Social Sciences, Individual and Society Profile

In this course, you will be introduced to the geographical method, which involves a rigorous process of analysis and synthesis in the study of this very intimate and consequential relationship between human beings and their spatial environment. In this course, you will become familiar with the world map, learning to easily locate any historical or current event related to the complex destiny of humanity. 

The course will lead you to a better understanding of the present world through the study of the significant contributions of the civilizations at the origin of the Western world and the way it was constituted in its temporal and spatial evolution. It will allow you to deepen your knowledge of the historical method, to discover your belonging to a specific human evolution and, finally, to develop your capacity of analysis and your critical thinking. 

The course will familiarize you with the scientific foundations of the study of behavior and the factors that interact on the functioning of the human person. You will learn basic concepts that can be used later in other areas of psychology, as well as knowledge and skills that can be applied in life or in different settings. 

This course will introduce you to the sociological perspective and knowledge that will make you aware of the influence of social habits that can prevent you from seeing what organizes your life or the lives of those around you, both in cultural and socio-political terms, while providing you with tools for the analysis of social systems. 

This course focuses on the relationship between physical fitness, healthy, and active lifestyle and health. You will have to experiment with one or a few physical activities and relate them to your ability to adapt to exercise, your needs to change or maintain your physical condition, your motivation, your lifestyle habits, and your knowledge regarding prevention, in order to make a relevant and justified choice of physical activities. 

The course Knowledge is about revealing our sources of knowledge. By referring back to the history of ideas, we can better understand how we know what we think we know and how to criticize what we think we know intelligently, thoughtfully, and efficiently. After studying the material throughout the course, students should be able to answer the following questions: How is knowledge acquired? Can we know anything? What can we know? 

Description to come. 

Introduction to College English is designed to help students make the transition from high school English courses and to improve their writing and analytical skills necessary for college English. This course serves as the basis to the organizational and interpretative skills required in the other three courses of English. 

One aim of the course is to explore works of literature in detail and, on a cultural level, attempt to find their relationship to our world and our lives. Students are encouraged to read and respond to literature on both a literal and metaphorical level. Students will be reading short stories and examining the literary elements necessary to critical thinking and analysis. This proficiency in the literary elements allows students to take a concrete approach to literary analysis and these skills will continue to be developed in the other two literature courses. 

The second goal of the course is to learn to organize ideas, in the form of a formal essay, to develop a focused thesis statement, to write in a coherent and organized style, and support arguments and explanations with appropriate references to the literary text. To achieve these goals students will be required to adopt a writing process wherein they outline their essay, write a rough draft, and proofread and edit their work. To this end, the course will emphasize practical written work including grammar exercises and editing skills. As well, students are encouraged to develop their reading comprehension skills, to present their ideas in class discussions, and to continue to improve their writing style. 

The course will teach you how to use the main statistical tools to quantify human realities in order to better understand them. It will familiarize you with the fundamental concepts and basic techniques of the quantitative method as applied to scientific research in humanities. It will also allow you to better evaluate the quantitative information you will be confronted with in your daily life. 

101-303-GA, Human Biology: A day in the life of  

The course will lead students to acquire an integrated vision of “What does it mean, biologically, to be human?” They will establish progressively an understanding of the systems and processes that regulate body function and lead to maintenance of homeostasis. The interrelationships which exist between cellular physiology and the function of the different organ systems studied will be explored. This course will develop physiological and anatomical concepts pertaining to the nervous system, the endocrine system, and the reproductive systems. The mechanisms and implications of heredity will also be explored. Students will also explore some of the causes and consequences of the disequilibrium of the human body. They will be exposed to the theories and information which lead to our current understanding of the mechanisms of regulation of the human organism as it functions normally but also in particular contexts. 

320-313-GA, Humanity’s Geographic Challenges 

Major global issues such as environmental destruction, overpopulation, unequal distribution of economic productivity and wealth are addressed. The courses analyze solutions for these various problems based on the report of the World Commission on Environment, commonly known as the Brundtland Commission. 

350-303-GA, Developmental Psychology 

The course will help you understand the main issues contributing to human development by outlining the major determinants of physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development of the human being from birth to the end of life. It will also allow you to carry out a reflection on an aspect of your personal development, or on the development of a person in your environment. 

387-313-GA, Social Change 

Social Change builds on the knowledge that students acquired in Individual and Society, a course taken in the first semester of the Social Science program. Social Change exposes the student to the sociological perspective through issues of contemporary social change. The student examines various theories, concepts and approaches relating to population and urbanization, collective behavior and social movements and the social change of traditional, modern, and post-modern societies. 

This course is about the process of improving effectiveness through an objective-based approach in the context of a sport, expression, or outdoor activity. You will need to take an initial survey and assess your skills and behaviors regarding the practice of physical activity, set goals and interpret your progress to improve. This course aims to empower you by taking charge of your apprenticeships required for your improvement in the practice of physical activity. 

This course is designed to provide students with a broad perspective of the literary genres selected from different periods of literature. It will examine three literary genres chosen from drama, essay, novel, or poetry, so that students gain an appreciation for different genres of literature. The characteristics of each genre will be highlighted, and students will develop their interpretation skills by recognizing the importance of specific literary conventions in each text. Students will then present their analysis in well-organized literary essays and oral presentations. 

This course will familiarize you with the various scientific research methods and techniques commonly used in Social Sciences. You will apply your new knowledge by carrying out all the steps of a scientific research. 

The course will enable you to identify the major characteristics or features of a capitalist economy and explain how it works through basic but rigorous analysis. You will be led to approach the economy from the angle of its major players, its structure, its evolution, its mechanisms, its problems, and its institutions. The two major goals and performance criteria of prosperity and equity will serve as common threads and thus link the various parts or themes. 

This course introduces the student to the political and governmental institutions and structures of Québec and the Canadian federal system. It provides the student with an initiation into one of the five disciplines of the specific formation in Humanities at our CEGEP. In that regard, the method of comparative political analysis is introduced and used to consider major political terminology and institutions. 

201-301-RE, Advanced Quantitative Methods 

The course will enable you to apply advanced statistical tools based on probability theory to decision-making in contexts pertaining to humanities. More specifically, you will be able to address, in a probabilistic context, the two main categories of problems in statistical inference, namely parameter estimation and hypothesis testing. 

350-343-GA, Psychology of Sexuality 

The main objective of this course is to offer you a broader vision of human sexuality, allowing you to better understand sexual behavior in its different manifestations, to develop an attitude of relativity towards different sexual behaviors and to explore attitudes and approaches that will contribute to the development of your sexuality. 

This course is also interested in intimate relationships and love. Since the couple is still valued in our society as a path to happiness, it is important to take a close look at the key elements that are associated with it. Thus, communication, intimacy and its difficulties, the differences between men and women, maturity, obstacles and helping factors for the couple, the difficulties and joys of the love relationship, will be possible and interesting topics. This will increase your receptivity to behaviors and attitudes that are conducive to the development of the capacity to love. 

387-343-GA, Sociology of Work 

The Sociology of Work course is a third-semester course in the Humanities program. It is geared towards the application of sociological concepts, theories, and terminology specific to the study of work. 

The course introduces students to the complex changes that have occurred in the realm of work, the reasons for such changes and the impact these changes have had on the individual, the workplace and society in general. Students will also learn theories, concepts, and terminology specific to the discipline. 

The course will enable students to use previously learned sociological theories, concepts, and terminology as well as new ones specific to the study of work, to understand, describe, analyze, and interpret theoretical and concrete work-related situations. 

This course is designed to help you integrate physical activity into your lifestyle, including better management of the factors that facilitate this integration. During the supervised practice, you will apply the previous apprenticeships by practicing physical activity regularly and sufficiently from a health perspective, on the one hand, and by planning, carrying out and evaluating a personal physical activity program that you have the opportunity to practice and validate under the supervision of the teaching staff, on the other. 

This course allows the student the opportunity to apply the critical thinking skills they have acquired in the Knowledge course to various world views. The course also provides the student with a profound understanding of human beings and human nature by examining various ideologies of individuals, societies, or groups. 

This course is designed to provide students with guidelines to become more effective readers, capable researchers, and skillful writers. The fundamental elements of the course will include reading comprehension strategies for non-fiction works, note-taking methods, exploring the research process, exposure to a variety of argumentative and expository writing patterns, and proper documentation methods. Students will be addressing a number of issues related to their fields of study and will be asked to respond to them critically. Students will judge the credibility of a research source and will use primary and secondary sources efficiently to build a research paper or oral report. The teaching materials and activities will encourage students to be both logical and creative in their approach to redacting a research paper. Students will learn to use technology effectively as both a research tool and a means of presentation.     

The course will allow you to reflect on the theoretical and practical knowledge acquired throughout your course in the Humanities program. You will be able to reuse them in new contexts in order to continue the process of integrating the learning that has been initiated in all of the program’s courses. 

350-313-GA, Psychology of Communications 

Psychology of Communications is a fourth semester course in the Social Science program. The course is intended to be an introduction to the realm of interpersonal communication. The student becomes familiar with interpersonal communication by learning some of the various theories, concepts, terminology, and research strategies of the discipline. Students will come to understand the functions of interpersonal communication, the two main types of interpersonal communication and the numerous other factors that influence interpersonal communication. The course, however, is also geared towards giving students the opportunity to enhance their interpersonal skills via numerous exercises, discussions and projects surrounding the course content. Students will thus acquire new knowledge pertaining to interpersonal communication as well as actively use such information as a means of learning about the discipline and themselves as communicators. 

383-303-GA, Economics and Globalization 

The course will introduce you to the field of international economic relations and explore the phenomenon of globalization. A major part of the course will be devoted to the origins, nature, and consequences of this fundamental current of human evolution whose economic, social, political, environmental, and cultural stakes are determining for the future of humanity.    

385-313-GA, Introduction to Political Ideologies 

This course, Introduction to Political Ideologies, introduces the student to the practice of applying the comparative method to contemporary political ideologies. As part of the analysis, different political systems, governments, and institutions within the classical political spectrum (totalitarian, authoritarian and democratic), as well as a variety of smaller ideologies or movements will be investigated. 

387-323-GA, Family in Society 

The course is intended to be an introduction to the sociological study of the family through an examination of the many complexities of family life. The student will become familiar with the study of the family by learning the theories, concepts, terminology, and research strategies of the discipline. The student will also become aware of the major changes that the family has undertaken over time as well as learn about the numerous types of families that exist within modern-day society. Students will also acquire knowledge about family formation, family composition, and family dissolution as well as the numerous problems and challenges that families currently face, and the diverse paths the family may take in the future. The course also aims to help students improve their critical thinking by offering them the opportunity to objectively analyze numerous aspects of family life via case studies and class discussions. Thus, the students should leave the course with a comprehensive understanding of today’s family and its relationships to society as a whole. 

This course allows students the opportunity to apply the critical thinking skills they have acquired in Knowledge and World Views. The course provides students with a profound multidisciplinary understanding of the nature of ethics and contemporary ethical issues specific to social science. 

Description to come. 

This course permits students to explore the central message in literary texts. All texts in the course will expand and reinforce the main theme that has been chosen for the course. The texts will be chosen to include a variety of novels, essays, short stories, and poetry. Students will see a connection between the texts as the theme is explored from simpler to more complex interpretations. The evolution of the course requires that students relate to the literature on a personal level and recognize that not only has the literature developed out of a particular set of values in society, but also that the literature has had an impact on society. It is important that students continue to develop their writing skills and be able to explain the literary devices that support the theme with insightful interpretation and well-organized essays.