The IFP format merges undergraduate university courses with intensive academic and language support. Designed for international students who need to improve their language, academic, and cultural proficiencies before undertaking the rigours of a full-time undergraduate degree, the IFP develops students’ skills in genuine higher education contexts. The integration of English language learning and academic support with first-year university courses facilitates specific skills development required of full-time undergraduate students at the University of Toronto.
Successful Completion of the IFP
IFP students must complete all courses, including the degree credit-course; the discipline-specific course; and the language and academic development courses. Throughout the IFP, continual assessment raises student awareness of their standing and provides opportunities to improve their performance. Those who do not successfully complete all courses will have their offers withdrawn.
During the IFP, students take the one of the courses listed below and earn one full credit towards their undergraduate degree.
FACULTY
Arts & Science
Architecture, Landscape & Design
Music
Fall/Winter IFP
History Course – IFP100Y1 | Credits: 1.0
History Course – IFP101Y1 | Credits: 1.0
History Course – IFP102Y1 | Credits: 1.0
Summer IFP
History Course – IFP100H1 | Credits: 0.5
History Course – IFP101H1 | Credits: 0.5
History Course – IFP102H1 | Credits: 0.5
Themes in World History – IFP100Y/H | IFP101Y/H | IFP102Y/H
This course surveys the development of human societies from their origins to the present using examples from across the world. Topics may include the environment; cultural development and interaction; the creation and nature of belief systems; political, economic and social structures; gender relations; and the relationship between global patterns and local developments. This course counts as one full credit within the Faculty of Arts and Science, the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, or the Faculty of Music.
Using readings, lecture content, assignments and requirements from their degree course, students learn how to interpret information presented through a variety of written and oral mediums; construct arguments supported by evidence; and present ideas in small group and tutorial environments.
Students take the following concurrent courses:
Academic Listening & Speaking – IFP010Y1
Term: Fall & Winter
Faculty: Arts & Science | Architecture, Landscape & Design | Music
This course is designed to build listening and note-taking skills as well as speaking and critical thinking skills in an authentic academic environment. Students will listen to live and recorded lectures, practice listening and decoding strategies, and work with different note-taking techniques. Students will also practice speaking in seminar discussion and presentation capacities as well as develop their spoken comprehensibility. The course also develops critical thinking, reflecting, evaluating, and problem-solving skills – essential for success in the undergraduate level within the Faculty of Arts & Sciences courses.
Critical Reading & Writing – IFP020Y1
Term: Fall & Winter
Faculty: Arts & Science | Architecture, Landscape & Design | Music
This course focuses on developing students’ academic reading skills through critical engagement with a variety of text genres including academic journal articles, research essays, and mainstream media. This engagement leads to the development of students’ writing skills appropriate for exams and assignments expected during undergraduate courses within the Faculty of Arts and Science. Writing may include responses to paragraph and comprehension questions as well as longer texts including annotated bibliographies, literature reviews, and argumentative essays. The course primarily supports success in IFP100Y Themes in World History through developing transferable skills in intensive reading, scaffolded assignment progression, and effective communication of original and cited ideas through writing.
Academic Literacies & Identities – IFP030Y1
Term: Fall & Winter
Faculty: Arts & Science | Architecture, Landscape & Design | Music
Being successful at university involves mastering a wide range of transferrable skills, learning to understand and adapt to university culture, as well as knowing how to utilize university resources and services appropriately. Through the core themes of academic literacies and identities, this course helps students develop a broad range of transferrable skills to become a more versatile and successful university student, in addition to becoming a more reflective and adaptive learner. Through a variety of practical exercises and assignments, in this course, students will learn to master foundational academic skills such as time management and goal setting, research and digital literacy, exam and study skills, as well as reflective and critical thinking.
Communication in Undergraduate Programs – IFP081H1
Term: Summer
Faculty: Arts & Science | Architecture, Landscape & Design | Music
This course focuses on raising awareness of and improving the ability to effectively communicate ideas in English to meet the expectations of undergraduate university course tasks and assignments. For oral communication, main topics include appropriate participation in seminar lectures and tutorials, group work, and student services. For written communication,
students will investigate academic integrity, assignment types, as well as academic grammar and vocabulary. Skills taught in this course are integral for success in IFP100H.
Strategies for Cross-discipline Success – IFP082H1
Term: Summer
Faculty: Arts & Science | Architecture, Landscape & Design | Music
This course focuses on recognizing and maximizing the transferability of academic skills across multiple undergraduate courses. Main themes include universal study skills, critical intensive reading strategies, research processes and citation styles, library systems, source evaluation, undergraduate course types, and integration into the academic community. While course topics prepare students for success in IFP100H, skills taught in this course are necessary for success in a range of courses at the University of Toronto.
IFP students take discipline-specific courses which correspond to their admission stream. These courses serve as an introduction to the academic requirements of first year courses in their admitted field of study. These courses, taught by instructors from specific departments, introduce the necessary vocabulary, assignment types, and evaluations used in their area of study.
Students select their discipline-specific course from a variety of choices:
Applied Concepts in Economics – IFP040H1
Term: Winter
Faculty: Arts & Science | Architecture, Landscape & Design
An introduction to basic concepts in Economics through the use of examples. The course covers a selection of topics from both Micro-and Macroeconomics, including marginal cost/revenue/utility, market efficiency, price elasticity of supply and demand, production, opportunity costs, inflation, gross domestic product, and concepts such as moral hazard, and cost-benefit analysis.
Reading and Writing in Mathematics – IFP050H1
Term: Winter
Faculty: Arts & Science | Architecture, Landscape & Design
This course focuses on improving students abilities to read and write mathematics. It is intended to hone your critical thinking skills and prepare you for proof-based courses in the coming years. We will study a variety of topics from pure mathematics in order to gain an understanding of what abstract mathematics is and how it is practiced. Topics include: popular methods of proof, basic concepts in number theory, geometry, logarithms, trigonometry and a brief introduction to calculus.
Problem Solving in the Sciences – IFP070H1
Term: Winter
Faculty: Arts & Science | Architecture, Landscape & Design
Students will be introduced to problem solving in the sciences in the areas of cell and molecular biology, chemistry, physics, and the life sciences. The goal of this course is to provide students with a strong background in scientific method and introduce them to key concepts in modern biology.
Information in the Digital Era – IFP080H1
Term: Winter
Faculty: Arts & Science | Architecture, Landscape & Design
In our current age of digital information, we consume news, entertainment, and even educational materials through online channels, quite often through rapid-fire shares on social media. This can make it difficult to not only find what we’re looking for, but also separate conflicting messages about what’s true. In this course, we will become detectives, explorers, and investigators into explore how information is produced, shared, and conveyed to the public; the impact digital media (e.g. Quercus, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Wikipedia, Instagram, etc.) has on individuals, organisations, and communities; and ways in which we can both critically assess and responsibly express ideas using digital tools. Students will use transferable skills that are important for disseminating information and successful communication in all academic disciplines. Welcome, explorers!
Challenges to Global Equity – IFP090H1
Term: Winter
Faculty: Arts & Science | Architecture, Landscape & Design
The global political environment is increasingly caught between the emerging notions of human solidarity and aspirations to universal rights and equality on the one hand, and the realities of deep, abiding and enlarging gaps between rich and poor within and between countries on the other. This course discusses some of the key challenges, opportunities and limits to narrowing the gulf between aspirations for the attainment of global equity and current realities that signal its opposite. It does this through a political science lens and pays attention to both theoretical and empirical debates in comparative politics and international relations.
Applied Music – IFP015Y1
Term: Fall & Winter
Faculty: Music
Faculty of Music students receive individual lessons from an instructor at the Faculty of Music while they attend the International Foundation Program.