• breadth requirements,  St. George

    if the multiverse exists, so does a sixth breadth requirement

    I need some options ( very very easy level) for breadth 6/quantitative reasoning. It will be my last missing credit to graduate this fall. Im in dt toronto. I am taking ast101 now for my breadth 5 requirement. I still have to take 0.50 credit in quantitative reasoning… but i need very easy level one because: 1- i am 52 and forgot all high school material ( science/math etc) and 2- i completed a french specialist program ( meaning i am into litterature etc..) Hope. Can help me out. I am willing to finally graduate in fall.


    hey there,

    man, you’ve got me over here quadruple checking my information. but i can tell you that a sixth breadth requirement doesn’t exist, at least not in this universe.

    Miles Morales Marvel GIF by Sony Pictures Animation

    anyways, the quantitative reasoning breadth requirement is only required at UTSC, the scarborough campus.

    since you’re at st. george, there are just 5 breadth requirements to complete. you need either 1.0 credits in four of the categories, OR 1.0 credits in three of the categories and 0.5 credits in the two remaining categories.

    1. Creative and Cultural Representations
    2. Thought, Belief, and Behaviour
    3. Society and its Institutions
    4. Living Things and Their Environment
    5. The Physical and Mathematical Universe

    you can use degree explorer to check your status on this, as well as the rest of the degree completion requirements.

    i hope it all goes well for you and that this is helpful! if not, feel free to shoot me another question.

    over and out,

    aska

  • breadth requirements,  courses

    give me a class with no math, stat(s)

    I was scrolling through your blog and I noticed that you recommended a course called DTS300 to someone. It sounds really interesting but I can’t find a lot of people talking about it online. Could you tell me more about it, if that’s okay with you? Thanks ?

    ———————————————

    hi there!

    thank you very much for your patience with this answer — i know it’s been a while!

    sure, i’m happy to tell you more about DTS300 if it’s still relevant. i had to dig up the syllabus to answer this well, which is why the delay. the year i took the class, attendance counted for a chunk of the grade, and then the rest of it was just three short papers and one longer one. the material was very conceptual — rather than delving into statistical techniques or mathematics the way you would in a regular breadth 5 class, we focused more on how quantitative and qualitative research function in the social world. for example, we looked at how statistics bolstered systemic racism against Black people in the united states.

    i personally really enjoyed the readings and the vibe of the class. despite being a fairly large group (i think 200-300 students), the instructor, kevin o’neill, ran things with a very interactive vibe. each lecture had a bit of an argument, in the sense that there was a conceptual realization o’neill wanted us to arrive at by the end. it was an intellectually challenging course, and i found it very worthwhile.

    keep in mind that all this could change, but that’s what DTS300 was like in my experience. i would definitely recommend it as a breadth 5 course!

    i hope this provided some more insight into what you might expect if you choose to take it.

    be Boundless,

    aska

     

  • breadth requirements

    breadth req recs!

    Hi! Arts student here. This might be a dumb question, but I’m having trouble finding good BR=4 and BR=5 requirements courses for next year. I only need 0.5 FCEs more, because I did AST101 last semester (and suffered a lot because it felt like hell lol). Do you have recommendations? Preferably a 200 course, but 100 would also be okay. (I’m first year right now). Sorry if this isn’t the place to ask.

    ———————————————

    hey there,

    this isn’t a dumb question at all — perfectly valid, and this is absolutely the place to ask!

    dance theclub GIF by FC URBAN

    if you’re more so into writing, reading, and conceptual analysis than you are into science, i’d recommend DTS300. not a single mathematical equation involved — when i took it, i wrote four (i think) papers, and managed to fill breadth 5. it’s a deeply fascinating course with a fantastic instructor, dr. kevin o’neill. however, there are some prerequisites, and i’m not sure how you’ll feel about that.

    sarcastic pee wee herman GIF

    this new molecular gastronomy course also looks promising and is designed as a course for non-science students. as per your request, it’s a 200-level course.

    apart from that, i don’t currently have any other recommendations… you might try asking other people in similar situations, since everyone has to do breadth requirements! you can also check reddit (although recommendations from reddit should always be taken with a grain of salt) or look out for calendar entries for br 4/5 courses that mention they’re designed with a humanities/social science student in mind. those courses may change year to year, but there are always at least a few offered.

    your best bet is to think about what your strengths are and find a breadth course that those strengths will be useful for. often, if a science/math course is writing heavy, that will be noted in the course description.

    good luck with the rest of your semester, and i hope you find a class that works for you!

    british crown GIF

    be Boundless,

    aska

  • breadth requirements,  distribution

    can’t they just pick one name for it already

    Hi! I’m very confused about the difference between distribution requirements and breadth requirements! Please help :/

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    hey there,

    i’m really sorry this took so long, and thank you for the wait! this system is indeed confusing and i’m glad you asked.

    unless you’re at UTM, you don’t need to worry about distribution requirements — at the other campuses, i believe they’re no longer active requirements. at UTM, i believe distribution requirements are still active and breadth requirements are not required. you’d basically need 1.0 FCE in each of the science, social science, and humanities categories to complete UTM’s distribution requirements.

    at utsc, the breadth requirements mean that you need to take 0.5 FCE in each of the following categories, which i’ve copy/pasted below from this webpage. 

    • Arts, Literature, and Language
    • Natural Sciences
    • History, Philosophy, and Cultural Studies
    • Quantitative Reasoning
    • Social and Behavioural Sciences

    meanwhile, at st. george, to complete breadth requirements you need either 1.0 FCE in four of the following categories, OR 1.0 FCE in three of the categories and 0.5 FCE in the two remaining categories.

    1 Creative and Cultural Representations
    2. Thought, Belief, and Behaviour
    3. Society and Its Institutions
    4. Living Things and Their Environment
    5. The Physical and Mathematical Universes

    however, in all cases, you don’t need to complete these requirements in your first year. it is sometimes smart to get them out of the way early so you don’t need to worry about them when you’re getting ready to graduate, but if you need more time you do have it!

    i hope this cleared things up!

    be Boundless,

    aska

  • breadth requirements,  UTM

    i, too, avoid math

    Hi there! I’m currently taking psy100 to fulfill half of the science breadth requirement but honestly I am not a science student and was wondering if you had any courses you would recommend that will still fill the requirement but is less science/math heavy. Thanks! 🙂

    ——————————————

    hey there,

    you didn’t specify what campus you go to, but i’m guessing you’re a utm student because that’s the only campus with a science breadth requirement. i could be wrong, though, because it looks like utm is the only campus still referring to their breadth requirements as distribution requirements.

    it’s hard for me to recommend courses for this breadth requirement at utm, because my personal experience is limited to st. george. but from my experience and from what i’ve heard from my friends, beginner astronomy courses are great for breadth requirements because they don’t require a ton of math and are mostly memorization. obviously that’ll vary based on professors, so don’t take my word as a guarantee! geology courses might also be good for you, since i believe they won’t be as math-heavy as something like physics.

    this utm page recommends some science distribution requirement courses that generally look like solid options to me. you might try one of the anthropology options—”Fantasies, Hoaxes and Misrepresentations of the Ancient World” looks fun—since anthropology is often offered by the faculty of arts at other universities.

    to sum all this up, in order, i think your best options by subject are anthropology, astronomy, and then geology.

    i don’t know about recommending specific courses, though, since i haven’t taken any at utm. if you know any more advanced students at your campus that you can ask for specific course recommendations, do that! most people at u of t are happy to help younger students and answer quick questions.

    be Boundless,

    aska

  • breadth requirements

    this school is so confusing

    Hi there! i wanted to ask about breadth requirements and see if i understood it correctly. a half course = 0.5 in the breadth requirement, right? and for all except br=4 & 5, we need 1.0 fce for the BR—by that i mean for BR=4&5, we can either do 0.5 in 4 and 0.5 in 5, or just 1.0 fce in 4 or 1.0 fce in 5 (one or the other). i hope that made sense. could you confirm for me if this is correct? thank you so much!

    ——————————————

    hey there,

    this is a valid question! breadth requirements can get confusing.

    a half course (which you’d take in one semester, as opposed to one fall/winter year) does equal 0.5 full course equivalents (FCEs). you got that right.

    in fact, you do technically have a correct understanding of the whole system. to complete your breadth requirements, you need:

    a) 1.0 FCE in 3 of the 5 categories and 0.5 FCEs in the remaining 2

    b) 1.0 FCE in 4 of the 5 categories

    what i should point out, though, is that it’s not necessarily categories 4 and 5 that you don’t need to complete. you can move your courses around as you see fit! for example, you could take 1.0 FCE in categories 3, 4, and 5, and just 0.5 FCEs in 1 and 2. but if you’re a humanities/social science student who’d like to avoid categories 4 and 5 as much as you can, then it certainly makes more sense for you to take fewer credits in those categories.

    i hope this helped! if you need any further clarification, feel free to get back to me or give your registrar’s office a call.

    be Boundless,

  • breadth requirements

    mathemagic!

    hello, i was wondering if you know about MATA02H3 The Magic of Numbers ? i need to fulfill my quantitative breadth course and was wondering if this was a good option for someone who almost failed high school math lol

    ——————————————

    hey there,

    unfortunately i’ve never taken that course myself, so i’m not really sure. the one comment i could find on it, here, says that it’s quite easy, but i’m always a little wary of basing a decision on one redditor’s point of view.

    if you’re able, i’d join the class anyway and wait for the syllabus to be released. you could also just attend the first class and feel things out. usually if a class is a good breadth option (ie. easy for people who aren’t good at the subject), you’ll be able to tell very early on just based on those two things.

    you can also directly email the prof and ask—i’m sure whoever’s teaching this course will be able to tell you what to expect.

    if you have any doubts about the course and aren’t sure it’s worth the trouble, dropping it or applying the credit/no credit designation is always an option.

    be Boundless,

    aska

  • breadth requirements,  courses

    did someone call for a knockout?

    Breadth requirements advice? I’m going to be a first year student at UofT next year and I kinda wanna get all the breadth requirements out of the way in my first year. i’ve got .5 in BR 5, .5 in BR 4 and 1.0 in BR 3 worth of transfer creds so i still need to knock out 1.0 in BR 1 and 2. any suggestions on what to take or if i should even do all of them in one year? I’d like something easy/interesting. Thanks for the help!

    ——————————————

    hey there,

    congrats!! super excited that you’ve chosen u of t for university.

    Stephen Colbert GIF

    it’s great to see you’re trying to get ahead of the curve by tackling your breadth requirements early. i always recommend that people do this, so that you don’t need to worry about them later on. plus, i actually think you have some of the best breadth options as a first year.

    let’s see what we got here. so as an incoming first year, you have access to the first year foundations seminars as well as the ones programs. these are essentially both academic programs designed to ease the transition from high school to university: they tend to have lighter coursework, very small class sizes, fantastic instructors, and really interesting content. they’re also restricted to first years, so they’re a great place to make friends. i took several of these classes as a first year and wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.

    action bronson & friends watch ancient aliens eating GIF by #ActionAliens

    i don’t think the first year foundations listings for next year have been finalized yet– this will probably happen halfway through the summer. here are the listings for last year— you’ll see that many of the topics are really interesting. man,,,, i wish i could take some of these. but alas. i am too old. past my prime.

    Season 10 Friends GIF

    old betty white GIF

    other than that, you can start looking into the offerings from the ones program if you’d like, since they don’t tend to change too much year by year. if you’re looking to fulfill BR 1 and 2, you might be interested in these courses:

    breadth 1

    breadth 2

    two things to note: first, you may want to note is that a lot of people will use some of their 2.0 FCEs of credit/no credits to fulfill breadth requirements, since it means you only need to pass a course to get credit. if this is something that appeals to you, you should know that you can’t use CR/NCR designations for first year foundations or ones.

    second, there’s a limit on how many of these first-year exclusive courses you can take. you’re always limited to just one selection from the ones programs (ie. innis one, or a stream of trin one), and a lot of the time you won’t be able to take both ones AND first year foundations. as in, you gotta pick either or. to be certain that this is the case, you’ll need to check the exclusions on specific courses when you put together your timetable. but it’s good to know that this is the general situation ahead of time, so you don’t run into any fun surprises.

    door dancing GIF by Cheezburger

    so in terms of easy breadth courses beyond what FYF and the ones can offer, here are a few options i’ve heard are solid. not all of them are breadth 1 or 2– i also included a common course taken for breadth 5, since you could technically use it to fill your breadth requirements.

    you can also just browse through the calendar’s breadth requirement filter and look for course titles that look interesting to you. there’s a trick to this: look for the ‘printer-friendly version’ button at the bottom right of the screen and click it, so you can see all the course descriptions at once.

    i always recommend taking a course that intrigues you over one that you’ve heard is easy. the learning experience will be so much more rewarding, and it’s easier to do well if you care about the material.

    one last thing that might also be useful to know (maybe you know this already???) is that your program courses can count towards breadth requirements as well. as in, you don’t need to take courses just to get breadth requirements. sometimes you can fulfill them as a side effect of fulfilling program requirements, especially if you’re in an interdisciplinary program.

    the only way you wouldn’t be able to take advantage of this is if you anticipate that every single one of your mandatory courses throughout your degree will be breadth 3. i guess it can happen. figured i’d mention this anyway, since it’s always best not to make assumptions about what incoming students know.

    Zach Galifianakis Thumbs Up GIF

    best of luck with course selection, and remember not to hammer anything down before u of t finalizes the timetable! learned that the hard way when i was an incoming student– had to start over like, three times. psh. keener.

    be Boundless,

    aska

  • breadth requirements,  first year,  religion,  wait list

    oh the agony of being waitlisted

    hi! i’m a 1st year and i want to fulfill br 2 this sem. i want to take rlg101 but i’m 15th in a class of 250. do you think i have a chance of getting in anytime soon or should i just go with my 2nd choice (rlg 235 – also does anyone know anything about this course? would you recommend it based on workload/evals/etc?)?

    —————————————— 

    hey there,

    the general rule for waitlists is that if you’re in the top 10% of the waitlist, you have a good chance of getting in. what that means is that as long as you’re in the top 25 of a waitlist for a class of 250 (as you are) you’ll probably be fine.

    i would note that this depends on when you joined the waitlist, as well. i don’t really know how this rule works (it’s just been repeated to me by so many people that i’m assuming it’s legit) but it would make sense that if you join a waitlist relatively late in the game, perhaps the top 10% will already have moved? if you’ve been on it for a while, you’ve got a higher chance of moving up, i think. because i don’t know much about your situation, i don’t know what to recommend you do– maybe just decide based on what i’ve told you, or book an appointment with your registrar if you really need help making the decision?

    unfortunately, i’ve asked around and came up with nothing on rlg235. you can try messaging the religion undergraduate students’ association on facebook, because i figure if anyone knows anything, your best bet is someone there. there’s nothing on ratemyprof for the prof, either. sorry i can’t be of more help, but i do think you should try reaching out to the rsa!

    be Boundless,

    aska

     

  • breadth requirements

    no math? no problems

    hi, do you know if you have to take a math course if you’re not doing a math degree? (i’m in social sciences, leaning towards something like polisci or women’s studies)

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    hey hey,

    you don’t have to take a math course specifically, no! u of t tries to diversify the courses we take not by mandating certain courses as requirements, but rather making us take a certain number of credits in each of a few different categories. these are called breadth requirements,  and in a lot of ways i prefer them to the way i’ve heard other unis do things. the category you’d be concerned with is breadth 5, or ‘the physical and mathematical universes.’ this can involve math, but doesn’t have to if you don’t want it to.

    it is possible to meet the breadth 5 requirement (or at least half a credit of it) without ever solving a single equation. i do a quite large plug for the one breadth 5 course i did in this post. long story short, it was very arts-kid friendly and i would 10/10 recommend. i’m sure there are other courses out there geared towards humanities students (read: few numbers) if you dig a little more!

    if you want a more detailed rundown of what the categories are, you can check out this recent post i did on how the breadth req works. please read it if you’re not familiar, otherwise this recommendation might not make much sense to you! but the bottom line is, if you’re worried about having to take math, you can probably skirt the entirety of breadth 5 — as long as you don’t mind biology-type courses.

    short answer: if you plan well, no math for you! unless, of course, you want to take it. then you def can, and still fulfill your degree requirements. NOBODY LOSES TODAY i love it.

    over n out,

    aska

  • breadth requirements

    thank GOD it is the way it is

    do you have to do the breadth requirement every year or just once?

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    hey hey,

    man i can’t imagine having to do it every year. that scares me a little, just thinking about it.  i would just… never finish my degree, probably. ever. it would take too many of my credits up.

    rest assured that you’ve only got to go through it once! that’s why a lot of people try to do theirs in first year– not only will you have access to more fun, first-year-only breadth req courses, but you’ll get it out of the way and not have to worry about it anymore.

    if you’re still confused, you can check out this link. basically, you need to take one credit from 4/5 of the 5 breadths, or one from 3/5 and a half credit from each of the remaining two. if that’s not too confusing.

    hope this helped! best of luck with your first year, friend.

    over n out,

    aska

  • breadth requirements,  first year

    pmu199 plug plug plug

    do you have updated suggestions for the math/science breadth requirement courses for first years who aren’t good at math or science? i think the offered courses have changed a lot this year, because i can’t find some of the old suggestions on the course list!

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    hey there and warm welcome to u of t!

    not entirely sure where you’re looking, but it is quite possible that course offerings have changed from previous years. i can definitely run you through what i know about your options, though! because you didn’t specify, for the purposes of this post i’m gonna assume you’re a st. george kid.

    the math/science breadth requirement, or breadth 5, can be one of those tough ones to get down if you’re not numerically inclined– which is something i totally sympathize with and had to navigate my first year as well. it’s good that you’re looking to get your breadth reqs out of the way early, because your freshman year really is the best time to do so. not only are there special courses you can only take during that one year, but you’ll also just not have to worry about them later on, particularly when you’re looking to graduate.

    the one breadth 5 course i took that i ended up really liking was one of the 199s, specifically the one called “astronomy at the frontier.” from what i can find, it’s still being offered. i took it with drs. drout and reid. they were both super supportive but also just really good teachers, as in they managed to get ME pretty into a SCIENCE. the class mostly revolves around learning how to operate and use this online telescope software to take pictures of the galaxy. then, you’re graded on a final ‘observing project’ where you develop a research question and use photos you took to illustrate your results. if you stay on top of your work and stick to the (pretty detailed) rubrics, it’s reasonably possible to do well in this course with no science background whatsoever.

    i’m not sure how much they’ll have changed the format based on the feedback my year gave, but when i took the course participation was worth 10 percent, and there was no final exam, just a three-minute oral interview worth another 10. the best part, at least where you’re concerned? absolutely no math involved. we were expected to familiarize ourselves with a good number of astronomical concepts, but not to the level of actual in-depth memorization, and never to the extent of learning any formulas or calculations. could not plug that course more.

    can’t fit it into your schedule, or does it still not sound like something you wanna take? for more, you can go to the timetable https://timetable.iit.artsci.utoronto.ca/ and search “pmu199” in the course codes box. you’ll get a bunch of listings for similarly oriented first-year-exclusive courses. these small seminars are your best bet for fulfilling your breadth requirements, as they’re just plain less likely to screw you over. they also have more interesting content than typical first year lectures: there’s a video game writing one that sounds kinda cool, and a biosensory tech course geared towards arts kids.

    another option you have is to take a regular first year science and credit/no credit it. that way, you fulfill your breadth requirement but only need to pass to do so. once again, astronomy! i’d recommend AST101 as i’ve heard it’s not too hard. i’ve heard good things about the ‘magic of physics’ first year course too. it’s on the small size for a lecture, and supposedly a breeze if you took high school physics, which i dunno if you did.

    it may be useful for you to know that you can’t cr/ncr any of those small first year seminars, because they’re considered ‘too easy’ for that. i didn’t really realize that before going into mine, but luckily it turned out fine.

    sorry for the novel. i have fun writing these and get a bit carried away sometimes, but i do hope my unnecessary levels of detail are helpful at some level. as always, keep in mind that anything i put forward here is just my personal experience and someone else’s take could be totally different.

    hope your first year is fantastic and you crush that breadth five req!

    over n out,

    aska

  • breadth requirements

    let’s get this breadth

    What are the breadth requirements for arts and sciences students?? The page on the school website gave me an error: not found message :/

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    hey there,

    yeah so it seems like the artsci website is… broken? or at least the version of it linked to nearly every single google search is chock-full of 404s. trust me, i’m not the biggest fan of this either because it makes my job as an aska harder.

    i’m sure someone at the uni is working hard on getting things back on track, though. in the meantime, i’d suggest you either do a search using the artsci search bar instead of google, because the page links you get from that shouldn’t be broken. otherwise, you may be able to find the information on other sites, and feel free to ask again if there’s anything you can’t find.

    i did manage to find a working page that outlines the breadth requirements. there are 5, which i can outline for you here since i’m answering this question anyway:

    BREADTH 1: “creative and cultural representations” — involves things like creative writing, anthropology, cinema studies, drama, and the like. the artsiest of artsci. want to study tolkien or game of thrones? talk about murder in fiction? find out what the heck a cossack is? these are the courses you’re looking for.

    BREADTH 2: “thought, belief, and behaviour”– are your parents nagging you to ‘learn a third language, jimmy, it’ll help prevent the early onset of alzheimer’s’? (maybe this is a me problem.) are you into philosophy? do debates on morality get you going? do you like to do a lot of thinking for the sake of thinking? chances are you’ll already have this breadth pat down.

    BREADTH 3: “society and its institutions”–do you self-identify as a history buff? have a burning vendetta against gender violence that you want to explore in the classroom? want to go paddling on the great lakes for credit? hell yeah you do. breadth 3 is for you.

    BREADTH 4: “living things and their environment” — is your life’s goal to cure some obscure but life-threatening disease? do you want to talk about drugs? dementia? membranes? TREES?

    BREADTH 5: “the physical and mathematical universes” — do chem labs spark joy for you? are numbers your idea of a good time?  does thinking about the human genome fill you with awe and wonder? breadth 5, my friend, is your vibe.

    –i mean, for a lot of these you don’t really have a choice. to fulfill your breadth requirements, you’ll need to take either:

    1. one full credit from four categories OR
    2. one full credit from three, and a half credit from the remaining two

    usually breadth requirements aren’t too bad, though. if your strengths lean more so to one of either humanities or the sciences, you can definitely find breadth requirement courses that won’t pose as much as a challenge for you. for example, i managed to get my breadth 5 credit with a first-year astronomy course that didn’t require me to do any math at all. i’m sure there are also humanities courses designed for the sciences. i would encourage you to get these requirements out of the way early, though, especially since the easiest breadth courses are restricted to first years (seminars and ones).

    sorry for the wait getting this answered– i’ve been out of commission for a bit but i’m back now and will try to get through the backlog of questions. big THANK to everyone waiting!

    cheers,

    aska