Bachelor of Science in Biophysics

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.

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

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

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.

Anthropology is the study of different societies around the world — their origins, development and cultural similarities and differences.

Using the theories and methods of anthropology we explore how people in the world are subjected to, participate in and contest the processes of living in a world that is interconnected by new and powerful economic, cultural and technological forces.

Our program is ranked in the top 100 Anthropology programs in the world, and top 10 in Canada, according to QS Rankings, 2021. With 17 faculty members and five affiliates, we are one of the largest socio-cultural Anthropology departments in Canada. We offer a comprehensive and engaging program of study with a large selection of course offerings.

We offer a major program, as well as minors/certificates in Medical Anthropology and Advocacy & Public Engagement Training. Our programs focus on experiential education with a capstone placement course.  Our courses explore a wide variety of topics such as:

• Development and the environment
• Media and popular culture
• Health
• Illness and disability
• Gender and sexualities
• Tourism
• Religion and science
• Diasporic communities and displaced peoples
• Violence and conflict
• The colonial process

Other courses focus on processes of change in the prehistoric and historic past. Our overall goal is to prepare you to ask questions about contemporary, past and future social life and to provide you with the critical analytic tools to understand our place in the social and cultural diversity of the world, past and present.

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.

York's Portuguese & Luso-Brazilian Studies program covers not only the Portuguese language but also the culture, history and literature of the entire Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) world across all continents. Learn about and engage with a diversity of cultures – their art, literature, music, history and social and political landscapes through courses such as:

• Luso-Brazilian Cultures and Cinemas
• Cannibal Brazil: Cultural Encounters in Literature and Film
• Language in Context: Portuguese in the Greater Toronto Area
• Mapping Brazilian Identity Through Fiction: History, Race and Gender

The Portuguese language is the fourth most widely used language in the world, spoken daily by over 250 million people.

Its study will prepare you for work both nationally and internationally, offering you instant entry to Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, São Tomé e Príncipe, East Timor as well as numerous Lusophone communities around the world - Canada, USA, Germany, France, Switzerland, Australia, South Africa, Venezuela, Luxemburg  - and the territories of Macau and Goa.

We are the only university in Canada that offers a course solely dedicated to the region of the Azores. The Culture and Literature of the Azores delves into the uniqueness of this North Atlantic archipelago, whose natives make up the majority of the Portuguese immigrants in Canada.
Our program offers many opportunities for you to move beyond academics, exploring experiential education opportunities, and engaging in cultural events that will enliven your learning.

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 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.

Gain insight into critical business topics such as strategic competition, the internal organization of firms and international issues facing businesses in the changing global marketplace.

Business Economics combines economic theories with the field of business administration. This field of study is concerned with the study and consequences of scarcity and strategic competition. Individuals, households, businesses and nations all experience some level of scarcity in that they do not possess all the resources to satisfy all their wants and needs. Decisions have to be made to balance those scarce resources in order to improve what can be achieved with them.

The Business Economics program is concerned with how:

• These decisions are made;
• The resources of a nation or business are allocated and utilized in the production of goods and services; and
• The rewards of these activities are distributed.

You will become acquainted with all the activities which illustrate the practical nature of the subject, such as commercial reports, articles in newspapers and periodicals and examples from daily life. This program integrates aspects of economics and business studies, focusing on the use of economic analysis and statistical methods to deal effectively with management problems in practical business fields. By applying economic theory to business management, you will become familiar with the analytical and decision-making techniques used in the business world and with the public and private institutional environments within which businesses operate.

Students who take our Marketing & Consumer Economics course work on a real-world market consulting project which gives them the opportunity to develop a full marketing plan for an outside organization.