The study of literature can provide students with insights concerning past and present concepts of personal and social identity, cultural traditions and beliefs, and interpersonal and cross-cultural relationships. Since the time of Aristotle, moreover, literary commentators have analyzed “setting” as an important formal aspect of literary writing; literary study can therefore help individual to investigate, and perhaps to reconsider, their relationships with both human and non-human environments. In today’s world, where efforts to resolve intercultural conflicts and environmental problems have taken on a profound sense of urgency, literary study provides a crucial forum for intellectual and ethical debate leading to the revision of cultural practice.
The study of English literature provides students with critical skills of analysis and synthesis, helping them to identify and understand complex problems, and encouraging them to conceptualize viable resolutions and alternative understandings. Perhaps more than any other academic discipline, English literature also emphasizes the importance of literacy, including the development of effective writing and oral presentation skills, thereby providing students with the communications skills so highly valued in the professional world.
A Master's degree in Political Science is designed for students who normally would have the equivalent of an undergraduate major in Political Science and want to undertake advanced training in scholarly research.
The graduate program provides students with an advanced education in the discipline of Political Science at all levels including local, regional, national and international spheres. University of Northern British Columbia specialize in comparative politics, political philosophy and Aboriginal-state relations, with additional specialties in other areas. Each student’s program of study is designed individually to meet his or her scholarly interests.