Bachelor of Fine Arts in Screenwriting

at York University - School of Continuing Studies Canada

Humanities is the study of culture. It involves history, art, literature, music, architecture, politics, food - all aspects that help to define and express a specific group of people. The study of the Humanities serves to challenge our common understanding of issues and events, and helps students to develop valuable critical, analytical and communications skills.

The Humanities program in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies will introduce you to the major questions of life as you study issues of social, moral and aesthetic value. Drawing from literature, History, Philosophy, Religion, Fine Arts and popular culture courses, the Humanities program enables you to gain a greater self-understanding and appreciation of the diversity of human cultures and experiences. The program pays special attention to what is unique, particular and unpredictable in human experience.

You can combine studies in the Humanities with a related discipline such as History, Philosophy or Women's Studies, exploring complimentary historical, cultural and gender perspectives.

As a Humanities graduate, you will be well-prepared to face your future lives and careers through well-reasoned decisions and responsible actions. You will be valued by leaders of the high-tech industry and government for your:

• Creativity and broad-based skills;
• Ability to communicate, to sell, to relate and work as part of a team;
• Intellectual curiosity;
• Critical values.

With its unique interdisciplinary approach that bridges studio production, art history and curatorial practice, AMPD's Department of Visual Art & Art History offers students the opportunity to become well-rounded professionals in the field, able to lead in the creation, exhibition, critical understanding and communcation of visual culture in diverse environments.

The Honours BA in Art History emphasizes the relationship between visual art and its social contexts, including global cultural exchange. The curriculm focusses on modern and contemporary art, indigenous and settler art of the Americas, Asian art, western art and architecture, art criticism and curatorial studies. Students have hands-on access to original works of art to explore prectical applications of museum and gallery studies.

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

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/

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.

Challenge what is. Imagine what could be. Transform the Future. The Faculty of Environmental Studies provides a unique educational experience in an expanding field of study, research and employment.

Studying the environment has never been more important or complex. In order to make change, we need to recognize the impact we have on the world around us. Our program examines the interconnections of human life on our natural surroundings and explores the various perspectives, approaches and inequalities that exist in the world today.  An introductory first year allows you to expand your passion for environmental and social justice through a common core course approach. Then, specialize for your future career success in one of the following: Environmental Management; Urban & Regional Environments; Environmental Politics, Justice & the Arts.

Program Highlights
The Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES) defines "environment" as everything that surrounds us. Environmental studies is, therefore, not only about natural environments, but also about built, social, cultural, political and organizational environments as well as all of the relationships between them.

After completing a common first year, you will have the opportunity to focus on one of three Areas of Concentration:

• Environmental Management
• Urban & Regional Environments
• Environmental Politics, Justice & the Arts

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.

Graduates of the ITEC program are uniquely positioned to plan, design, build and administer information systems.

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. 

Bachelor of Commerce – Information Technology

The BCom - ITEC ensures that in addition to essential technical and methodological skills, graduates have a deeper and broader understanding of business and commerce. Thus, courses on accounting, marketing, organization behaviour, enterprise resource planning and strategy are added to the list of courses. 

Students in our BCom - ITEC program will pursue specializations in:

• Business Systems Analysis: will prepare you for a career as an information technology analyst, systems analyst or information technology consultant.
• E-Commerce Development: gives you the technical knowledge required for the design and development of consumer and business-to-business electronic commerce systems.
• Information Technology Auditing & Assurance: responds to the growing demand for information system audit, control and security professionals. This stream was developed in close consultation with the Information Systems Audit and Control Association and will be of interest to students seeking the certified Information Systems Auditor designation.

4 years honours option also avilable for this program. For more information please visit program page.

The study of English literature explores literary history for its relation to current culture, re-thinks the dynamics of the book as a visual medium and examines the fundamental changes to knowledge and language created within our gendered, post-colonial world.

We offer a full range of English literature courses from the medieval period to the present, with particular strengths in contemporary poetry, popular literature, Canadian, American, African, South Asia and Caribbean literatures. The program invites you to explore some of the world's greatest literary works while developing critical thinking, reading and writing skills. You can choose from courses in:

• Poetry
• Drama
• Fiction
• Satire
• Folklore
• Literary criticism
• Critical theory
• Gender studies
• Stylistics and poetics
• Comics and cartoons
• Science fiction
• Children's literature
• Travel writing

The English Department is the first and best place for considered and disciplined responses to the discourse and images that are shaped by the constantly changing technologies of a word-based world, and it is through the study of English literature that the critical skills necessary for understanding the past and the present are acquired.

Our goal is to provide you with a useful knowledge of literary works, both as art forms and as documents of human behaviour. By studying English literature, you will gain a vision of humanity as expressed in verbal art that crosses boundaries of time and place. Thanks to our location in the heart of the Greater Toronto Area, you can take advantage of the city's wide range of literary events including the Harbourfront Reading Series and Word on the Street.

The School of Kinesiology & Health Science at York University is an integrated unit which offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs and is responsible for co-curricular (practica) and service programming in Athletics & Recreation for all students of the University.

Kinesiology & Health Science is the study of human movement and the relationship between physical activity and health. Most students enter the Kinesiology and Health Science Program because they have a keen interest in physical activity and health and plan to work in an applied health or education field.

York has one of the largest course offerings in Kinesiology in Canada, including more than 50 professionally focused practicum courses that let you apply your studies to everything from game strategy and injury assessment to event management.