A four-week program at UBC
for international students who crave wisdom and adventure
Discover a Canadian Vancouver lens
and learn about a field that might inspire you!
While learning about these topics, you have a chance to immerse yourself in Canada's diverse culture and practice language skills and trades, as well as learn a new perspective in your own field or passion. In addition to interactive lectures and tours of the region, you can take part in a variety of social activities where you will meet students from other universities and UBC.
Stay tuned for our 2024 offerings!
Some past VSP students
on their experience
Institution: University of Edinburgh
Alexandra Knoblauch, 2023
"I did not know what planning and project management involved before coming to UBC for the VSP programme with SCARP. The course taught me a lot about planning and I feel more confident now in organising projects. Besides learning new skills, I met a lot of new, friendly and interesting people during my time at UBC. Throughout the course we have bonded and grown together and I believe we will remain friends for a long time. I will always think back of the friendships and memories I have made at UBC and wish that I could have stayed for longer."
What more past VSP students say about the program
On the plane back home, I couldn’t help remembering the wonderful moments that I came across in the campus of UBC. I attended the summer program in the School of Community and Regional Planning. From kind and knowledgeable professors to diverse and cooperative students, from time-honour anthropology museum to elegant botanical gardens, from the GIS project in my laptop to the new perspective of Big Data in my mind, I told myself that it was a month worth more than a month time.
As an interdisciplinary program, community and regional planning offer me the chance to get to know people from different kinds of majors, including geography, politics, computer science and finance. We shared and discussed different perspectives with various knowledge backgrounds during our group project and after-class team activities. I think it is an invaluable opportunity to gain knowledge in other fields and cooperate with people from diverse knowledge background.
The program was overall a nice experience, I learned not just academically, but also personally.
Fantastic!
This is a very precious experience.
It was just the right kind of experience I wanted to have studying abroad; it was like a vacation but with a purpose, that purpose being learning new things.
It’s unforgettable for me to spend this summer holiday studying in one of the most outstanding universities all over the world with such a group of nice classmates!
SIGNING UP
The fee per student for each 2023 program package is $5,625 CAD, which includes course materials, medical insurance, group airport transfer and city tour, shared accommodation on UBC campus, orientation and farewell events, and potential social activities (optional trips may require an additional fee).
Students are responsible for the cost of food, transportation, and personal expenses.
Eligibility
Find out if you qualify for the program. To apply for the Vancouver Summer Program, you must be an undergraduate student* at a post-secondary institution outside of Canada and at least 18** years of age on the first day of the program. More details below.
Accommodations
Accommodations are in UBC’s on-campus residences and feature Easy access to classrooms, recreation and campus amenities, free Wifi in lobby and wired high speed Internet in guest rooms, and laundry on site.
Enrolment into 2024's VSP session is now closed.
Watch out in early 2025 for our next offerings! Applications will close in March 2025.
2024 VSP program at SCARP (now complete)
Cities Experimenting with Sustainability Transformations
Instructor: Peyvand Forouzandeh
Examine key conceptual and practical aspects of sustainability transformations with emphasis on case studies from around the world. Cities are facing unprecedented challenges as they reach for ambitious environmental targets. Environmental transformations are often interconnected with complex economic, technical, political, and social issues. Urban experiments and social innovation labs (including Vancouver, a real-world laboratory) have become increasingly common to address these challenges collaboratively.
Using the knowledge and skills acquired, explore the inner workings of these labs. Learn some common lab methods to deploy the skills and techniques applicable to uncover sustainability transformations.
Environmental Justice in Green City Planning
Instructor: Keisha Maloney
Critically engage with urban-greening initiatives in Vancouver through field visits to, for example, Pacific Spirit Park for a forest walk, to Olympic Village to assess green urbanism, and along the Arbutus Greenway to discuss sustainable transportation interventions. Ground the conceptual frameworks we developed in real world examples that we will visit together and discuss as a class. Gain experience with real world tools used to collaboratively design, develop, and evaluate sustainable projects.
Using these tools, students will develop their own proposals for green city interventions that support environmental justice outcomes.