Hi there! I'm minoring in Origins right now and I'm loving it. Had I found out about Origins in 1st year I may have made my major with an Origins specialization. The Origins program focuses on the fundamental questions in science: How did the universe begin? Where did the elements come from? How does the universe evolve over time? How did life originate, and where might life be in the universe? What were the origins of humanity?
Classes generally will try to tackle one of these questions. The classes in this program that I know of are The Big Questions, Origins of the Elements, Origins of Time and Space, Origins of Structure in the Universe, Origins of Life in the Universe, Origins of Species and Biodiversity, Astrobiology, Origins of Humanity.. etc. The whole list of classes you can find here:
http://registrar.mcmaster.ca /calen...12/pg1829.html
Overall, you get a very inter-disciplinary appreciation for how these questions are approached in science. The Origins Institute also puts on weekly lectures on campus from guest speakers that are world experts in their fields, which are very interesting and definitely worth your time (plus free coffee and cookies!) There's also the Origins Undergraduate Society that organizes things like shows at the 3D theatre in MDCL, and planetarium and stargazing nights. I went to a couple events and there were definitely some cool people there, but I got pretty busy this year and regretfully could not attend most of their events (there's always next year!)
So far I've taken 3 Origins classes:
Origins 2B03/Astronomy 2B03 - The Big Questions
This class is essentially Astronomy 1F03 minus ALL the math. Rather than doing physics problems you learn about astronomy and cosmology (a tiny bit) from a more qualitative perspective. A lot of people take this class as an easy elective. Tests were all multiple choice, and there were a number of small writing pieces you had to submit during the course of the term. The point of these was to write (freely without any guidelines) about the week's lecture topics. Generally I'd write about 1 page single spaced. You're supposed to submit these regularly during the semester, or else you get docked points. Overall they amount to 10% of your grade. There's also a tutorial component where everyone is put into groups. Here you formulate a discussion about a given topic and present it to the rest of the tutorial class. If you remember your grade 12 physics or are interested in astronomy at all, this is a great course to take - it's very easy to do well in this class.
Origins 3B03 - Origins of the Elements
Having breezed through 2B03 I thought I'd take this class as another general-interest type class. Here I learned that not all Origins classes are easy! This is a simplified course on nuclear astrophysics and stellar evolution. You'll learn a bit about Big Bang Cosmology, nuclear fusion, and plenty on stellar evolution and the chemical enrichment of the universe. There are a LOT of derivations to go through in the class, many of which were a little frightening (I'm a biology student not a physics student) but luckily the tests are not very focused on math at all. There's a presentation you do in pairs that is worth 20% (or maybe 25%) of your final grade, where topics touch on a broad range of topics within astronomy and Big Bang Cosmology at large. There are also about 4 or 5 small assignments focused on physics problems that are aimed to drive home the concepts of the class. If you're not afraid of a little math (it's really not that bad) or are interested in how stars form, evolve, and die, this is a fantastic class to take
Origins 2LU3 - Origins of Life in the Universe
I took this class thinking there would be a good portion dedicated to Astrobiology, but sadly it was not the case. The first half of the class is a very detailed and thorough overview of the major taxonomic groups representing life on Earth. You'll learn about their distinguishing features, their evolution from more primitive lifeforms, their energy and metabolisms, etc. The second half of the course involves a number of guest lecturers that will touch on many topics... Astrobiology, extremophile organisms, other lectures on various branches of the tree of life etc. I found these lectures to be a lot more interesting. There is 1 midterm, a "design your own extremophile" project, an exam and a weekly tutorial. In tutorial, you'll do a presentation to recap one week's worth of class material (12% of your grade), or you'll evaluate other presentations (9 times, at 2% each for 18% of your grade). Luckily, you get a cheat sheet for the midterm AND the exam! Basically everything in this class is easy.. Midterm/exam is tricky, but you get a cheat sheet so really there's no excuse to do poorly in this class IMO.
Outside of my major, for me Origins represents the most interesting classes out there. If any of that sounds interesting to you I'm sure you'll enjoy the classes. Both the director (Dr. Pudritz) and associate director (Dr. Stone) are very dedicated to the Origins Institute and they're very open to meeting to discuss the programs and the Origins Insitute at large, so if you have any further questions don't hesitate to get in contact with them:
http://origins.mcmaster.ca/contact.html
Hope that helps a bit!
