Social Sciences | Arts and Humanities | Physical Sciences | Life Sciences | Mathematics
Political Economy
Political Economy is the foundation course for a deeper understanding of economic life and government's role in it. It introduces students to economics and economic policy-making and explores the fundamental principles of capitalism. The course connects capitalist economic decision-making to both political liberalism and religious and cultural practices. Students learn fundamental economic terms and concepts as they explore the development of modern economies.
Democracy and Justice
Democracy and Justice examines the ideas of leading thinkers in the history of political thought and the questions they raise about the design of the political and social order. It considers the ways in which these thinkers have responded to the particular political problems of their day, and how they contribute to a broader conversation about human goods and needs, justice, democracy, and the relationship of the individual to the state.
Your Question
"Your Question" is a writing-intensive course to help second year students integrate the Foundation courses they have already taken and prepare the Question they will be pursuing in their third and four years. Students are assigned essays and presentations requiring them to reflect on the connections among Foundation courses, their experiential and co-curricular interests, and the academic courses they want to pursue for the remainder of their undergraduate program. The course is meant to help them make progress toward a Question that they will submit to a Student Progress Group at the end of their second year.
Global Perspectives
Global Perspectives aims to orient the incoming student toward contemporary problems in the world. Themes may include intercultural communications, globalization and development, international relations, and global social issues such as AIDS, poverty, or environmental degradation. The course studies how information gets transmitted from one person to another and tries to explain specific communication processes. It helps the student become more conscious of how people converse across cultures and ethnicities, to step outside of their own experiences and to appreciate the positions of citizens from a variety of origins.
Fate and Virtue
The first course of the integrated Humanities foundation series asks the fundamental question, "How we should live our lives?" "Fate and Virtue" takes up Ancient Greek texts in philosophy, history, and imaginative literature. Philosophy, Socrates claimed, is a kind of training for death. We are all fated to die, but some of us will lead better lives than others. Is the best life a matter of fate, and thus out of our control, or is it a life of virtue, and thus within our control? Through coming to grips with the related concepts of fate and virtue we will better understand both contemporary and Ancient views regarding the good life. Authors include Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, and Aristophanes.
Reason and Freedom
The second course of the interdisciplinary Humanities foundation courses emphasizes the foundations for, and the problems with, making moral choices in the modern world. "Reason and Freedom" develops for students the self-conscious nature of modernity and its belief in reason, and explores the paradoxes of our position in history. Our self-awareness grounds our morals, on the one hand, but affects our ability to act in history. Moreover, it is not clear that reason finally guides our choices of doing good or evil. The readings emphasize readings in philosophy, history, and literature that will help students gain an appreciation of ethical behavior and the place of considered action in the world. Authors include Brecht, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky.
The Sense of Self
The third course of the interdisciplinary Humanities foundation courses emphasizes the foundations for, and the problems with, our modern sense of our unique individuality. The sense of self and the intrinsic value of the individual are deeply cherished legacies of Western civilization, and they grounds many of our contemporary values. The readings in this course attempt to contrast the ancient view of, and present the theological underpinnings for, the Western sense of self. Using the insights of history, philosophy, art, and psychology, the class makes the "self" a topic for reflection and discovery. Authors include Plutarch, Augustine, Freud, Virginia Woolf, Charles Taylor.
World Religions
Religions, such as First Nations, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Sikhism, Shinto, Judaism, Christianity and Islam each offer distinctive perspectives on important issues in our university curriculum. To identify these issues, students examine a selection of religious foundational texts, historical developments and contemporary practices. The study of religion at Quest aims to understand the unique characteristics of different religions; to articulate the principles of a responsible and objective study of religion; and to explore the dynamic interaction of religion and culture in its diverse expressions.
Music
Music is at once a universal language, a medium for the communication of emotions and ideas, and a ritualized means of social bonding and identity creation. Music can be defined as the art of ordering tones in succession, in combination, and in rhythmic temporal relationships in order to produce a composition displaying unity and continuity. By studying music from a diversity of countries and traditions, participants come to understand their own musical preferences while learning a vocabulary for the cogent discussion of musical expression.
Visual Culture
Image-making has always characterized human cultures, and our world is saturated with imagery - from painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, architecture and urban planning, to contemporary graphics, advertising, film and multimedia. This course encourages the close analysis of diverse visual materials and introduces the questions and methods which we can bring to this task. Participants learn to translate their visual understanding into verbal expression while positioning works of art as the manifestation of both personal and societal concerns.
Energy and Matter
This course introduces students to two of the most powerful intellectual achievements in the physical sciences: thermodynamics and quantum mechanics. Thermodynamics was articulated in the mid to late 19th centuries, but still forms the fundamental basis for modern work in chemistry, materials engineering, atmospheric physics, among other fields. Quantum mechanics and quantum chemistry frame our understanding of how observable material properties follow from fundamental first principles. Beyond introducing students to some of the most powerful sets of ideas in the history of science, this course applies these ideas to the frontiers of science today, including nanotechnology, computer science and developing sustainable sources of energy.
Earth-Oceans-Space
This course introduces students to the workings of different aspects of the Earth system, from the Earth's core to its outer atmosphere, and emphasizes their inter-relationships and the connections between our planet and our species. Quest's unparalleled location allows us to use the coastal mountains, the Squamish river basin and Howe Sound as natural laboratories. The course relies heavily on field trips, first-hand observations, real geophysical datasets, satellite images and remote observations of the Earth and other planets. Topics may include the co-evolution of life and the atmosphere, formation of the planetary bodies, plate tectonics and climate, the carbon cycle, and natural resources including water, energy and materials.
Physics / Astronomy
Science began with the study of the heavens. Our knowledge of the physical world has often worked from what we know of the stars and planets toward a more local scale. Modern astronomy, by contrast, often goes from an understanding of atomic structure to theories of the behaviour of objects on the astronomical scale. Depending on the block, this course might emphasize the historical development of astronomy, its modern basis in physical theory, or some other relevant focus.
Genetics and Molecular Biology
In this course, we will explore how some of the most recent advances in molecular biology are offering fascinating glimpses into our evolutionary past, are being used to solve crimes, to develop new medicines, improve our agriculture, and to rescue endangered species. Ethical and socio-political challenges will be introduced. Topics covered include experimental design, gene expression, cell signaling, and evolution. Some sections of this course are laboratory-based, while others focus on the theory.
Neurosciences
This course examines the brain, from molecules to whole networks, in order to understand a network that has more possible connections than there are particles in the universe. We look at brain function mapping, the mechanisms of learning and memory, language acquisition, and how the brain perceives the world. We use our own bodies in fun (and harmless) experiments to demonstrate how the nervous system works.
Ecology
This course studies the relationships between and among organisms and their environment. Field work will be conducted to investigate ecological hypotheses and familiarize students with the methods and practices of this discipline. Energy, relationships, hydrological and nutrient cycles, as well as local and global environmental issues will be covered.
Mathematics: A historical tour of the great civilizations
This course, designed especially for humanities and arts students (but helpful for science and mathematics students as well), takes a grand tour through the dominant mathematical cultures: ancient Babylon and Egypt, ancient Greece, medieval Islam, pre-modern China, and Europe to today. We shall discover how mathematics shaped, and was shaped by, the people who practiced it, and how it interacts with worldviews and alters ideas. Our voyage will alter our preconceptions of what mathematics is, and how important it is to us.
Modeling our world with mathematics
Mathematics underlies almost every human activity in the modern world. It permeates our understandings of the physical world, populations (human and ecological), time and space, and networks, to name just a few. It affects our actions in social choice, the shaping of public opinion, and consumer and business decisions. We spend the first half of the course exploring how mathematics models continuous change with linear, exponential, logarithmic, and trigonometric functions. In the second half we select from a number of topics, including statistics in the media and scientific practice, the use of graph theory for networking, coding and cryptography, elections and voting paradoxes, game theory, and the prisoner's dilemma.
Quest University Canada © 2008
3200 University Boulevard Squamish, BC Canada V8B 0N8
Email: | Phone: 604.898.8000 | Fax: 604.815.0829
Emergency Info | Location/Map
