Bachelor of Arts and Science - Political Science & Chemistry (Optional Co-op)

For the Bachelor of Arts and Science, students must complete two majors: an Arts major, and a Science major.

Political Science

Political Science is the systematic study of government, politics and political behaviour. It studies how a society governs itself at all levels and various ideas about how it should be governed in the future.

Political Science students will study how political conflict is organized and resolved in the “real world.” Students will look at how rulers are chosen, governmental decisions are taken and how decision-making processes are organized. Students will learn how governments design and implement their laws and policies in Canada and abroad.

Students will also consider how political leaders understand their obligations towards one another and how decisions are shaped by different views of “what’s right,” “what works” and “what’s possible” in different circumstances.

The Department of Political Science offers four subfields of study and encourages students to choose a variety of courses from each area to ensure they gain a broad view of the discipline. These are: Canadian Politics, Comparative Politics, International Relations, and Political Theory.

Chemistry

Chemistry studies the elements that comprise all matter. Everything in the world — the air, water, food, cars, even human bodies — are made from these elements.

There are five main branches of chemistry:

• Analytical focuses on the detection and measurement of chemical species used in fields like forensics. • Organic deals with carbon compounds, which are the main components of living matter. • Inorganic delves into all the remaining elements, most of which are found in the mineral world. • Physical looks at the study of the fundamental principles governing the behavior of matter. • Theoretical starts by exploring basic physical theories like quantum mechanics in order to provide frameworks within which all chemical phenomena can be understood.

The primary focus of the program is to provide students with extensive theoretical knowledge in all five branches, in addition to enhancing their technical and practical skills with hands-on experience.

Throughout the program, students will receive intensive laboratory instruction on the transformation and safe handling of chemical compounds, as well as hands-on training in advanced instrumental techniques such as elemental analysis, optical spectroscopy, magnetic resonance, X-ray diffraction and mass spectrometry.

Chemistry students will have access to state-of-the-art research facilities that provide the infrastructure to support the research interests of University of Lethbridge’s award-winning faculty, the instructors, as they investigate diverse areas of the chemical sciences including catalysis, nanomaterials and food chemistry.