Bachelor of Commerce in Information Technology

at York University - School of Continuing Studies Canada

Did you know that studying philosophy is great preparation for law school, an MBA or other graduate studies? Philosophy majors regularly perform much better than average on the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT), the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT) and the Graduate Record Examination (GRE).

This program is offered by the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies on the Keele Campus.

The word 'philosophy' is derived from the Greek for "love of wisdom" and is one of the world's oldest subjects of study. Philosophy pursues questions in every dimension of human life, and its techniques apply to problems in any field of study or endeavor. It is a reasoned pursuit of fundamental truths, a quest for understanding and a study of principles of conduct.

Explore life’s deepest questions concerning the nature of happiness, the requirements of justice, the limits of knowledge, and the meaning of freedom. You’ll discover how to develop answers to these questions and how to engage in fruitful argument with alternative points of view. These skills are applicable to all areas of modern life: intellectual, professional and personal.

Efforts are made to blend contemporary and historical issues and many of our professors draw their inspiration from widely separated philosophical approaches. In keeping with this, there is a great deal of cross-disciplinary work. The department offers a wide range of courses which examine contemporary problems and issues such as:

• Applied ethics
• Philosophy of mind
• Social and political philosophy
• Argumentation theory
• Feminism

Develop awareness and a sense of social responsibility relating to Indigenous issues. Your access to traditional Elders and ceremonies, and your placements with Indigenous or supporting organizations will provide you with cultural and experiential knowledge about Indigenous lands, languages and cultures.

Indigenous Studies at York is a unique program that combines an experiential emphasis on local Indigenous traditions, treaties and languages with the theoretical insights of Indigenous scholars. We also feature courses that enable students to explore Indigenous literatures, cinema and music, or to develop an awareness of interconnections with Indigenous peoples internationally as well as with the racialized communities situated on Indigenous lands across the Americas due to histories of slavery and indentureship.

In AMPD's Department of Cinema and Media Arts students experientially learn to understand, think and work in the language of the moving image across all media. From idea to screenplay, camera to screen, screen to critical inquiry, our integrated curriculum offers exceptional training across the spectrum.

The BFA in Screenwriting, offering Canada’s only undergraduate screenwriting degree, provides intensive training in the art of moving image storytelling across genres, from short films to TV series, feature films to new media. Writing for today’s multi-platform universe, screenwriting students have the opportunity to collaborate with production students to see their work brought to life on screen.

This small program, which accepts a maximum of twenty students, supports intimate, intensive learning and high level of mentorship by the department's internationally recognized faculty.

The rich Cinema and Media Studies component included in the BFA in Screenwriting gives students an edge, developing their ability to not only write for screen-based media, but to think, talk and write about cinema and media, and to understand the historical and theoretical framework in which they are produced.

In Classical Studies, we explore the worlds of ancient Greece and Rome, and their enormous impact on the world as we know it today. Some might think that these languages and cultures are dead, but the Greeks and Romans were concerned with many issues that remain fascinating, relevant and important today - love, death, fate, the individual and society, religion, justice, law and so on. Their works form the basis for much of what we know and understand about the world around us today.

The program will introduce you to the richness of thought and expression of the cultures that have shaped the Western intellectual tradition. You'll study the religion, politics, mythology, art, literature, history, archaeology, architecture and philosophy of Greek and Roman society.

Classical Studies is a truly interdisciplinary subject of great breadth. The program allows a broad range of choice of courses in:

• Greek and Roman languages and literature
• Greek and Roman history
• Greek and Roman philosophy
• Greek and Roman archaeology, art and architecture

Our courses will introduce you to and deepen your understanding of a range of analytical approaches, including literary, linguistic, historical, philosophical and aesthetic approaches to classical culture.
Majoring in Classical Studies is an excellent way to develop critical, analytical and logical reasoning skills. You'll learn how to make rational arguments and express them lucidly. You'll gain a thorough understanding of some of the greatest accomplishments in human thought and art.

Streams within the program include:

• Classics – This stream focuses on the ancient Greek and Latin languages.
• Classical Studies – This stream focuses more on the historical and social/cultural aspects and ancient Greece and Rome.

The field of psychology is dedicated to the scientific study of behaviour including thought, feeling and action, and viewed from social, developmental and biological perspectives. You can study virtually all the areas of psychology since our department is the largest – and one of the best – in Canada.

Undergraduate students have the option of working toward either a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology. Students may choose to focus on specific areas of interest such as neuroscience or abnormal psychology or follow a more generalized program that covers a wide variety of aspects of the discipline. The Psychology program is structured so that you are exposed to the breadth of psychology but may also tailor your degree program to focus on specific areas of interest.

• The BA psychology program exposes you to a full range of psychological concepts and applications.
• The BSc option adds a focus on the physical sciences (chemistry, physics, and biology) to a full range of discipline-specific courses.

Reasons to choose Psychology at YORK U

• Our Specialized Honours Psychology Program (both BA and BSc) provides advanced training in research methods, statistical analysis, as well as guaranteed one-on-one thesis supervision and prepares students wishing to go on to graduate school. 
• We offer an extensive and diverse selection of courses taught both in classroom settings and on the Internet. There are also evening and summer courses offered for working students who wish to pursue their studies on a part-time basis.
• Learn from leading researchers in the field: Joel Katz, Canada Research Chair in Health Psychology; J Douglas Crawford, Canada Research Chair in Visual-Motor Neuroscience; and Gordon Flett, Canada Research Chair in Personality & Health
• Participate in research in one of our many research centres, including the renowned Centre for Vision Research, the LaMarsh Centre for Child and Youth Research, and the York University Psychology Clinic.
• Engage in active research alongside your professors. Psychology students often contribute to the Trauma and Attachment Report, a weekly online research report.
• Bridging courses are available for those missing either a math or science prerequisite for entry to the BSc degree.
• The courses Writing in Psychology (2010) (for all Psychology majors), Professionalism and Communication in Psychology (3000) (Specialized Honours Students only), and Critical Thinking in Psychology (4180) (Honours students only) provide transferable skills that employers are looking for.

Urban Studies at York stresses the importance of fieldwork when studying the social and spatial fabric of cities.

The city is among the most fundamental human institutions. Across history, cities have been sites of basic innovation in economic, political and cultural life — centres of trade, seats of empire and the locale of scientific, social and artistic creativity. Cities retain these roles today and are the home of a growing majority of the world’s population who increasingly live in large metropolitan regions of several million people. Often, as in many Canadian cities, these urban regions are marked by complex social diversity, striking contrasts of wealth and poverty and a challenging array of planning and environmental dilemmas.

Urban Studies is the attempt to understand cities and city life — how they function, the current and future concerns of their residents. This encompasses the political institutions, economic and social relations, physical landscapes and cultural frameworks that constitute the city.

As a student in Urban Studies, you will focus on cities as distinctive entities and explore the meaning and function of cities in the larger society. You'll be taking courses from a broad range of fields including:

• History
• Environmental studies
• Geography
• Anthropology
• Political science
• Sociology
• Psychology.

You will also examine the processes that produce certain patterns of human settlement and chart the changing relationships among areas shaped by urbanization, such as metropolis and countryside, city and suburb, municipality and region.

Study in one of the largest Geography programs in any university in Canada. Whether you're pursuing your Bachelor of Science and focusing on physical geography or gaining expertise about human geography through a Bachelor of Arts, York's program offers you the world at your doorstep.

Geography is the science of place and space. Geographers ask where things are located on the surface of the earth, why they are located where they are, how places differ from one another, and how people interact with the environment. There are two main branches of geography: human geography and physical geography.

Geographers also study the linkages between human activity and natural systems. Geographers were, in fact, among the first scientists to sound the alarm that human-induced changes to the environment were beginning to threaten the balance of life itself. They are active in the study of global warming, desertification, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, groundwater pollution, and flooding.

In the Faculty of Science, the Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree emphasizes physical geography, which examines the physical, chemical and biological processes that occur in the immediate vicinity of the Earth's surface. Physical geographers study patterns of climates, land forms, vegetation, soils, and water. They forecast the weather, manage land and water resources, and analyze and plan for forests, rangelands, and wetlands. Many human and physical geographers have skills in cartography and geographic information systems. Field work is also emphasized, including outdoor laboratory sessions, field trips and periodic field courses in Southern Ontario as well as to remote and exotic regions.

Computer science blends theoretical knowledge and practical skills to explore intriguing topics –computer systems that mimic human vision or helping design pharmaceutical drugs. Learn the theoretical limitations of computing and methodologies that lead to efficient, accurate computing.

What You’ll Learn
We offer BA and BSc degrees – both providing you with the same computer science and math expertise. In the BA program, you’ll complement your studies with courses from the Liberal Arts (e.g., humanities, social sciences). In the BSc program, the complementary courses will be in the sciences (e.g., biology, chemistry, physics). A degree Minor or Double major will allow you to just sample or deeply explore another discipline.

You may also choose one of our three International Honours degrees – iBA, iBSc or the Dual Specialized degree. In the iBA or iBSc degree, you will add a study abroad component to your learning, with culture and language courses of your exchange destination. The International Dual degree leads to two degrees, one from York and one from the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University in Germany while completion of your undergraduate thesis at the University of Crete in Greece!

After the third year of your Honours degree, you can take part in our internship program to gain valuable professional experience.

Our extensive facilities and our Biochemistry Lab – outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment – provides  you with hands-on training in the laboratory right from the very first year.

The Biochemistry program at York is your gateway to an exciting and rapidly evolving field. Biochemistry is the study of the chemistry of life, and as all fields of biology are increasingly seeking understanding at the molecular and submolecular levels, Biochemistry continues to be vitally important to advancing many areas of biology and biomedical science.

Biochemistry looks at topics such as molecular genetics, physiology and the treatment of disease. As a Biochemistry student you will explore the structure and properties of biological molecules and the relationship between their chemical structure and their function in living systems.

Many areas of everyday life owe their development or even existence to biochemists: medical products and diagnostics, new food and its safety, crop improvement, cosmetics and forensic science.

• York's Biochemistry professors include Sergey Krylov, Canada Research Chair in Bioanalytical Chemistry and David Hood, Canada Research Chair in Cell Physiology.
• York houses the Centre for Research on Biomolecular Interactions which houses more than 70 professors, researchers, graduate and undergraduate students. The Centre uses cutting-edge approaches to gain full understanding of key molecular players and events that can lead to disease, and by doing so, hopes to address prevention and future treatment of many diseases.

The Biochemistry program at York is your gateway to an exciting and rapidly evolving field. Biochemistry is the study of the chemistry of life, and as all fields of biology are increasingly seeking understanding at the molecular and submolecular levels, Biochemistry continues to be vitally important to advancing many areas of biology and biomedical science, including molecular genetics, physiology and the treatment of disease. As a Biochemistry student you will explore the structure and properties of biological molecules and the relationship between their chemical structure and their function in living systems.

This four-year program provides you with hands-on training in the laboratory right from the very first year. A fourth-year research project serves as the capstone course of your degree, preparing you for many challenging careers. York Biochemistry students get meaningful and well paid jobs in research, in industry and in teaching. Others go on to pursue graduate studies, here and at other prestigious universities in Canada and abroad. Many enter professional schools in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, law and business.

Do you know that Spanish is spoken by more than 400 million people in over twenty-one countries? Of the 56 million people who speak languages on the Internet other than English, Spanish speakers represent almost a quarter.

Spanish is the fourth most spoken language in the world. Both globally and locally, fluency in Spanish is a valuable asset in any career.. University graduates with a knowledge of Spanish and the Spanish-speaking world are in demand not only in the international business community, diplomatic circles, and international agencies and Non-governmental organizations such as the World Bank, the World Health Organization and the United Nations, but also throughout Canada and the United States. Spanish is a common home language in urban Canada and is the de facto second language of the United States.  Spanish is useful in careers from Social services and medical fields, to media and the arts: any fields that engage with the public.

The Spanish program introduces you to the language and literature of Spain and the Spanish-American world. Spanish represents many cultures and countries. The rich cultural heritage and ethnic diversity of the language is discovered through literature and linguistics and you can develop a strong command of the language itself through intensive training in listening, reading writing and speaking.

• Our professors are experts in their respective fields, dynamic and responsive teachers who look forward to sharing their perspectives on the Spanish-speaking world. 
• Our courses explore a range of topics from the development of the Spanish language to an examination of Renaissance and Baroque literature when Spain's prolific playwrights rivaled Shakespeare; from the literature of the Spanish Civil War to the vast, innovative work of Latin America's writers.
• Our program offers opportunities for experiential education and co-curricular activities, including opportunities to edit and publish creative work in Spanish and experience working with professors to conduct primary research. You will benefit from our respected Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean on the economic development, political and social organization and cultural contributions of the region.