Bachelor of Science - Biotechnology (Honours)

at York University - School of Continuing Studies Canada

Crime, criminality, and criminal justice are central concerns in contemporary Canadian society. In politics, law, policy and popular culture, the problem of crime and what to do about it command increasing attention and interest. The Criminology program will provide you with an exceptional opportunity to pursue study in this evolving and expanding field. You will explore the ways in which concepts of crime, criminality and criminal justice have developed over time. You will also investigate how crime is understood legally, politically, economically and culturally.

The program’s interdisciplinary approach is reflected in complementary relationships with a number of other academic disciplines including anthropology, history, philosophy, political science, psychology, socio-legal studies, and sociology. Students are able to choose courses from these disciplines as well as from the core program courses, each of which draws from a range of disciplines and is devoted to making connections between different areas of study.

Note: Criminology is not a pre-law preparatory program.

The Criminology program will focus on the analysis of:

• Crime
• Criminality
• Processes of criminalization and social control
• Organized crime
• Systems of justice
• Criminal justice systems

Small classes (groups of only 25 Anglophone and Francophone students) provide an ideal setting for learning and mastering skills of translation.
Unique in Southern Ontario, our program addresses a significant shortage of English, French and Spanish translators in Canada. Our graduates work for the United Nations, the Government of Canada, law firms, publishing houses and more. They have also developed careers in editing, writing and teaching.
Stay ahead of the curve

Gain experience and earn course credits by participating in an internship with the provincial or federal government, the private sector, or with other organizations. As a Translation student, you’ll forge a strong professional network and will obtain a free membership to the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario with access to all its services, job postings, workshops and networking opportunities.

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/

The School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD) is pleased to announce a new degree stream, the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Media Arts in the Department of Cinema and Media Arts.

The cultural effects on technology mean that cinema is no longer a stand-alone art form. It increasingly overlaps with other evolving areas, such as video games, mobile media, social media, streaming media distribution, 3D graphics and computer generated imaging, and digital archiving.

In AMPD’s new Media Arts program, students are invited to become critical thinkers by doing, making and collaborating. In this program, for example, students will have the opportunity to create multimedia digital publications, practice social justice by using social media to engage with a community, write a trans-media story meant to cross film and game platforms, render 3D for animation, virtual reality or a gaming environment, and produce interactive documentary. Drawing on the powerful legacy of cinema history, criticism and theory, students will actively create in the expanded field of media studies, media culture and media industries, in which cinema is an integrated element.

This new program is framed around a series of flexible media practice courses taken concurrently with media history, theory and criticism, culminating in a capstone project and a media industry placement.

The resulting BFA will offer students a broad, expansive view on multiple types of contemporary practice including television, Internet practices, mobile media, gaming, interactive media, and cutting edge digital technologies such as 3D and virtual reality. Students will graduate with the ability to blend curatorial, producing, and media-making abilities with the historical investigation of contemporary media, especially screen-based and social media.

York's Music program provides an uncommon opportunity to explore the depth and breadth of the art form through a remarkably flexible curriculum that enables students to pursue creative and scholarly work across a wide range of musical genres and traditions, tailored to each individual's unique talents and aspirations.

York's Music program is known for pioneering post-secondary studies in jazz, world, classical and digital music. Students may specialize or generalize according to their interests, developing expertise in a particular area of vocal or instrumental performance or composition, or working in a variety of musical practices and cultural forms. Options include solo, small and large ensemble performance; composition and arranging; education and community arts development; ethnomusicology; and the growing field of musoc media production for cinema, gaming and motion media.

All first-year Music students enter the BFA program. After first year, students whose interests centre on music history, criticism and scholarly research may choose to move to the BA program.

Program Highlights
Courses and workshops in popular music and in non-western performance traditions, such as South Indian, Chinese orchestra, Indonesian gamelan, Caribbean, West African drumming and Celtic Canadian, are a regular feature of the program.

Performance Opportunities
Presenting more than 100 student and faculty conerts a year, as well as master classes with renowned Canadian and international artists, the Department of Music offers countless opportunities to perform and collaborate. In addition to the many student-led ensembles, students can be part of numerous formal ensembles, including:

• Symphony Orchestra
• Jazz Orchestra and Choirs
• West African Drums
• Concert and Chamber Choirs
• Celtic Canadian Folk Ensemble
• New Music Ensemble
• Chinese Classical Ensemble
• Gospel Choir
• Wind Symphony
• Escola de Samba
• Rhythm & Blues Ensemble
• Chamber Strings

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.

Some Courses You’ll Take

• Data Structures
• Software Design
• Communication Networks
• Artificial Intelligence and Logic Programming
• Database Systems
• Building E-Commerce Systems
• Data Mining
• User Interfaces

Civil engineering is a driving engine of economic growth. From soaring skyscrapers and breathtaking bridges to innovative transportation systems and next-generation clean water technologies – the scope and impact of Civil Engineering is unparalleled. Whether it is designing roads, bridges & tunnels or making people safer by creating earthquake proof buildings, civil engineers have a wide variety of skills that make the world safer and more efficient.

What You’ll Learn
Civil Engineering students at Lassonde learn about structural and foundation design, transportation systems planning and design, water resources management, wastewater treatment, and environmental impact assessment. In addition, our graduates receive training in new emerging areas, such as innovative materials and construction technologies, infrastructure rehabilitation, computer-aided simulations, sustainability, natural hazards, and climate-change-driven engineering. 

Students have the opportunity to choose from a wide range of technical electives in Civil Engineering: 

• Structural 
• Geotechnical 
• Hydrotechnical 
• Transportation 
• Environmental 

Professional experience through co-op option after second year can give you an early start towards becoming a licensed Professional Engineer.

York's Biophysics program draws on the long-established strengths of our Biology and Physics programs, with uniquely interdisciplinary courses highlighting their interfaces.

Biophysics is an exciting discipline at the intersection between physics and biology. It is an interdisciplinary field in which the laws, methods and techniques of physics are applied to biological processes and organisms. Biophysics applies the knowledge of physics to explain biological questions, such as the transmission of nervous impulses or muscle control.

For example, the DNA of salmon has been found to improve the performance of light emitting diodes, and areas of nanotechnology are founded upon the unique mechanical and electrical properties of DNA. Biophysicists study organisms at all levels of biological organization from the macroscopic (e.g. movement, muscle contractions, breathing) to the microscopic (e.g. cell division, molecular motors, energy generation and conversion, cellular reactions to physical stimuli).

Unique to the program is a scope sufficiently broad to expose you to knowledge and techniques applicable not only to humans but also to plants and animals, providing a solid background for positions in the environmental and agricultural sectors.

• York offers the opportunity to work side-by-side with professors through the more than 40 summer research and work-study programs offered each year.

Biophysics is an exciting interdisciplinary frontier of science in which the principles and techniques of physics are used to study living things and how they work. For instance, biophysicists have applied laser physics to map cells in three dimensions and reveal bacteria in drinking water, and have developed or improved techniques for analyzing organisms such as EM (Electron Microscopy), CT (Computer-aided Tomography), MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), and X-ray crystallography. Studies of biological systems can also find applications to problems in physics. For example, the DNA of salmon has been found to improve the performance of light emitting diodes, and areas of nanotechnology are founded upon the unique mechanical and electrical properties of DNA. Biophysicists study organisms at all levels of biological organization from the macroscopic (e.g. movement, muscle contractions, breathing) to the microscopic (e.g. cell division, molecular motors, energy generation and conversion, cellular reactions to physical stimuli).

York’s Biophysics program is strong in both physics and biology, with uniquely interdisciplinary courses highlighting their interfaces. The program has a scope sufficiently broad to expose students to knowledge and techniques applicable not only to humans but to all of the kingdoms of life. Students acquire a theoretical and practical understanding of biology, physics, and supporting fields through both lecture- and lab-based courses.

Culture & Expression explores the catalytic relationship between the creative human imagination and the cultural settings that ignite it.
Literature, architecture, popular culture, the arts, media and technology provide areas of study for Culture & Expression courses. This program investigates how meaning, embedded in form, offers ways of understanding culture as a complex expression that animates human imagination and life. It encourages speculation on how this expression operates in social, political and cultural settings.

Through the lens of humanities studies, you examine historical and contemporary themes. Explore how themes are expressed, refracted, and reflected through a range of cultural forms such as cinema, music, literature and various forms of popular and material culture. Theoretical courses delve into the core of ideological "meaning" in culture, analyzing the social, economic and political contexts in which culture manifests itself.

Highlights of studying Culture & Expression at York:

• Explore exciting expressions of human creativity in popular culture, architecture, media and technology.
• Learn how a broad range of cultural and artistic forms convey social, political and philosophical concerns.
• Courses are drawn from areas including the humanities, communication studies, sociology, gender and women's studies, popular and material culture studies - providing you with personal choice and flexibility.
• Our professors are leading researchers in their fields: modernism, material culture, digital humanities, documentary film and critical studies in Black Canadian Culture.
• Courses are drawn from areas including the humanities, communication studies, sociology and women's studies - providing you with personal choice and flexibility.

Our professors are leading researchers in their fields. They include:

• Elicia Clements, author, Virginia Woolf: Music, Sound, Language
• Leslie Sanders, author, Black Canadian Studies Certificate
• David Cecchetto, author, Ludic Dreaming: How to Listen Away from Contemporary Technoculture
• Gail Vanstone, recipient of the 2010 Dean’s Award in Teaching Excellence.

Our program encompasses subject areas that are exceptionally diverse while allowing you to design a custom made program suited to your interests.

This cross-disciplinary Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies program encompasses subject areas that are exceptionally diverse. In addition to Judaism as a religion, Jewish Studies explores the texts, histories, cultures, sociologies, languages and fine arts of the Jewish people from biblical times to the present.

• Study the aspects within the context of the many western and non-western civilizations in which Jewish people have lived.
• Examine Jewish interactions with non-Jewish people over the ages, evolving attitudes toward and images of Jewish people within a variety of non-Jewish cultures and the history of anti-Semitism, including the Holocaust.
• Explores the Jewish experience with a view to understanding the human situation in its diversity and complexity.