Overview
Broaden your first-year experience to discover your real academic or professional passions. UTSC One is a suite of innovative courses that emphasize experiential learning and the practical application of academic themes – all in small-group settings. Accomplished instructors lead unique seminars, field work and even travels abroad, designed to open your mind to a wide range of academic possibilities.
Options include conducting geological fieldwork, designing and executing public opinion surveys, decoding the socio-economic commentary in early blues recordings or mapping your own genome sequence. Courses are available in the Fall and Winter terms, but most are conveniently offered in the third trimester through the UTSC One: Summer Institute.
Application Details
Number of credits: 0.5 credit for each academic course; other options not-for-credit.
Program structure: Range of small seminars, travel, fieldwork, co- and extra-curricular activities.
Eligibility: Students registered at UTSC entering first year.
Procedure: Online enrolment through ACORN for academic courses.
Courses Offered through UTSC One
| Name of Course & Code | Description |
|---|---|
| Life on Earth: BIOA01 and A02 | These courses provide enhanced experiential learning opportunities and exposure to environmental issues and challenges by including a fall field trip to the Highland Creek valley and along the trail to Lake Ontario as far as Colonel Danforth Park, and a winter guided trip through the Toronto Zoo through its enclosed pavilion. |
| Calculus Slowly: MATA30H (Section Y) | These are newly-designed sections of introductory calculus courses available to science and management students that will be taught at half the speed, and will run for two semesters: fall and winter. The students in these sections will be taught the same material and will have the lectures and tutorials as in the regular sections. But in addition they will have extra tutorials and seminars in which group exercises, games, and competitions will be used to engage them more fully and to help them meet the challenges of this material. |
| Introduction to Computer Programming: CSCA08H | For this particularly challenging introductory programming course students may choose an extended version that provides flexibility in both the deadlines by which concepts must be mastered, and the order in which the student chooses to master them. It will be delivered entirely online, using a variety of multimedia technologies. |
| Language Practice I and II - French in Context : FREA01/A02 | This course will help students develop a richer understanding of Francophone culture by bringing four Francophone speakers to UTSC each semester to give broad-themed workshops. Students are required to attend two of these workshops each semester. After attending the workshops of their choice, students in FREA01H3 are required to go into the community to interview a native French speaker on a subject related to the theme of one of these workshops; students in FREA02H3 are required to create an end-of-year poster presentation on a subject related to the theme of one of the workshops. |
| Introduction to Planet Earth Field: EESA06 | Students enrolled in EESA06 (Planet Earth) will go on a weekend field trip to the Niagara region to explore the glacial history of southern Ontario. The trip will also demonstrate to students the many biophysical impacts on ecosystems across the Greater Toronto Area arising from rapid urbanization of watersheds. |
| Introduction to Astronomy and Astrophysics: ASTA01/A02 | In these courses students will utilize the newly-refurbished UTSC Observatory to observe planets, stars and other celestial bodies and their changes through the seasons. |
| Bringing Reason to Life: PHLA10/A11 | Each of the introductory Philosophy courses, PHLA10 Reason and Truth and PHLA11 Introduction to Ethics hold two in-class debates conducted by invited speakers of prominence in the relevant area. Each debate will address a question at the heart of material being discussed in class. Students will be engaged in the debate by means of two in-class votes, before and after hearing the debate, and a short assignment to support their view of which debater won by explaining who argued better and why. |
| Magic of Numbers: MATA02 | This course is intended for students with no background in mathematics beyond grade 10 and who may shy away from standard courses in the curriculum in mathematics or statistics. It is intended to introduce them to some basic but interesting mathematics in a broad context of human cultures and history. Topics may include: the number sense (neuroscience of numbers); numerical notation in different cultures; what is a number; Zeno’s paradox; divisibility, the fascination of prime numbers; RSA encryption; golden mean, Fibonacci sequence. |
| Writing Practicum for Non-Native Speakers of English: CTLA01 | This is a highly interactive course designed to fast-track the development of critical thinking, reading, writing and oral communication skills in academic contexts. Through the specific emphasis on academic writing and rapid expansion of core vocabulary, students will gain practical experience for coping effectively with university-level academic texts and assignment expectations. |