Ruiqi's Page 1B

'''Five Majors at the University of Toronto

Anthropology( Archaeology branch)

Anthropology is an interdisciplinary venture that spans natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, while the Archaeology branch focuses on finding material evidence of human activities. Since it’s important to make data meaningful after excavation or survey, statistics skills, such as database design and sampling, is essential to this discipline. With the development of technology, the studies of the virtual world and new methods to digitizing objects, like surface scanning and 3D printing, are becoming the new trend of researches.

East Asian Studies

This program draws together the approaches from art, literature, philosophy, religion, history and sociology. Therefore, to have an in-depth knowledge of one or more of those disciplines will help with further studies and researches. The Department of East Asian Studies of U of T has been redirecting its studies from philosophical approaches to critical theory and more problem-based, often transnational studies, so it becomes increasingly important to think critically in a global context. I am interested in Chinese culture and literature and I found in the researches done by Prof Linda Feng that new approaches, such as mapping, have been introduced to this area of studies.

Human Geography

Human Geography is a combination of social sciences, physical sciences and humanities. It looks at how culture, economy and politics shape the ways people make use of the environment. A key strength of the Geography and Planning Department of U of T is that it utilizes advanced geospatial approaches to characterize patterns over time and space. Above from the knowledge of sociology, economics and pubic polices, the knowledge of quantitative and qualitative research methods, including GIS and Remote Sensing, is also necessary for the study of this field.

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which applies scientific methods by making observations, testing hypotheses, and developing theories. It is highly dependent on the manipulation and analysis of data, so the ability of interpreting data is of great importance. The researches of linguistics focus on the basic elements of languages (phonology, semantics and syntax), as well as the variation and change of languages. Therefore, an understanding of different languages is core to this discipline. Students are also expected to have knowledge in other fields of studies, such as like anthropology and psychology.

Psychology

Psychology has two main branches, one is about development, personality and social interaction, the other is about cognition and neurology. I looked at the researches done by the Social Perception and Cognition Lab, which focuses on people’s abilities of categorizing and judging. The results of past researches revealed that some common mistakes in quick judgment can lead to serious real-world implications. Conducting this kind of researches needs creative and unique approaches in order to achieve a better understanding of people’s behavior and help improve our life.

Similar to linguistics, psychology is a discipline highly relied on statistical methods and the interpretation of data. It’s crucial to have the knowledge of data processing software and the ability to organizing and analyzing data. Experiment design and observation skills are also important to psychology.

In a nutshell, the five disciplines all need knowledge from other fields to support the studies and researches. As a science student, I looked at the science knowledge needed in these disciplines and found that quantitative methods are employed in order to get a broader view of existing information. We need to think critically of the results generated by data processing software and interpret them meaningfully in the social context.

References

Faculty of Arts and Sciences 2017-2018 Calendar. (n.d.). Archaeology. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from https://fas.calendar.utoronto.ca/section/Archaeology

Faculty of Arts and Sciences 2017-2018 Calendar. (n.d.). ARH312Y1-Archaeological Laboratory. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from https://fas.calendar.utoronto.ca/course/ARH312Y1

Faculty of Arts and Sciences 2017-2018 Calendar. (n.d.). ANT437H1-Introduction to Virtual Anthropology. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from https://fas.calendar.utoronto.ca/course/ANT437H1

Department of East Asian Studies. (n.d.). Profile. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from http://www.eas.utoronto.ca/about/departmental-profile/

Department of East Asian Studies. (n.d.). Linda Rui Feng. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from http://www.eas.utoronto.ca/people/faculty-members/linda-rui-feng/

Faculty of Arts and Sciences 2017-2018 Calendar. (n.d.). Human Geography. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from https://fas.calendar.utoronto.ca/human-geography-specialist

Department of Geography. (n.d.). Graduate Geography. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from http://geography.utoronto.ca/graduate-geography/

Department of Geography. (n.d.). GIS in Geography at U of T. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from http://geography.utoronto.ca/department/gis/

Department of Geography. (n.d.). Michael Widener. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from http://geography.utoronto.ca/profiles/michael-widener/

Department of Geography. (n.d.). Ron Buliung. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from http://geography.utoronto.ca/profiles/ron-buliung/

Department of Linguistics. (n.d.). Research. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from https://linguistics.utoronto.ca/research/index.html

University of Toronto. (n.d.). Corpora in the Classroom. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from https://corpora.chass.utoronto.ca/login.php

Department of Psychology. (n.d.). Homepage. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from http://home.psych.utoronto.ca/

Department of Psychology. (n.d.). Volunteer Research Opportunties. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from http://home.psych.utoronto.ca/research/RAvolunteer.htm

Department of Psychology. (n.d.). Social Perception and Cognition Labortary. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from http://psych.utoronto.ca/users/rule/research.html

Faculty of Arts and Sciences 2017-2018 Calendar. (n.d.). PSY201H1-Statistics I. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from https://fas.calendar.utoronto.ca/course/PSY201H1