Chemistry (BSc)

Degree Highlights

Your future professors work hard to make sure your academic experience is current, complete and designed to open doors in your career. Here are a few things you can count on:

• Extensive Lab Time: There’s nothing like hands-on experience to solidify your learning and round out your resume, so laboratory experience is integrated into the curriculum, giving you a chance to spend lots of time in the lab.
• Hands-on Research: You’ll benefit from a research-intensive environment. Volunteer and paid opportunities for research exist in your first and second year, and research for credit (Directed Studies) can be done in your third year. 
• Pathways to Med School: We prepare you for a clinical career in Canada. Laurier students apply to med school with a competitive edge and gain preferential status with internationally accredited medical schools, including the American University of the Caribbean and St. George’s University.

Top Experiences

Here are just a few of our students’ favourite ways to apply their learning in the real world throughout their degree (check out the Experience Guide for even more!)

• Honours Thesis Option: In your fourth year, you'll have an option to complete a senior thesis research project. The thesis option will provide you with hands-on experience using state-of-the-art equipment in a new and challenging area of biochemical research. The Canadian Society for Chemistry has accredited the with thesis version of this program.
• Co-op: Apply for co-op at the end of your first year to gain real-world experience before you graduate.
• Science Maker Lab Experiences: Take science entrepreneurship courses and explore the Science Maker Lab to gain practical experience and turn innovative ideas into reality.
• Collaboration: Add a Research or Instructional Assistantship to your resume and work closely with your peers and professors.

First-Year Core Courses

• General Chemistry I
• General Chemistry II
• Calculus I for the Natural Sciences
• Introductory Calculus for the Natural Sciences
• Mechanics (for the Life Sciences)
• Thermodynamics and Waves (for the Life Sciences)
• 2.0 elective credits

Sample First-Year Electives

• Environment, Sustainability and Society
• Unifying Life Processes
• Biological Diversity and Evolution

Sample Upper-Year Courses

• Medicinal Chemistry
• Introduction to Modern Materials
• Environmental Atmospheric Chemistry

Combined Degrees

Expand your field of expertise by pairing your BSc Chemistry major with another major:

• BSc Biology and Chemistry
• BSc Chemistry and Math
• BSc Chemistry and Physics

Concentrations

Concentrate in one of the following areas to focus on an area that interests you, including: Bio-organic Chemistry; Environmental Chemistry; or Materials and Applied Physical Chemistry.

Alternatively, choose senior chemistry electives from across subdisciplines to broaden your knowledge base. 

Options and Minors

In addition to selecting an area to concentrate in your studies, consider adding one of our popular academic opportunities which allow you to dive deeper into your major area of study or broaden your knowledge:

• Entrepreneurship Core Option
• Sustainability Option
• Minors in science, social science or humanities disciplines

Check out other options to enhance your degree.

Management Option

The Management Option is for students interested in adding management-specific education to their degree. This is a direct-entry, 4.0-credit option that includes courses covering all the core pillars of business and economics. Apply directly to Chemistry with Management Option on OUAC.

Pathways

Check out all the pathways to and from Laurier.