Bachelor of Design in Design

at York University - School of Continuing Studies Canada

The Professional Writing Program in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University offers students a unique opportunity to study and to acquire practical expertise in a wide range of written expressions that inform and shape our culture. The combination of knowledge and expertise is highly sought after by employers who recognize the spiralling need for effective communications in today’s and tomorrow’s economy. Students in our program develop inventive approaches to writing that keep pace with cultural, social, and technological transformation in the contemporary world.

Why Professional Writing at York?
York’s Professional Writing Program is unique.  As a program of the Liberal Arts & Professional Studies Faculty, we strive to connect and complement the traditional strengths of a Liberal Arts degree with practical, professional experience.  Our program core provides a firm grounding in the history, theory, and critical investigation of writing practices while providing  hands-on experience in the creation, management, and presentation of dynamic, responsive writing.

Political Science encompasses not only the actions of governments, political parties and the courts, but also political movements in society and in the power relations of everyday life.

Choose from a rich and diverse range of courses that allow you to focus on a number of topics such as:

• Global politics
• Political economy and political power
• Development and inequality in the Third World
• Social justice
• Ethics
• Law and democracy
• Violence and security

This breadth of choice will help you to gain a comprehensive understanding of critical issues facing our world and the political context in which they exist while acquiring in-demand analytical and communications skills.

• You will learn to conceptualize and to think critically about crucial dimensions of political life, both values and processes, especially those linked to such issues as the uses and abuses of power; the articulation of rights and responsibilities; and the intersections of community and nation-state with more globally-defined realities.
• Our first-year classes are taught by our most distinguished scholars who not only cover the essentials, but also design the courses with flair and expertise.
• Our Political Science professors are internationally known. Professor Leo Pantich is the Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political Economy and Professor Leah Voskos is the Canada Research Chair in Feminist Political Economy.
• We are well known in many areas including Canadian Politics, Comparative Politics, International Relations, Political Theory and Women and Politics

York's Theatre programs immerse students in all aspects of theatre, fostering the ability to specialize or to assume a wide range of roles and apply various approaches to performance.  Through their creative and scholarly practice, students learn to constantly reassess the meaning of their work in the context of our ever-changing society, and to develop the critical thinking to understand and make a contribution to the world around them.

Program Structure
All Theatre students share a common first foundation year, in which they take courses across the various fields of theatre and performance. At the end of forst year students branch into one of four streams based on their interests and goals.*
Throughout the programs, students work together as actors and as members of creative and production teams in the department's many productions.

Streams
Acting Conservatory
With intensive studies in acting, movement and voice, the Acting Conservatory takes students deep into scene study, script analysis and character development. Upper year Conservatory members are cast in Theatre @ York's mainstage shows, featuring classic and contemporary masterpieces from Canada and around the world, chosen to address some of the big cultural and politacal debates facing society.

Performance Creation
This BFA degree stream places emphasis on studio coursework, such as Stagecraft, Devised Theatre, Scene Study and Directing. In keeping with the broader scope of Performance Creation work, this degree prepares students to move fluidly across artistic disciplines and to assume a range of roles in collaborative performance settings. This degree is ideal for students who want to produce sophisticated, meaningful performance work that engages with larger issues of social justice and sustainability.

Production and Design
Combining hands-on technical skills with creative aspects of theatre as storytelling, this program engages students in all elements of theatrical design and stage production. Courses in sound, lighting, scenery and costume design and construction are complimented by studies in technical direction and management.

Theatre Studies
This BA program focuses on studies in dramatic and performance theory, cristicism and history, and in theatre education. Students may choose to specialize in Playwriting and New Play Dramaturgy learning to write for the stage, or Devised Theatre focusing on collaborative creation of original works, incorporating all elements of playmaking, design and management to performance.

New frontiers offer new challenges. Combine unique technical skills to design solutions to Earth’s problems using space-based assets while utilizing the principles of systems engineering. Look at the interface of engineering and science through payload and instrument design. Learn from real space missions, starting with initial concept design to hardware and software design, manufacturing, testing and in-orbit operations.  

Our Space Engineering program is accredited by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB).

What You’ll Learn
Lassonde’s Space Engineering program will equip you with the technical skills required to design solutions to Earth’s problems using space-based assets while utilizing the principles of systems engineering.
Delve into systems ranging from orbit control and space-based optics, to ground station communications and robotics. As a student, you will learn and practice the design and management of complex multidisciplinary projects that enable missions to the far reaches of the solar system.
The co-op program after second year, allows you to gain professional experience within space agencies and related fields that require the design of complex systems.

Some Courses You'll Take  

• Introduction to Space Communications
• Physics of the Space Applications
• Materials for Space Applications
• Payload Design
• Space Mission Design
• Finite Element Methods in Engineering Design
• Control Systems
• Dynamics of Space Vehicles

This Specialized Honours BA program blends English and Professional Writing into a single degree program that highlights and enhances the relationship between the two fields of study as opposed to a traditional double major or major/minor degree in which the two fields are treated as separate rather than complementary disciplines.

English and Professional Writing is a “keeping doors open” program for students as devoted to reading and thinking critically about literature as they are to writing. The English side of the degree keeps open the possibility of graduate work in literary studies or a post-degree program in Education, while the Professional Writing side attends to practice and more immediate employability.

English and Professional Writing is, so far as we know, unique in Canada in offering this dual qualification, which produces graduates with a greater range of practical skills than graduates of English programs and greater theoretical sophistication and rhetorical flair than graduates of writing programs. It is not for every student but, for some medleys of aptitudes and aspirations, it is a glove.
For more information on the Professional Writing side of the ENPR program, please visit  http://prwr.writ.laps.yorku.ca/about/

Violations of human rights occur across a broad range of social, economic and cultural areas as well as within the civil and political order. Today we are faced with local and global issues that, in one way or another, impact all of us: denial of education or basic health rights; surveillance and suppression of speech; polarization of incomes or denial of economic security; atrocities of military occupation and war.

Students in York's innovative Human Rights & Equity Studies program explore the roots of human rights violations as they occur across a broad range of social, economic and cultural areas. You'll tackle local and global issues, that, in one way or another, impact us all:

• Denial of education or basic health rights;
• Surveillance and suppression of speech;
• Polarization of incomes or denial of economic security;
• Atrocities of military occupation and war.

York's program investigates rights and equity concerns through a range of disciplinary lenses. Courses drawn from units across York confront problems of basic rights involving physical, emotional and economic security, cultural autonomy and freedom of political expression, viewing rights in relation to the whole person.

• Gain multidisciplinary knowledge by exploring human rights and equity in a diverse array of fields, including sociology, anthropology, philosophy, political science, social work, economics, health, education and the arts.
• Core professors are experts in social and cultural rights and equity concerns related to health and healthcare, economic inequality and poverty, work and unemployment, and social and labour policy.

Do you wonder how life originated on Earth four billion years ago? Do you puzzle over finding an environmentally responsible way to provide stable, cost-effective energy? Have you questioned whether nano-machines can be constructed at the molecular level? Then Chemistry is for you.

Chemistry sometimes is called the "central science" because it connects sciences to each other, such as biology, physics, geology and environmental science. At York, our chemistry program spans the traditional to the new: analytical, physical and organic chemistry to nanomaterials and biological chemistry. We offer a stream in Pharmaceutical & Biological Chemistry that combines knowledge of the biological, medical and physical sciences in the study of molecular-level biological process such as protein folding and drug functionality.

Offered as an optional study plan within the honours program, Materials Chemistry is centred on the rational synthesis of novel functional materials using a large array of existing and new synthetic methods. Similarly, the Analytical Chemistry option focuses on the fundamental tools and methods of chemical analysis and separation including instrumentation, miniaturization and computerization in a range of settings.

It is our goal to help you succeed in whatever field of Chemistry you choose to explore.

This cross-disciplinary program offers you a challenging opportunity to study the mind and its processes.
Cognitive science majors will examine the nature of thought, memory, perception and language from a variety of different perspectives in order to acquire a rich knowledge of the mind. You will have the chance to study the different ways in which infants and non-human animals may be able to think and reason without language, how computers may be programmed to demonstrate intelligence and the nature of the relationship between social interaction and cognition.

Our professors are conducting research in such diverse areas as:

• Infant social cognition
• Human-computer interaction
• Cognitive ethology
• Moral psychology
• Artificial intelligence

To gain an expansive knowledge of the cognitive processes we might find in humans, animals and machines, you can combine courses from:

• Philosophy
• Psychology
• Linguistics
• Computer science
• Information technology

In order to integrate findings from different fields, you'll be trained in the methodologies of different disciplines, and you'll have the opportunity to apply these methods in order to examine the nature of thought, memory, perception, language, and other cognitive processes. You will have the opportunity to take courses in:

• Minds, Brains, and Machines
• Neural Basis of Behaviour
• Psycholinguistics
• Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence
• Animal Behaviour

Your studies will be enriched by your contact with energetic professors and research groups involved in groundbreaking work in fields such as vision, social cognitive neuroscience, language evolution, autism research, robotics, ape cognition and consciousness.

The Faculty of Science offers Bachelor of Arts (BA) and Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree programs in Applied Mathematics.
Applied mathematics or computational sciences encompasses the many analytical and numerical methods used to solve scientific problems. It is at the core of many disciplines ranging from engineering and science to business and economics. It is essential to be able to apply many different mathematical techniques and to handle problems involving statistical data. It is also necessary to be able to take a practical problem, from engineering for example, and turn it into a mathematical problem; this is referred to as mathematical modeling.

Applied mathematics includes the area of scientific computing, which involves many components of computational processes — numerical analysis, algorithms for machines with vector and parallel architectures, visualization, simulation and computer-aided design.
Applied mathematicians use equations and computer simulations to:

• Design computer chips;
• Set airfare and insurance rates;
• Model electric power grids;
• Study genetic engineering;
• Create new automobile and airplane design;
• Study global climate change.

It is mathematics used to model and solve practical, real-world problems.
The Applied Mathematics (BA) program aims to give students a solid base of knowledge of mathematics which has important applications in fields such as computer science, physics, earth and atmospheric science, chemistry, biology, psychology and also in economics and business. Bachelor of Arts students are given the opportunity to take electives in other areas of interest, such as business administration.

Students in Applied Mathematics may pursue a course of study leading to a Bachelor of Science (BSc), combining their studies in applied mathematics with another subject such as physics, earth and atmospheric science, biology or computer science.

Biology was the pioneer science at York, offering the first undergraduate and graduate programs in the 1960s.
Biology studies living things and the discipline defines a living creature, technically called a living "organism", as one that has a metabolism and reproduces. Biologists study living organisms from many different angles, including behaviour, evolution and ecology as well as cell and molecular biology and genetics. They study all different kinds of species from plants to insects, viruses to humans. Biology can also be combined with other fields. For example, biochemistry, biophysics, biotechnology and biopsychology are all important fields related to biology.

Biologists can be found working everywhere — on and off the planet:

• In a variety of environments to investigate ecosystems;
• In the laboratory to examine how organisms work;
• In the microscopic world to explore cells and the submicroscopic to explore molecules in cells;
• In space to study the effect of space travel on organisms;
• Back in time to investigate the history of life.

The Biology program, York’s longest-established scientific program, is home to internationally recognized teaching and research faculty. It offers you a diversity of courses from across the discipline, providing you with the flexibility to choose courses from many different areas or to specialize in a particular field of life science. In your upper years, you can choose to specialize in such areas as:

• Biotechnology
• Biochemistry
• Biomedical Science
• Biophysics
• Environmental Biology