Honours Science Certificate

The Honours Science Certificate is designed to provide interdisciplinary perspective on science in general, as well as an excellent preparation for university study in most health science, pure science or engineering programs.

This certificate has been established to give some of our highly motivated science students tangible recognition within a stimulating and creative framework of courses and activities.
This certificate is open to students in the following programs: 200.B1 (Health Science), 200.B2 (Pure and Applied Science), 200.11 (Science and Music), and 700.A0 (Arts and Sciences)..

Admission

Admission into the Honours Science Certificate is limited and selective. Admission is based on high school grades and a letter of intent. Students apply shortly after the start of their first semester at Marianopolis. At the end of each semester, the files of students in the Honours Science Certificate are reviewed. To continue, a cumulative average of at least 85% in math and science courses and at least 80% overall is required.
If you plan to apply to this program, you should choose your first-term courses accordingly, thus some planning on your part should be done prior to the actual application to the certificate (see the section on enriched courses below). Consult a faculty advisor at registration for advice.
Occasionally a few students are accepted at the beginning of the second term, based on grades at Marianopolis, a letter of intent and a recommendation from a Marianopolis mathematics or science professor.

Certificate Requirements

To graduate with the Honours Science Certificate, you must satisfy the following requirements in addition to the general graduation requirements for the science program in which you are enrolled.

  • Take a total of at least three enriched courses (see the list below).
  • Work on an Honours Science Project and hand in a well-written thesis on the project.
  • Participate in a number of integrated activities.

This combination is designed to give you a strong science background, together with an understanding of the role of science in the world.
You will be followed by a project supervisor to ensure that the Honours Science project and write-up of the thesis will be a valuable learning experience.

Integrated Activities

As part of the Honours Science Certificate, you are expected to pursue some combination of the following activities:

  • Lectures and industrial visits, offered as part of the program or elsewhere.
  • Competitions in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, or Computer Science.
  • Other science-related activities, such as Science Club or environmental activities.

You make your own decisions about the mixture of activities, within some prescribed limits set by the certificate. You will be issued a special Honours Science Passport to keep track of what you do and to get signatures of the activity sponsors.

Graduation

To graduate with the Honours Science Certificate, you must satisfy the above certificate requirements while maintaining the minimum averages previously mentioned.

Enriched Courses

We offer the following enriched course sections, which have extra material or a special emphasis beyond the regular course syllabus.

  • BIO-NYA E General Biology I  *
  • BIO-LCU General Biology II  *
  • CHE-NYB General Chemistry II *
  • MAT-LCX E Topics in Mathematics
  • MAT-NYA E Calculus I
  • MAT-NYB E Calculus II
  • MAT-NYC E Linear Algebra I
  • PHY-NYA E Mechanics
  • PHY-NYB E Electricity & Magnetism
  • PHY-NYC E Optics, Modern Physics

* There is no special section for enriched biology or chemistry. Enrichment, as extra projects and/or extra material to study with their own extra exams, is offered on request by individual students.

Please note that some of these courses might not be offered every term.  Students must plan carefully to make sure they will be able to satisfy the requirement for enriched courses. To this end, it is recommended that students register in Calculus I (enriched or not) during their first term of studies at Marianopolis.

More details are given in the handout "Honours Science Certificate -- Description".   For help, see faculty advisors at registration or contact the following professors, responsible for the Honours Science Certificate:

  • Dr. Oscar Hernández
  • Dr. Dominic Lemelin