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 (now called CAP 100/101) 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 CAP 100 (their writing course), Economics, and Political Science. In CAP 100, 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.
CAP_V 100-Po1 (MWF 10-11) - Instructor: Dr. Kasim Husain
Digital Economies, Digital Selves?
CAP 100 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. As part of CAP’s PPE stream, the research we will engage with in this section is drawn from the growing body of scholarship that responds to the fact that our mechanisms of economic exchange have largely moved online, and are now closely intertwined with the varied digital platforms that we use to interact with each other and the wider world. Scholars are debating how states and companies make use of the data we often freely provide, whenever we update an app, create a profile to make a purchase, check our daily step counter, post to social media, and so on. On the one hand, expanding access to the means of economic and information exchange online can have a democratizing effect, levelling the economic playing field for communities and individuals who have historically lacked access. On the other hand, in an era where the influencer has perhaps superseded the entrepreneur as the idealized vehicle of self-expression,
the metaphor of a new digital frontier implies there’s a windfall for those who are well-placed to take advantage; but is data really the new oil? And if it is, does buying in mean selling ourselves out? In assignments, discussions, and lectures, we will ask these questions and more about living in and through systems that are designed to extract value from our digital footprints, with the ultimate goal of conducting original research that is both informed by and contributes to the scholarly debate on the digital economy.
CAP_V 100-P02 (MWF 11-12) - Instructor: Dr. Kirby Manià
PLANETARY FUTURES: ECONOMICS, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, AND THE ANTHROPOCENE
CAP 100 introduces students to scholarly discourse and interdisciplinary research in a particular field of study. In this section we will be exploring the interplay between economics, justice, and the environment, examining how historical events and contemporary issues have intersected to shape how societies around the world continue to operate. Beginning with the Columbian Exchange, students will investigate the extensive and persisting effects of this global interchange on economies, political structures, ecosystems, and Indigenous communities. The course will then move on to discussing the Anthropocene—a term increasingly used by scientists to refer to a unit of geological time to designate a period in which human activity has significantly impacted the Earth’s climate and environment. We will examine how economic systems and processes of natural resource extraction have driven environmental changes before exploring how alternative frameworks, such as degrowth, oppose the model of continuous economic expansion in favour of more sustainable and equitable practices of production and consumption. The course will place particular emphasis on the topic of environmental justice, mainly focusing on how pollution, lack of resource access, and industrial activities disproportionately impact Indigenous communities. Through academic articles and documentary films, we will investigate the struggles that these communities face as a result of the ongoing impacts of settler colonialism and explore their campaigns for sovereignty. We will also discuss alternative governance approaches that involve concepts like environmental stewardship and embrace Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). Towards the end of the course, we will examine facets of climate change discourse through readings on eco-anxiety and eco-resilience, as well as sociological theories that seek to explain climate change denialism.
The course’s discursive approach invites students to engage with scholarly conversations, published research, and different media formats and genres across a range of disciplinary perspectives. The course will entail writing about these research perspectives as well as engaging in research of your own.
CAP_V 100-P03 (MWF 12-1), CAP_V 100-P04 (TTh 12:30-2) - Instructor: Dr. Anne Stewart
Course description TBD.
ECON_V 101-011 (TTh 9:30-11) - Instructor: Dr. Clive Chapple
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.
POLI_V 100-227 (MWF 9-10) - Instructor: Dr. Serbulent Turan
What is politics? What does it deal with? How do we talk about politics? How do we study it? In this course, students will seek to answer these questions by engaging with ideas and arguments from various sub-disciplines of Political Science: Political Theory, Comparative Politics, and International Relations. We will study key concepts such as power, ideology, the state, and freedom; explore qualities of political systems such as different types of democracies and authoritarianisms; and discuss together what we think and why we think so.
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.
PHIL_V 102-003 (MWF 10-11) - Instructor: Dr. Matthew Perry
This philosophy course aims to develop your critical thinking skills about a wide range of ethical issues. You will learn what it means to think philosophically, how to critically analyze theories, and what role philosophy might have in the real world. Together, we will break down fundamental questions and draw on personal experiences to better understand the values and principles that should guide decision-making today.
ECON_V 102-011 (TTh 9:30-11) - Instructor: Dr. Robert Gateman
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.
POLI_V 101-227 (TTh 11-12:30) - Instructor: Dr. Kenny Ie
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, now CAP 100), 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.
