Stepping into university comes with a whole new vocabulary. Some of it is specific to Canadian universities, some is unique to UBC, and some is specific to the Faculty of Arts.
Here’s a plain-language guide to the terms you’ll see most often.
A-D
A
Academic Accommodations: Support that reduces barriers in the learning environment for students with disabilities or ongoing medical conditions. The Centre for Accessibility determines eligibility and the accommodations available based on a student’s individual needs.
Academic Calendar: The Calendar is a comprehensive guide to all programs, courses, services, and policies at the University of British Columbia. The Calendar serves as a record of many University academic policies and procedures.
Academic Concession: Support, like a deadline extension or deferred exam, for students facing unanticipated events that interfere with their academic work, applied with fairness, flexibility, and compassion under UBC’s Academic Concession policy. (Visit Arts Advising)
Academic Progress Report (APR): An essential tool in Workday that helps you keep track of your degree requirements and credits.
Add/Drop Period: The first weeks of term when you can still adjust your course schedule without academic or financial penalty.
AMS (Alma Mater Society): UBC’s undergraduate student union — runs clubs, services, health and dental plans, and events across campus.
Arts Academic Advising: Advisors specific to the Faculty of Arts who help with course selection, major declaration, and degree requirements once you’re in the Faculty.
Arts Indigenous Student Advising (AISA): Arts Indigenous Student Advising in the Faculty of Arts supports the success of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit students.
Arts Credit Minimum Requirement: The minimum number of credits you must complete within Faculty of Arts courses specifically, ensuring your degree stays grounded in Arts even if you take courses in other Faculties.
Arts One: A first-year program where one small group of students takes an interdisciplinary, discussion-based course together across a full year.
AUS (Arts Undergraduate Society): The student society specifically for Arts undergrads, separate from the campus-wide AMS. The AUS runs Arts-specific clubs, events, and represents Arts students’ interests within the Faculty.
Award: Funding you can apply for that may recognize things like your lived experience, leadership, volunteering, community involvement, or academic achievements, not just your grades. Most awards include a monetary prize. The term “award” is sometimes used as a catch-all term for awards, scholarships, prizes, and bursaries. (See scholarship, prize, and bursary)
B
Bachelor of Arts (BA): The most common degree in the Faculty of Arts, and flexible by design. You’ll explore multiple subjects before committing to a specialization.
Beyond the BA, The Faculty of Arts also offers several specialized degrees for students with a focused interest from day one, including:
Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA): A four-year degree blending artistic and professional practice, theory, and research. Offered in Creative Writing, Film Production, Theatre (Acting), Theatre (Design and Production), and Visual Art.
Bachelor of International Economics (BIE): A four-year degree offered jointly by the Vancouver School of Economics and the Sauder School of Business, with intensive study in international trade, finance, and development.
Bachelor of Media Studies (BMS): A four-year, interdisciplinary cohort program blending practice, theory, and research, with courses drawn from eight participating units across Arts — from Computer Science and English to Journalism, Writing, and Media.
Bachelor of Music (BMus): A four-year degree with a core curriculum in music theory, aural skills, history, technology, and solo and ensemble performance, alongside liberal arts electives. Standards align with the Canadian University Music Society.
Bachelor of Social Work (BSW): Completed in two years full-time or three years part-time, covering theory, policy, research, and practice. A Canadian Association for Social Work Education (CASWE) accredited degree preparing you for generalist social work practice, grounded in critical thinking and issues of power, discrimination, and social justice.
Bachelor + Master of Management (B+MM): A unique dual degree program that combines your undergraduate studies with a world-class business education.
Bursary: A non-repayable, need-based award. This fills the gap between your student loans and what you still need, if you’re a domestic student. (See scholarship, prize, and award)
C
Campus-Wide Login (CWL): This allows you to register for courses, check your UBC accounts (E.g., Canvas, Workday), and log on to UBC wireless internet and UBC systems.
Canvas: The learning platform instructors use to post syllabi, readings, assignments, and grades for each course.
Centre for Accessibility (CFA): UBC’s office supporting students with disabilities or ongoing health conditions, helping arrange academic accommodations like extra time, note-taking support, or alternative assignment formats.
Co-op, Arts: An optional program combining paid work terms with your degree, letting you graduate with professional experience alongside your BA.
Continuing Studies: UBC offers non-credit courses and certificate programs, including preparatory writing and math courses and the English Language Institute.
Coordinated Arts Program (CAP): A first-year option where you take a themed cluster of courses alongside the same group of classmates. It’s a nice way to build community while meeting core requirements.
Corequisite: A corequisite is a course that you must take prior to, or concurrently with, a selected course. It is important to investigate which prerequisites and corequisites may be required for courses you want to take later.
Course Numbering: Course names have multiple components. A course code like LING_V 101 R01 breaks down into subject (LING = Linguistics), campus (_V = Vancouver), course level (101), and section (R01, indicating a specific time slot or term). Check out the full list of courses.
Course Planning: The process of choosing your courses each term based on your program requirements, prerequisites, and interests — something you are encouraged to start in your first year, working closely with Arts Academic Advising.
Credits: The unit used to measure course workload and progress toward your degree. Most Arts courses are worth 3 credits, which is equivalent to one class. For example, 15 credits are equal to 5 courses.
D
Degree requirements: The set of courses and credit minimums every Arts student must complete beyond their major or program — including breadth, upper-level, and Faculty-wide requirements — to graduate.
Degree Planning: Plan your undergraduate degree with useful resources to help guide you along your academic journey — from entering your first year as an Arts student to receiving your degree.
Double Counting: Using a single upper-level course to satisfy requirements in two different programs at once (like a double major). Credit limits apply, and you still only earn credit for the course once, even if it counts toward two sets of requirements.
Double Major: Combines two majors within a single degree, allowing you to meet the requirements of both without extending your program length.
Dual Degree: Combines two separate degrees into one combined program, typically taking longer than a single degree but resulting in two credentials.
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E
Elective: Beyond your program and degree requirements, the rest are electives — courses outside your specialization that let you explore other interests. Single-major students take roughly half their credits as electives; double majors or minors take fewer.
Enrolment Services Advisors (ESA): Staff who can help with registration, transcripts, and general degree-planning questions before you’ve connected with an Arts advisor.
Exams: Formal examination period at UBC. The Winter Session exams are held in December and April. Enrolment Services schedules your exams, and shares the schedule toward the end of each Term.
Exchange: A Go Global option letting you study for a term or year at one of UBC’s partner universities abroad, paying UBC tuition while earning credits that transfer back to your degree.
F
Faculty: There are two definitions of faculty at UBC:
- 1. A division or unit of the university dedicated to a specific area of study, often split into departments and schools.
- 2. The deans, professors, lecturers, and researchers who make up the units.
G
Go Global: UBC’s hub for international learning opportunities, including exchange programs, study abroad, group study, and research or work placements abroad.
GPA: Your Grade Point Average, calculated on a scale out of 4.33 at UBC, used for academic standing, scholarships, and program requirements like Honours.
Grades: For grading, UBC uses a percentage scale and equivalent letter grades. Your grades contribute to your GPA.
Graduate student: A student who is completing a master’s or doctoral degree.
H
Honours: A more intensive version of a major, usually with a higher GPA requirement and often a research or thesis component. It’s not a requirement, but an option if you want to go deeper into a subject.
Housing: On-campus housing options ranging from eight-month residences for first-year students to year-round residences for upper-year and graduate students, plus family accommodation.
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I
Imagine UBC: A campus-wide welcome day at the start of the Winter Session in September, with Faculty-specific events to introduce new students to Arts.
Interdisciplinary: Combines ideas and methods from different subjects (disciplines) to understand, study, or solve a problem. eg. using ideas from geography and art together to study how patterns form in nature.
International Student Advising: Get help with your study permit, health insurance, and adjusting to life in Canada. Advisors are certified and trained specifically to support you.
J
Jump Start: UBC’s early-arrival orientation program, especially popular with international and out-of-province students, offers a head start on campus life before Winter Session begins.
M
Major: Your primary area of study within the BA, declared partway through your degree (not on day one). Most Arts students choose their major at the end of first year.
Minor: A secondary area of focus that requires less credits than a major. Getting a minor adds depth in a second subject alongside your major.
Musqueam: UBC Vancouver is located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people. The land it is situated on has always been a place of learning for the Musqueam, who for millennia have passed on their culture, history, and traditions from one generation to the next on this site.
N
The Nest: The student union building, home to AMS services, event space, and a food hall with campus favourites like Blue Chip and The Delly, among many others.
O-S
O
Office Hours: Set times each week when instructors and TAs are available for drop-in questions, one of the most underused resources by new students.
Orientation Leader (OL): A current student volunteer who runs welcome activities during Jump Start and Imagine Day. They’re often one of the first friendly, upper-year faces that you meet on campus.
Outside requirement: You must complete a minimum number of credits outside your field of study, often fulfilled through electives. Single majors require 60 outside credits; adding a minor, honours, combined major, double major, or double honours reduces that number. (See Degree Requirements)
P
Place and Power: A 3-credit requirement exploring the history and current realities of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam) and the land UBC sits on, alongside Vancouver and BC’s broader systems of power and inequality. It can be fulfilled through an approved course in any discipline, including your own program, at any point in your degree. (See Degree Requirements)
Prerequisite: Prerequisites are specific courses that you must complete before you can take upper-level courses. Course descriptions show prerequisites where applicable.
Prize: Given if you’re the top student in a specific class. Usually, no application is required. (See scholarship, award, and bursary)
Professional programs: A program entered after full or partial completion of a Bachelor’s degree, training you for a specialized professional field like Medicine, Dentistry, Law, or Social Work.
Programs: The series of courses that leads to a particular degree.
Prospective student: A student who is thinking about applying to UBC.
R
Reading Week: A scheduled period during Winter Term 2 when regular classes and lectures are cancelled to give you time to rest, catch up on coursework, and study for midterms. (See WT1 Midterm Break)
Registration: The period where you select the courses you will take in your next year. Registration for Winter Session runs from mid-late June (first- and fourth-years) and early-mid July (second- and third-years).
Registration appointment: Before you register for courses, you will receive an email from Enrolment Services with an assigned date and time when you will be able to start registering in courses.
Research Requirement: A 3-credit course, typically specific to your major, where you contribute to scholarship in your field — completed between 30 and 120 credits into your degree. These courses often carry prerequisites, so it’s worth planning ahead. (See Degree Requirements)
S
Scholarship: Based purely on your academic achievements. The good news is some of these are automatic and tied straight to your grades. (See award, prize, and bursary)
Session: At UBC, a Session refers to the Winter or Summer period when classes are offered, and each Winter s\Session is composed of two terms.
Six-Week StART: A free transition program that connects every new-to-UBC Arts student with an upper-year Orientation Leader.
Standard Program: The UBC Calendar’s term for building your timetable by choosing courses each term.
Standard Timetable: UBC Registration’s term for programs with a pre-planned timetable of linked courses that must be taken as a whole (E.g., CAP, ArtsOne)
Summer Session: Two optional terms running May to August. Take summer courses to lighten a future term’s course load, or catch up on your requirements.
Syllabus: The course outline, given at the start of term, laying out readings, assignments, deadlines, and grading. Professors expect students to read the syllabus at the beginning of the term, and continue to refer to it throughout the course. Check your syllabus first when you have questions about deadlines or policies.
T-W
T
Teaching Assistant (TA): A graduate (or sometimes senior undergraduate) student who supports a course — running discussion sections, marking, and holding office hours.
Term: What UBC calls a semester (or “quarter” at some schools). A term is one of two study periods making up the Winter Session, each about four months long.
Thunderbirds: UBC’s varsity athletics program, competing since 1915 and holding more intercollegiate championships than any other Canadian university (alumni include 241 Olympians)
Transcript: A document listing grades for all courses in all semesters at a particular school or university.
Transfer student: A student who has completed some post-secondary studies elsewhere, either at another university or college, or in a different Faculty at UBC, and has moved to Arts to continue their degree or diploma.
Tuum Est: The UBC motto. Latin for “It is yours.”
U
U-Pass BC: A subsidized transit pass giving you access to public transit across Metro Vancouver, costing $187.60 per term for a full 3-Zone Pass each month.
UBCcard: Your official student ID — used for building access, library services, and often U-Pass transit.
Undergraduate student: Any student in a Bachelor’s degree program.
Upper-level requirement: You must complete a minimum number of upper-level credits (numbered 300+). Single majors, combined majors, and Interdisciplinary Studies (IDST) require 48 credits; honours, double major, major/honours, or double honours programs require more. (See Degree Requirements)
V
Visiting students: A student enrolled at another university who is taking courses at UBC for credit at their home university.
W
Waitlist: A queue for a full course. A spot on the waitlist doesn’t guarantee a seat, so it’s worth having a backup course in mind.
Ways of Knowing Breadth Requirement: An interdisciplinary foundation of the BA degree requirements that will empower you to explore different ways of building knowledge across four different areas of study. (See Degree Requirements)
Withdrawal (“W”): Dropping a course after the add/drop deadline up until the final withdrawal deadline each term. You won’t receive a grade, but a “W” appears on your transcript.
Winter Session: The main academic year, running September to April and split into two terms (Term 1 and Term 2).
Writing Requirement: 3-credit course building university-level writing skills, meant to be completed in your first year or first 30 credits. Miss the 54-credit deadline (or your first year, for transfer students), and your registration will be blocked until Arts Academic Advising approves a plan to complete the requirement. (See Degree Requirements)
Work Learn: A need-based aid program letting qualified students work up to 10 hours a week on campus, often in roles related to their field of study.
Workday: UBC’s system for registering in courses, checking your academic record, paying tuition, and managing your student account.
