Explore the possibilities
Here are some of the topics that Independent Studies students in the
pre-thesis phase have been investigating over the past year (2000-2001):
- knowledge and skills required to become a Canadian Certified Professional Ergonomist
- requirements for developing a high-tech business plan for application to a personal start-up business
- oppression in the "Third World" and revolutionary or other strategies to end it
- use of theoretical models of computing and practical programming
- languages to design and develop Interaction Nets
- critique of the logic underlying some rules of grammar in the English language
- song writing and effects of gardening to help special-needs children in schools or in home schooling situations
- reconciliation of incompatible archaeological chronologies of ancient civilizations in the Middle East
- the reunification of Korea in the context of global and regional politics
- gaining proficiency in written and spoken Mandarin Chinese or Korean, by two non-native speakers of these languages
- the potential of community gardens to build neighbourhood solidarity
Choose your own courses
You can choose to work entirely on self-directed study units (IS courses) or you
can choose a mix of IS courses and regular university courses. As an
Independent Studies student, you may take almost any course at the University
of Waterloo, including on-campus and distance courses, except those
restricted by their own programs. What you choose depends entirely on
what you want to achieve.
Courses offered by Independent Studies have been set up especially
for the Independent Studies Program and they serve to help pace you
through your self-selected topics. If you're new to university-level
academic work, we recommend taking IS 100 - Introduction to Research Methods.
Focus on what interests you
As your studies progress, you are encouraged to think about the topic
that will become your thesis project. Here are some thesis project topics which Independent
Studies students are currently working on or have completed over the past
few years.
- Amish Folk Medicine in the Context of Amish Theology
- Building a Simple Household Robot
- Comparative Analyses of Identity-Based Conflict
- Comparative Study of Neolithic Mortuary Customs
- Complementary Care in Childbirthing
- Computer Security and Cryptography
- Defining and measuring "Coping" Humour: Testing for Psychometric
- Properties of the Uses-of-Humour Inventory
- Dissenting Daughters: Young Canadian Women in Revolt
- Elections and the Internet
- Embodiment of Women in Mid-Life Through Feminist Spirituality
- Guilty as Sin: The Calling of Michael (script and film)
- Immunological Control of Neoplasia with Emphasis on Lukemia
- In the Beginning: The Genesis of Terraforming in the popular Press
- Is Greatness Out of Date?
- Joint Health and Safety Committees in Ontario: An Outsider's View
- Mandatory Environmental Compliance Audit Feasibility Study
- Modern Communication Networks and the Search for Information
- Moving Towards Healing: Feminist Movement Therapy as an Adjunctive Treatment Approach for Post Traumatic Stress
- Producing, Packaging and Selling Contemporary Music
- Questioning to Understand: Myth in the Novels of Robert Kroetsch
- Rosenstiehl at Chartres: The Mathematics of the Cathedral Labyrinth
- Stone Soup: Three Short Stories and an Exploration of the Process of Writing
- Selected Topics in Bioinformatics
- The Inuit and the Aurora (creative writing)
- Telecommuting and Productivity
- The Medium's Owner is the Message: How the Commercial Mass media and the Corporate Power Elite Promote Environmentally Destructive Patterns of Automobile Use.
- The Rothko Chapel: A Tragic Sense of Place
- The Systemic Arts: Explorations in an Emerging Field
- Traditional Ecological Knowledge
