Samantha Osaduke
Staff Writer
Despite being over 20 kilometres apart, York and Ryerson University have entered into a partnership this fall to exchange grad school students for select studies.
The Reciprocal Interdisciplinary Studies Opportunity will allow York’s Osgoode Hall Law School students to take courses at the Yeates School of Graduate Studies at Ryerson, and vice-versa.
The exchange—which will combine York’s legal expertise and Ryerson’s applied education—will be launching this fall semester. A limited number of students each semester will be allowed to enrol in courses at the host university, but will pay tuition to their home university.
Though the courses are complementary, Ronda Bessner, assistant dean of the JD Program at Osgoode, encourages students to take advantage of the opportunity and the expertise of the partner university.
“A maximum of five students [from each institution] each semester from Osgoode and from Ryerson-Yeates will be permitted to enrol in designated courses,” she notes.
Selected students will be allowed to register for up to one full year or two half-year courses from a list and will get transfer credits based on a “pass” or “fail” on their transcript.
Osgoode students are impressed by the new exchange and commend the positive addition.
“Given that a law degree is so transferable, it definitely makes sense to give students access to some other areas of study that are likely to have some crossover with law,” says first-year law student Laura Fraser.
However, she doesn’t think commuting downtown is practical for her.
“I can’t see myself enrolling in Ryerson courses just because of the proximity issue, “ Fraser says. “Being at York all day, I don’t know how feasible it would be to commute all the way downtown for a single credit.”
