Residence
Clubs & Activities
Quest’s fully residential campus creates an all-encompassing living and learning environment where curricular and co-curricular activities are seamlessly integrated. Students reside on campus for all four years. The residences, with balconies overlooking the Tantalus Mountain Range, highlight the beauty of their natural surroundings. Elected student “Floor Reps” coordinate activities on themed floors, provide support for all students, and foster an atmosphere that promotes personal growth and academic success.
There’s never a lack of excitement at Quest, given the wide variety of engaging out-of-class activities organized by the Student Representative Council (SRC) or by the Student Affairs Office. Iron Chef cook-offs, student showcases, musical concerts, special workshops, community gardens, festivals, and weekend excursions all contribute to the vibrant community of Quest. Clubs at Quest include EcoQuest, Model UN, Adventure Club, Swing Dance Club, Chess Club, Language Club, Arts and Culture Club, the Global Issues Network, and many more.
QUEST FACTS • Quest University Canada is Canada’s first independent, not-for-profit, secular university for the liberal arts and sciences • National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) ranks Quest #1 in Canada • Degree: Bachelor of Arts and Sciences (BA&Sc) • Accredited by the DQAB (Province of British Columbia) and EQA-approved
Arts & Culture
Squamish, BC
• Founded by former University of British Columbia president, Dr. David Strangway
Passion for the arts runs high at Quest, where many of our students are talented musicians, filmmakers, actors, and painters. Our choir meets weekly to sing everything from Renaissance polyphony to the Beatles. Open mic nights are held regularly to showcase our singer-songwriters, instrumentalists, and bands. Students organize International Film Festivals, various theatrical performances throughout the year, and a year-end Music Festival on campus. In addition to on-campus events, students frequent cultural and musical events in Squamish, Whistler, and Vancouver.
Our 60-acre campus is located in Squamish, British Columbia, ‘The Outdoor Recreation Capital of Canada’. The title says it all as Squamish offers world-class hiking, biking, climbing, skiing, kayaking, kiteboarding, and windsurfing. Surrounded by coastal mountains, ocean inlets, and rivers, Squamish promotes a healthy, westcoast lifestyle. Squamish is only 30 minutes south of Whistler/Blackcomb Ski Resort, 45 minutes north of the cosmopolitan city of Vancouver, and 4 hours north of Seattle, Washington.
• Quest’s current president is Dr. David J. Helfand • Opened with inaugural class on September 1, 2007 • As of Fall 2013, our student population is 540 • Student demographic: 53% Canadian, 33% US, 14% from other countries • 40 countries represented on campus • Courses scheduled on a “Block Plan” where students take one course at a time for three and a half weeks
Athletics
International
Quest believes outdoor recreation and competitive sports encourage not only the mastery of skills, but help to cultivate teamwork, achievement, leadership, commitment, determination, and self-development. The University’s state-of-the-art athletics and recreation centre offers a gymnasium, squash courts, weight rooms, an indoor rock climbing wall, a FIFA 2-star all-year playing field, tennis courts, and outdoor basketball courts. Quest offers a complete recreation and athletics program, including varsity-level men’s and women’s basketball and soccer within the PACWEST Conference.
Quest is an international community, reflecting the globalization of the new century. Students and faculty, from all corners of the world, bring invaluable perspectives to our North American classrooms which enhance cross-cultural understanding. Through partnerships with other universities, we offer exchange programs in a dozen countries, providing the opportunity for our students to live, study, and work abroad. We are a founding member of the UN Academic Impact and the first university to host Global Issues Network conferences.
• Maximum class size of 20 students and an average class size of 15 • 12:1 student-to-faculty ratio • Each student has a faculty advisor for all four years • Field work, study abroad, and internships are included in the curriculum • Emphasis on communication, critical thinking, personal and intellectual development, civic engagement, and employability • Location: Squamish, British Columbia (pop. 17,000) • Situated on a 60-acre hilltop campus on the edge of Garibaldi Provincial Park
Faculty
Community
At Quest, we don’t call our faculty ‘professors’, we call them ‘tutors’, because their role is not to ‘profess’ but rather to work individually with each student to foster personal and intellectual growth. Our faculty members are models of the kind of people we hope to graduate: bright, relentlessly curious, and cross-culturally fluent. Committed teachers, scholars, and mentors who have come from universities around the world, our faculty pride themselves on generating new ideas through writing and research and in daily interactions that break down disciplinary boundaries to foster creativity.
A strong sense of community is at the heart of Quest. With a maximum student population of 800, Quest was designed to be an intimate learning experience built around a close-knit community that includes all students, faculty, and staff. Quest students are also an active part of the surrounding community, volunteering for local causes, working at various local businesses, and hosting events for Squamish residents on campus.
• Quest’s “green” campus buildings are geothermally heated and cooled • Quest mascot is the Kermode Bear, also known as the Spirit Bear, highly regarded in First Nations culture • Varsity sports are men’s and women’s basketball and soccer, PACWEST Conference
3200 University Boulevard Squamish, BC Canada V8B 0N8
www.questu.ca
ADMISSIONS
Quest University Canada, an independent, not-for-profit, Liberal Arts and Sciences University for undergraduates, has a simple philosophy: Education, in its truest sense, comes not from knowing the right answers, but in learning how to ask insightful questions.
While academic performance is an important criterion for admission, we want to know more about you than just your grades. Have you traveled? Volunteered in your community? Do you write creatively? Play a sport or instrument? What are your passions? What do you want to do in the world? Application Requirements • FREE online application applynow.questu.ca • Most recent high school transcript • 300-word essay from a choice of five topics • Original piece of work that illustrates your passions and talents • Interview with an Admissions Counsellor
Quest University Canada was designed for intellectually curious, global thinkers. Quest provides a four year undergraduate educational experience that produces informed and engaged leaders for the twenty-first century: graduates who are international in outlook, skilled in communication, inherently trans-disciplinary in their approach to problems, technologically literate, instinctively collaborative, cross-culturally fluent, and engaged in their local and global communities. All students graduating from Quest will earn a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences (BA&Sc) degree. Students learn essential and transferable skills that not only prepare them for future academic pursuits but also form the foundation of their evolving careers. Our unique curriculum includes: THE BLOCK PLAN
Quest is the first university in Canada to operate on the “Block Plan.” Students take only one course at a time, three hours each day, over a three-and-a-half week period, successfully completing four courses a term. This innovative system allows students to immerse themselves in each topic, producing an engaged learning environment that deepens understanding and retention.
CLASSROOMS, NOT LECTURE HALLS
At Quest, all classes are held in seminar rooms designed to seat no more than 20 students and a faculty tutor. Students are not numbers, they are names and faces—exceptional individuals with valuable insights. Classroom discussions are vibrant and engaging, where questions are welcomed and opinions must be defended.
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
Our curriculum emphasizes the importance of experiential learning beyond the four walls of the classroom. Field courses, study-abroad opportunities, volunteer work, internships, and work experience allow students to relate their education to the “real world”, to make connections with professionals in their areas of interest, and to apply the knowledge and skills they have gained at Quest. All students are required to take a minimum one block of Experiential Learning in order to graduate. I realized that, to succeed in today’s world, a broader base of interdisciplinary knowledge would be more useful than specializing right away. I believe Quest exposed me to many different disciplines and perspectives, and allowed me to explore creative, entrepreneurial opportunities in many different fields. Mawuena Mallett (Quest Graduate, Class of 2011)
THE CONCENTRATION PROGRAM
THE FOUNDATION PROGRAM
Years 1 & 2 Today’s world demands leaders unconstrained by disciplinary boundaries. With this in mind, all students spend their first two years at Quest taking the Foundation Program, which is comprised of 16 courses in the Arts and Humanities (including a second language), Social Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Mathematics. The Foundation Program provides students with a background in a variety of disciplines where they learn to think like a philosopher one month, an economist the next, and an astrophysicist the month after that. Most importantly, the Foundation Program empowers students to identify the links between these different disciplines, preparing them to develop creative and comprehensive solutions to the world’s great challenges. Cornerstone
Humanities
Rhetoric
Choose two of: · Fate & Virtue · Identity & Perspectives · Reason & Freedom
Earth, Oceans, Space Energy & Matter
Choose one of: · Dimensions of Music · World Religions
Language
THE QUESTION BLOCK
Biodiversity of British Columbia Evolution
Social Sciences Choose three of: · Democracy & Justice · Global Perspectives · Political Economy · Self, Culture & Society
What is Life? Mathematics
Important Fall Term Deadlines • December 1st Early Action Deadline • March 1st Recommended Application Deadline st • March 1 Scholarship Deadline
Your Question
As students near the end of the Foundation Program, all must take a block dedicated to the development of their ‘Question’. At Quest, we do not have one-word, pre-programmed majors. Instead, we require all students to formulate their own majors in the form of personalized Questions guided by their academic passions, outside interests, and career goals. Quest undergraduates each select a faculty mentor to help develop their Questions. Faculty mentors assist students in selecting upper-year courses and experiential learning opportunities that allow for a deep and meaningful exploration of their Question in the Concentration Program.
Years 3 & 4 The Concentration Program is where students have the freedom to capitalize on their curiosity and to pursue their passions. Once students select their Question, they design a Course Plan that includes a minimum of six upper-level blocks relevant to their Question. In addition, students must take a minimum of three elective blocks that might provide interesting perspectives on their topic but may not be directly related to it. Students must also select from one to four blocks of Experiential Learning that provide an opportunity for hands-on experiences outside of the classroom, be it with an NGO, a business, a government organization, or some other entity. Before graduating, students submit a Keystone Project. This project is a serious and carefully planned representation of a student’s progress on his or her Question. Keystone Projects may take many forms: a documentary film, a research paper presented at a public symposium, the results of lab research, or a work of creative writing, just to name a few.
EXAMPLE “MAJORS” AT QUEST • What is need? • How do we keep imagination alive? • How can I create a social movement that will bring about effective and lasting change? • How do environmental factors affect human vulnerability to disease and illness? • What is a just foreign policy? • How does story shape human experience? • What are the links between economics, a democracy and corruption?
After these deadlines, Admissions applications are reviewed on a rolling basis until the class is full.
ALLISON’S QUESTION: What are the social obstructions to public health delivery in developing nations? Course Plan Exploring the Ecological Self
Philosophy of Science
Development Economics
Social Sciences: Philosophy and Method
The Practice of Statistics
Modeling Our World with Mathematics
Environmental Changes & Human Health
HIV/AIDS
Electives Organic Chemistry 1
Organic Chemistry 2
Experiential Learning Experiential Learning
I undertook a comparative health internship through Viva! Nicaragua. I spent one month in Costa Rica and then one month in Nicaragua, in rural and urban settings, seeing how the different levels of development, socioeconomic stratification, culture, and history have affected the provision of public health and the spread of disease within these two countries.
Cost of Attendance Quest University Canada is a not-for-profit institution and receives no funding from any level of government. All students, regardless of nationality, pay the same tuition fees and have equal opportunity to apply for Merit-based Awards/Scholarships and Need-based Awards/Bursaries. Quest is committed to helping make its program affordable and accessible to all qualified students. 2014–2015 Tuition: $30,000/year Room and Board: Approximately $10,000/year
SCHOLARSHIPS
Application Deadline – March 1st DAVID STRANGWAY AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE Full Tuition – six offered each year QUEST UNIVERSITY CANADA SCHOLARSHIPS $2,000–$24,000/year
Keystone Project My research project charted an outbreak of hemorrhagic fever in the Bolivian Amazon. This project examined both the local and international responses to the outbreak.
NEED-BASED AWARDS/BURSARIES Students applying for Need-based Awards/Bursaries are also expected to take advantage of government loan programs.
Potential Career Path Attend graduate school (either a Masters in Public Health or a Masters of Science in Epidemiology), work with international NGOs such as the UN or WHO, or with local NGOs in developing countries as a social epidemiologist.
For more information about applying, or to visit Quest University Canada, please contact the Admissions Office toll-free at 1.888.QUEST.08 or by email at admissions@questu.ca.