Directed Studies

Tailor your degree to your specific career goals

Specialize your degree from others in your Major

Explore topics of future professional interest

Bridge content and skills to a Master’s degree

A course in whatever you want to learn and explore within your major

How it Works

You contact a professor you want to work with and tell them what you are interested in exploring in more detail. Some students will test a thesis they might want to explore in grad school, some students choose something particular to be more marketable for a specific future job they have mind, some explore curiosities and connections they have discovered in their learning.

You and the professor discuss what you want to learn, negotiating your reading, assignments, and assessments, before the professor completes the Directed Studies form, available from the Dean's Office.

Plan Early

You don’t register for these classes in LORIS. The process involves filling out the Directed Studies form, choosing a professor with which to work, preparing an outline, getting approvals, and finally dropping it off at the Dean’s Office before we have it added to your registrations. This all must be done before the Add/Drop deadline of the semester in which you want to do the Directed Studies, so plan ahead.

For more information, email lbacademicadvising@wlu.ca

Examples from past years

Wrongful Convictions and the Human Rights Ethics of Jailhouse Informant Testimony

Criminal Psychopathology and the Justice System

Medical Marijuana Policy and Social Justice in Canada: A Critical Evaluation

Literacy Journalism: Exploring the traditions and controversy in creative non-fiction and memoirs

Organizational Culture of the Film Industries in Germany and Canada

Community Agriculture

Maple Syrup Production and Climate Change

Sustainability and Local Food Systems

Psychology and Beauty in the Classroom

Topics in Media and the Law

Healthy Body Weights and Student Lifestyle Differences

Social Science Evidence and Wrongful Convictions

Criminal Psychopathy

Not a Fly in Every Child's Eye: An Unearthing of Kenyan Truths