skilled people with a biomedical science background.

Biomedical scientists study biological processes and diseases with the ultimate goal of developing effective treatments and cures. Biomedical research requires careful experimentation by many scientists, including biologists and chemists. Discovery of new medicines and therapies requires careful scientific experimentation, development, and evaluation.

York's Biomedical Science program provides a comprehensive curriculum taught by the leading researchers in the field, including Samuel Benchimol, Canada Research Chair in Biomedical Health Research. The Biomedical Science program focuses emerging areas of biomedicine including physiology, microbiology, immunology, endocrinology, molecular genetics, and development.

This four-year Honours program also allows you the option to do a minor in another related discipline such as Chemistry, Psychology, or Kinesiology & Health Science.

The Biomedical Science stream is designed to help you:

• understand and explain the basic structures and fundamental processes of life at the molecular, cellular and population levels;
• effectively apply the scientific method for problem solving and experimental design;
• collect, organize, analyze, interpret and present quantitative and qualitative data;
• identify and describe current issues and challenges within the field of biomedical science;
• demonstrate and apply fundamental biological laboratory techniques and skills; and
• communicate effectively in written and oral forms.

The program will be particularly valuable if you're planning a career in biomedical research, and will also be a good choice if you're preparing for medical school.

Solutions for 21st-century challenges involve complex systems that no single discipline can fully address. Mathematical Biology, a program in the field of Applied Mathematics, aims to represent biological processes using a variety of mathematical tools and techniques. Mathematical modelling has direct impact in areas such as disease prevention, the development of ecosystems and waste management. York offers Canada’s only degree in Mathematical Biology, and as a fourth-year student, you will have the opportunity to acquire real-life problem-solving skills in a required research project. Experience directly the intersection of math and the life sciences, as well as the role it plays in our everyday concerns. As a program graduate, you will leave with the tools and knowledge allowing you to help solve the problems of modern life. 

The Financial & Business Economics program in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies is specifically designed for students who are interested in understanding the workings of financial markets, such as the stock market and the financing of companies. You'll gain a broad understanding of the economic framework upon which financial theory is based and gather the tools needed for navigating financial markets and business decisions.

The program combines a rigorous quantitative and analytical approach with practical application. Through a blend of economic theory and applied tools of modern finance, you will develop a solid knowledge of the microeconomic principles underlying financial markets and instruments, the macroeconomic role of finance, and the quantitative tools commonly used for analyzing financial markets.

You'll take courses such as: Corporate Finance, International Monetary Economics and Financial Econometrics to gain insight into important subject areas including:

• Budgeting
• Saving
• Investing
• Borrowing
• Lending
• Insuring
• Hedging
• Diversifying
• Asset management.

Your degree will prepare you for careers in the financial sector or graduate studies in finance or financial economics.

• You'll study with professors who are actively engaged in the theoretical and empirical analysis of financial markets.
• This highly structured and focused program equips you with highly marketable skills, readying you for a career in the financial sector.

Learn what it takes to lead HR teams and projects as you investigate everything from compensation practices to labour relations.

What you will learn
This full-time post-degree certificate program was developed by an advisory committee of senior human resources executives to prepare you for excellence. Consisting of ten courses covering the core human resources topics as determined by the Human Resources Professional Association (HRPA), this program will help you better understand:

• Human resources management
• Organizational behaviour
• Finance and accounting
• Human resources planning
• Occupational health and safety
• Training and development
• Labour relations
• Recruitment and selection
• Compensation
• Business Communications for Human Resources Professionals

Program Benefits

• Benefit from a curriculum that integrates critical soft skills that employers want in new hires
• Become a member of the Human Resources Professional Association (HRPA) at the student rate
• Fulfill coursework required for the Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP) designation
• Program recognized by the HRPA
• Develop skills through experiential assignments and projects
• Learn from practicing HR instructors
• Build your professional network as you advance through the program with the same cohort of peers
• Complete the program in nine months of accelerated study

York has Canada’s largest and most renowned team of scholars in labour relations, work and global political economy.

Work and Labour Studies explores the complex nature of work and employment, the impact of globalization and the role of trade unions. Work occupies much of our lives and it informs how we live and how we think about the world. Work & Labour Studies explores what work is, who decides who does what, how workers respond to the conditions of the workplace, and the relationship of capital, the state and labour.

Key factors include:

• The economy
• Globalization
• The changing nature of work and the workplace
• Industrial relations
• Gender
• Class
• Inequality
• How labour is portrayed by the media
• How politics is shaped by mass media and how workers' culture both informs and diverts class struggle

Our program's strengths include labour law and labour policy, the future of work and employment, women and work, globalization and its impact on work and workers, and our unique fourth year placement course. Labour Studies also offers courses in collective bargaining that will prepare you for contemporary and relevant workplace situations.

You will be well prepared for employment in the labour movement, private industry, government service, journalism, public or private administration, social work, law or teaching. Many students go on to graduate work in political science, industrial relations and labour law.

Health care is undergoing fundamental change from solely treating acute illness to focusing on a person’s whole needs for wellness—where physical health, mental health and social supports are explored—involving a team of health care professionals, including doctors, nurses, social workers, mental health specialists and others. In this new model, health managers, information specialists and policy experts are fundamentally important to leading the change and York’s Health Studies program prepares students for careers in these dynamic fields.

Not sure if you want to focus on Health Management, Informatics or Policy in your first year? Then choose Health Studies and explore all three. In addition to taking courses in management, informatics and policy, students study the breadth and depth of health and health care through a wide variety of issues and social contexts (e.g. status and disability, homelessness), including case studies in health care in the community. Societal factors that determine why some people stay healthy and others become ill are also examined such as income, stress, early life, social exclusion, work conditions, unemployment, social support, addiction, food and transportation.

Health Studies offers students the flexibility to attain a double major or do a minor in other Faculty of Health or York programs. The program also provides students with the prerequisites for postgraduate study in a professional program (e.g. medicine, law) or graduate school.

In Health studies you have different degree options. i.e Health Policy, Health Management. Health Informatics, and Health Studies. For more information please click here.

Information technology deals with information and its use in organizations and society. York's Information Technology (ITEC) programs provide you with the educational background to pursue an exciting career in the application of computers to a variety of tasks faced by organizations today.

Unlike traditional computer science and engineering programs, which focus on developing broad computing skills, ITEC focuses on applications of software and information technologies and how they can be systematically designed and developed to meet critical business and organizational problems.
 
This way, ITEC prepares you to become a versatile Information Technology professional who possesses a strongly developed intuition about business, organizational and societal needs, and combines it with robust technical and methodological skills to analyze, design, implement, customize and manage information technologies to fulfil those needs. 

The following Bachelor programs are offered by ITEC:

• Bachelor of Arts – Information Technology, with a strong technical orientation.
• Bachelor of Commerce – Information Technology, which adds more business depth.

Bachelor of Arts – Information Technology
The BA in Information Technology aims at offering its students the necessary technical skills for developing and managing IT solutions for organizations, while also learning how to systematically organize such development and management efforts. 

Through courses in computer programming, database systems, data analytics, user interfaces and web development, you will learn how to analyze, design, develop and maintain information systems. In parallel, courses such as systems analysis and design, IT project management, requirements management, and IT risk management, will teach you how professionals work together to bring information systems to life in order to fulfil complex business needs. 

The health of the environment has become an urgent global concern. As we better understand how human survival and well-being depend on a healthy environment, public interest and awareness of the impact of human activities on other organisms and ecosystems is increasing.

This program focuses on the biology of environmental issues, integrating ecological theory and practice to predict, quantify, and address the impact of stressors such as habitat loss, pollutants, climate change, resource harvesting and invasive species on living systems. A capstone course in fourth year prepares you to be a practicing environmental biologist, exposing you to cutting-edge experimental design and methodology. A key objective of this program is the development of communication skills, to give our graduates a competitive edge.

What makes Environmental Biology at York unique?
Learn from preeminent environmental biologists such as Bridget Stutchbury and Lawrence Packer
Combine a major in Environmental Biology with second major or a minor in a complementary discipline such as International Development, Geography, Earth and Space Sciences, Chemistry, Sociology, Health Policy or Environmental Studies.

Whether you are treating a patient, formulating a new drug, unravelling a sub-atomic mystery or modelling climate change, the ability to think and reason at the nexus of disciplines is essential to success. Develop your interdisciplinary mind-set in Integrated Science.  

Integrated Science is an enriched first-year program offering a cohesive set of courses in biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics that can be taken as the first year of any York Science program. Integrated Science is designed around the connections between disciplines, allowing you to experience both the depth and breadth of scientific theory and practice. Some of these connections are inherent to the specific disciplines — like enzymes in biology and reaction rates in chemistry, or Newtonian mechanics in physics and derivatives in mathematics. Other connections are driven by larger questions that you will explore through integrated projects. In Integrated Science, you will learn to approach problems and develop solutions from an interdisciplinary perspective, applying the knowledge and skills that you gain within and across disciplines.

Integrated Science offers a number of benefits for first-year science students:

• Small class size: With limited enrolment, class sizes are about a tenth of that of some of the larger first-year science courses. You will quickly feel part of a cohesive and caring community.
• Strong faculty connections: You will get to know your professors very well, so you can begin building your professional network from day one.
• Block scheduling: Integrated Science classes and labs are scheduled in blocks during the week. You will be in the Integrated Science classroom on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 9am to 1pm, leaving your afternoons free for studying or other commitments. In any given week, you will normally have two three-hour labs on Tuesdays and/or Thursdays. This type of schedule is especially well suited for students who commute to York or have additional commitments outside of school.
• Innovative teaching and learning methods: As an Integrated Science student, you will progress through four carefully designed stages of learning — Prepare, Apply, Solidify and Integrate — to deepen your understanding of scientific concepts. Professors use innovative teaching practices such as peer instruction in the classroom to further enhance your learning process.
• Depth and breadth in the sciences: If you enjoy all the sciences and aren’t yet sure exactly what you want to focus on, Integrated Science offers you the opportunity to explore across biology, chemistry, physics, and math before entering the second year of any of our York Science programs.
• Preparation for health-professional exams: If you are considering writing your MCAT, PCAT or DAT in the future, then Integrated Science can help you acquire a strong and necessary background in introductory biology, chemistry and physics, as well as teaching you critical-thinking and reasoning skills.