4TheRcrd Mag.

I did my undergrad in Biology at UBC several years ago, and for the first 2 years, when I was deciding what electives to take, I would look at the “Biology Program Guide” because I assumed it would be helpful. Let’s just say it would’ve been better titled “How to Stress Yourself out and Learn Nothing outside the Scope of Science Guide”. The ‘electives’ I ended up choosing were difficult sciency courses that weren’t much fun. Only later on did I discover a set of wonderful electives to take.

The purpose of this post is to share with current or prospective UBC students some great courses to choose as electives. These are applicable to BOTH Science and Arts students. This is valuable information I wish someone would have shared with me, so consider yourself lucky to be reading this.

BIOL 343: Plants and Peoples
Art students, don’t shy away from this seemingly upper level science course. What I remember from this class is labs that involved a lot of tasting of vegetables, exotic fruits, chocolate…field trips to the Botanical garden… learning lots of cool stuff about where food you see in the supermarket comes from…ah, good memories! Here’s the official course description:

“The interactions of plants and human societies: the role of people in the origin, evolution and dispersal of food, drug and economic plants, and the influences of plants on human societies. Suitable for upper-level Arts students”.

MUSC 326: Music Appreciation
Have no idea what an “Aria” is? or haven’t heard of Schumann? Have no fear, this course will give you enough music knowledge for you to be able to convince people at a cocktail party that you are well-conversed in music.

“An introductory course for which previous musical background is helpful, but not required. Contents include a discussion of musical concepts, evolution of forms, style, and media and detailed study of selected works from the concert repertoire. Popular forms of music (jazz, folk, rock, etc) not included. Not for credit towards the B.Mus. or B.A. in Music. ”

IHHS Courses:
I would have never thought to scroll down to the “I” section on UBC’s course schedule, and you probably haven’t either- until now that is. IHHS stands for Interprofessional Health and Human Service. So, what kinds of courses are these? Well I can speak of the two that I took.

IHHS 300: Working in International Health
This is web based, which gives you the freedom to read and do your assignments when you want to. I remember one of the assignments being “3000 refugees are heading your way, and you are responsible for setting up a refugee camp- How would you set it up? what things must you take into consideration?”. When you research this on your own you find that the UNHCR actually has a manual on the topic!

IHHS 200: Understanding the Sociocultural Determinants of the Health of Populations
Did you think that living in a country with a great health care system was all you needed to be healthy? Well, think again. This course opens your eyes to other determinants of health (e.g. Income, early childhood education, employment…). Did I mention that you have the option to do community service learning, where instead of a final exam you go out into the community, volunteer, and write about your experience? Now how cool is that.

Course description, which really doesn’t do the course justice: “The idea of “population health,” and the implementation and evaluation of programs or policies to improve health. Open to all students.”

If anyone else has taken any interesting electives, feel free to share!

IMAGE CREDIT: here