Welcome to the Faculty of Graduate Studies at York University
Graduate school changes everything. It catalyses the educational investment that you’ve made with demonstrable results. Perception becomes more acute. Judgement seeks out balance. Imagination bristles with creativity. Good ideas multiply into complex, analytical, original solutions.
You can feel your knowledge move toward expertise. Just imagine the futures you can create; now let graduate school become the springboard to realise them.
Robust knowledge development in and of itself is a value that graduate study at York will support energetically. Come and learn. Become a scholar. Curiosity has also long possessed the desire to know in order to do, to discover in order to create. Whether in pursuit of a graduate diploma or degree, and across the Master’s, doctorate, and postdoctorate levels of expertise, York graduate students specialise in discerning the real issues, isolating the crucial problems, deconstructing the component pieces, and creating not just novel, but also truly necessary solutions.
Graduate and postdoctoral study at York has some distinct characteristics that are hard to miss. We are a global microcosm, with over 6,000 graduate students representing some 110 countries. Much research is conducted and knowledge mobilised for social justice, equity and betterment. The institutional investment in connecting communities is palpable, whether internally across graduate programs or externally with partnerships local, regional, national, and global. Our research centres and institutes draw scholars from across the university, creating mechanisms for cross-disciplinary collaboration above and beyond the already rich array of disciplinary and interdisciplinary programs. Indeed, collaboration describes best the ethos of teaching and learning, whether in the lab, seminar, or studio. Students support each other, even when challenging each other’s ideas. Professors care not just about what they teach, but especially how, and to whom. The fierce energy of the research culture ignites the dynamism of the learning environments. The intellectual environment is all about rigour; the programmatic mechanisms strive for flexibility.
The proof of our approach is always to be found in our graduates, who have gone on to explore diverse and exhilarating careers, including the head of the Canadian Space Agency, the leader of Canada’s official Opposition, the host of Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet, the President of Toronto Metropolitan University, the chief planner for the City of Toronto, the CEO of Cineplex, and leading researchers and teachers in every major field. With one of the largest and finest cohorts of graduate students in the country, York’s Faculty of Graduate Studies provides the supports necessary for a first-rate student experience.
Thomas Loebel,
Dean and Associate Vice-Provost Graduate, Graduate Studies
