Planning Your Breadth Courses

Recommended Breadth Requirement Courses

Updated as of: November 16, 2020

Below are a list of courses that physics students have previously used to satisfy their breadth requirements as part of their degree. We remind you that your breadth requirement courses can be assessed as a CR/NCR. 

Breadth 2: Thought, Belief, and Behaviour 

• CLA203H1: Science in Antiquity

  • Description: The first scientific traditions in the classical Mediterranean and the Near East, with emphasis on Greek science. Discussions of early physical science, biology, mathematics, and astronomy, and their place in ancient life and thought, based on primary sources in translation. Designed for students in both the sciences and humanities.

  • Pre-requisites: None

• CLA204H1: Introduction to Classical Mythology

  • Description: A survey of the myths and legends of ancient Greece (and their extension to Rome) with some consideration of their role in ancient and modern literature and art. 

  • Pre-requisites: None

• PSY100H1: Introductory Psychology

  • Description: A brief introductory survey of psychology as both a biological and social science. Topics will include physiological, learning, perceptual, motivational, cognitive, developmental, personality, abnormal, and social psychology. 

  • Pre-requisites: None

• PHL245H1: Modern Symbolic Logic

  • Description: An introduction to formal deductive logic. Semantics, symbolization, and techniques of natural deduction in sentential logic. Symbolization, natural deduction, and models in monadic predicate logic. Symbolization and natural deduction with polyadic predicates. Introduction to advanced concepts in first-order logic, such as operations, identity, and models. 

  • Pre-requisites: None

  • Recommended Preparation: Any first-year math course that teaches proof structure

Breadth 4: Living Things and Their Environment

• ENV200H1: Assessing Global Change: Science and the Environment

  • Description: The perspective which scientists bring to the understanding and resolution of environmental concerns having global implications: atmospheric systems and climate change, the biosphere and conservation of biodiversity. This living things and their environment breadth course is intended to fulfill the environmental literacy requirement for students in the BA programs of the School of the Environment or the living things and their environment breadth course requirement for Commerce, Humanities and Social Science students

  • Pre-requisites: None

  • Exclusion: BIO120H1, EEB208H1

• IMM250H1: The Immune System and Infectious Disease

  • Description: Students will be introduced to the basic concepts of immunity to infectious disease and how breakdown of the immune response can lead to auto-immunity. We will trace the history of current ideas in immunology and the immune response by examining how bacteria and viruses cause disease and the initial discoveries that led to such developments as vaccination. Current topical and newsworthy infectious diseases (HIV, tuberculosis, SARS, avian flu) will be used as examples of how the immune system copes with microbial infections.

  • Pre-requisites: None

  • Recommended Preparation: BIO120H1, BIO130H1

• PSL432H1: Theoretical Physiology

  • Description:  The content of the course changes from year to year, but is always a selection from mathematical topics in neurophysiology. Second-year calculus is mandatory. It would also be useful to have some familiarity with ordinary differential equations, introductory mathematical statistics, and programming, particularly in Matlab.

  • Pre-requisites: MAT235Y1/MAT237Y1/MAT257Y1/MAT267H1; APM346H1/MAT244H1

  • Recommended Preparation: PHY200-series; PSL201Y/300H1/302Y1/(BIO270H1, BIO271H1)

  • PhySU note: This course can also be used towards a math major or minor POSt!