UBC offering new 'COVID-19 and Society' course this coming fall

Photo: Facebook/University of British Columbia

The University of British Columbia is offering a new way of understanding COVID-19 when classes return this fall.

More than 270 students are signed up for the new credit course 'COVID-19 and Society' which explores the implications that the COVID-19 crisis has had on the world, according to CTV News Vancouver.

Registration for the course filled up quickly for the September start date and another 75 students are currently on the wait list.

UBC says the course has created by the department of sociology and it does not require any prerequisites.

"The course helps students make connections between their own experience of COVID-19 and larger social patterns occurring locally and globally," says Katherine Lyon, course instructor and developer.

The beginning of the course will explore how the pandemic impacted people of different races, ages, genders, sexualities and classes.

It will also look at day-to-day life and how people continued their social interactions while lockdowns were underway.

The third portion of the course looks at how the virus impacted social institutions, science, health care, economy and the legal system.

"A theme underlying the entire course is social change," says Lyon. "How people and societies respond to sweeping and unexpected social change and how individuals and groups can seek to make a meaningful change for the future in light of what we have learned from this pandemic."

The course's final project will require students to team up with community partners to create a strategy to inform the public about COVID-19. Guest speakers from various industries will share their own stories about how the pandemic affected them.

-With files from CTV News Vancouver