You don’t need to wait until the course starts to get going! Most students come into the course with a few ideas on where they want to take their Applied Major Project!

If you’re looking at this before the course starts, use the following to help you shape some of your research interests/ideas:

Try to identify 2 potential topics for your Applied Major Project. Then answer the following questions for each potential topic:

  1. Why does this topic interest you?
  2. How does it apply to Recreation in Canada?
  3. Describe how your potential topic can help move a community toward a solution to make it a better place.
  4. Why is your potential topic needed or useful in the Recreation field?
  5. Briefly explain your connection to the topics and describe the benefit to you in exploring these topics. (ie. is there a personal connection to the topic?)
  6. Can you find (2) relevant scholarly/academic articles that support your research in this topic area? Write these sources down.
  7. Identify one (1) possible organization you would like to work with for your potential topic. Why you are choosing them?
  8. Can you find someone in the organization (from question 7) to talk about your research project to see if they would be available to support you in your research project in the Spring semester? This person should be in a supervisory or management role in the organization.

Note:  It is worth putting a lot of time, preliminary research and thinking into this these questions, this is the foundation for the research question you create, explore and answer in this course. If you can answer all 8 of the questions above for your potential topics, you can be confident that you’ll be able to get going right away in the course.

Not sure what an Applied Major Paper looks like?

Take a look projects from previous students:

*How can arts centered initiatives help meet the City of Burnaby’s corporate strategic goal of becoming a healthy city? – Caragh Robinsmith (2021)

What are the needs of Chinese seniors living in the Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside neighbourhood and how can Carnegie Community Centre improve/adapt its programs and services to better meet their needs? – Lily Cheung (2021)

*How can the City of Coquitlam’s Parks, Recreation, Culture and Facilities department form partnerships with non-profit organizations to build healthy communities and active citizens? – Paul Radnidge (2023)

What transferable skills do youth ages 13-18 develop through participating in municipal recreation and how can the City of Richmond’s Youth Staff create opportunities that enable youth to develop these skills? – Maggie Conway (2023)

*Langara Open Student Scholar Prize Recipients

Langara College’s Institutional Repository for a full list of RECR 4400 projects.