Making a difference starts with a different kind of thinking. This stream invites students to ask tough questions, think together openly and critically, and engage with the world through research and discussion.
Students will learn about government policy, economic organization, and social justice as they encounter the processes, systems, institutions, and values that shape our societies. This stream is loosely modelled on a successful undergraduate program at the University of Oxford.
The CAP program provided an excellent transition from high school to university and provided me with a skills toolkit to succeed at UBC. My ASTU class with Dr. McNeill prepared me to tackle academic writing and research. I learned how to ask effective questions and the critical thinking skills I gained I was able to apply in all my research papers.
Courses: Term One
In the first term, students will enrol in Arts Studies, Economics, and Political Science. In Arts Studies, students will study how politics, economics, and philosophy intersect, as well as learn about the features of academic writing in a scholarly setting. The introduction to politics class will set the foundation for the understanding of politics in future political science and other related courses. The study of microeconomics will also introduce students to the economic theories behind the fundamental relationship of demand and supply in our economy.
For students in this stream, the Arts Studies course will span 1 term and is worth 3 credits. It is an introduction to academic scholarship with a focus on scholarly writing and reading. This course provides an interdisciplinary foundation for academic writing and related research communicative practices within an interactive learning environment. Students will choose one out of four different sections (P01/P02/P03/P04), based on their scheduling needs and academic interests.
-ASTU 101 Section P01 - Food: Security, Sovereignty, and Justice
MWF 10-11
Our course in academic communication and research skills will take a multidisciplinary approach to explore how ideas of distributive justice and problems of social and economic inequality are connected to the operation of food systems. We will be considering aspects such as Indigenous food sovereignty, the impact of international trade policies and protectionism, and the pursuit of global food security goals. Closer to home, we will read the Vancouver Food Charter and assess the economics and politics of school nutrition programs, local food trucks, and farmers’ markets, as well as the recovery of surplus grocery store food distributed to food insecure communities. Throughout the term, you will be reading, analyzing, responding, researching, and writing, with the aim of providing a strong foundation for your university-level work.
-ASTU 101 Section P02
MWF 11-12
This first-term course introduces students to the conventions and uses of academic writing and research, focusing on a core topic in the humanities and social sciences. For this class, our topic will be “Work in Research and Culture.” As a research area, work has a long, multidisciplinary history, and we will encounter as much of that as we fit into one semester. The changing nature of work is a perennial concern in media and culture, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, which has complicated many people’s relationships to it: unemployment rates reached historic highs, whole sectors have been restructured, remote work has transformed many people’s lives, “essential” labour has been redefined and often coerced, and workplace activism has been on the rise. This course will take an intersectional approach to labour history, exploring how changing regimes of work speak to issues of sex/gender, colonialism, migration, and political economy. While encountering these key areas of research about work, students will develop their own research projects, learning how to locate, evaluate, and critique academic arguments, and how to respond to them in their own scholarly research and writing.
-ASTU 101 Section P03 - The Politics and Philosophy of City Streets
MWF 12-1
This course is an introduction to academic writing through the debates, arguments, and rhetorical contests that unfold on and around our city streets. The street is simultaneously a site of public discourse and a space that writers use to interpret and discuss the struggles of city life and civic participation. In the weeks to come, we will focus on the city street as both a site of rhetorical action (a place where people go to speak and be heard) and a rhetorical tool (a space that is employed as a trope, a symbol, and a strategic perspective for a variety of arguments). We will discuss, research, and attempt to define the political and philosophical positions surrounding debates that take place in and around the city street. As we develop a vocabulary and a background for understanding how the street functions as a site of public debate, we will consider the different multimodal mediums (street art, music, film, architecture, etc.) in which the city street is taken up as a rhetorical device. Drawing on academic writing from the humanities and the social sciences, we will develop research projects that respond to the city streets of our present and imagine how the streets of the future might operate.
-ASTU 101 Section P04: The Cultures of Platform Capitalism
TTh 12:30-2
ASTU 101 is an introduction to reading and writing in academic research genres, with the goal of writing a research paper that develops an original argument informed by scholarly peer-reviewed sources. In this section, we will focus on how scholars from a variety of disciplines are responding to the various interfaces - platforms - that increasingly mediate our lives in the online and even offline world. Perhaps you yourself have wondered about how the data you input online - whether you're updating an app, creating a profile to make a purchase, checking your daily steps, posting on social media, or otherwise - can be used to generate a profile of you. In assignments and lectures, we will dwell further on the questions raised by scholars on how platforms put (our) data to use (and abuse), act as gatekeepers in our increasingly online lives, as well as the broader implications for culture and society of living with and through systems designed to extract value from our digital footprints. In this course, we will ultimately learn how to conduct research that is informed by the scholarly debate on platform capitalism, in order to make a contribution to this emerging area of study.
TTh 9:30-11
This course on the principles of microeconomics will study Canadian policy and institutions concerning the economics of markets and market behaviour, prices and costs, exchange and trade, competition and monopoly, distribution of income. This introductory course will introduce students to “the economic way of thinking”, a general framework that will not only help students better understand the world around us but will also help students make better decisions in both personal life and professional career.
MWF 9-10
Course description coming soon.
Courses: Term Two
In the second term, students will enrol in Philosophy, Economics, and Political Science. An introduction to philosophy will develop critical thinking and logical reasoning, as well as establish the most well-known philosophies behind issues such as morality, ethics, and justice. Moving from microeconomics to macroeconomics, students will study economic frameworks that we use to make sense of economics at a larger societal or national level. Students will also learn to apply the concepts learnt in the first term to the context of Canadian politics.
MWF 10-11
This philosophy course aims to develop ethical thinking skills through introducing a number of value and moral theories. Students will learn to identify ethically relevant considerations, to take into account the interests of all stakeholders, and to make ethically-informed decisions in their lives. The topics discussed in this course will also give students opportunities to use their own lived experiences to critique moral philosophy.
TTh 9:30-11
This course on the principles of macroeconomics examines the economics of growth and business cycles, national income accounting, interest and exchange rates, money and banking, and the balance of trade. This course will help develop skills of economic analysis and critical thinking. By the end of the course, students will have gained some insight into how an economy functions and into some of the policy issues that are the subject of serious debate.
MWF 11-12
The course examines the basic ideas on which the Canadian political system is founded, the institutions that structure politics, and the actors who work within these institutions. We will emphasize the constitutional framework of the Canadian government and the role of the judiciary and the Charter of Rights in shaping the country. We will also engage issues at the forefront of politics in Canada, such as Indigenous rights and gender politics. Students should be equipped to better understand the Canadian political system and engage in our democracy as active citizens and participants.
Sample Projects
Article Review
Students are given a choice of topics on which to write a short paper. They are asked to choose one article that they will use for the short paper and to write a separate article review on it. This assignment is designed to aid the student in choosing appropriate materials for research papers, understand the key arguments from the material, and succinctly communicate that argument.
Literature Review
Students choose a research topic (based on the focus of their section of ASTU 101), and then write a scholarly literature review. Students learn to identify major abstractions (or concepts), find appropriate secondary sources using the library databases, place academics in discussion with one another, and take a position within this conversation.
