Unlocking the Secret Code at York University

Have you been looking through classes, and timetables and thought "What do all these letters and number mean, and where in the world is this class going to be?".


York does have some codes, and abbreviations for buildings, courses, and locations that can be really confusing at first glance, but HAVE NO FEAR, I AM HERE! By the end of this blog post you too will know the secret code here at York.


Building
Every building has an abbreviation for it! Having a code makes it easier to let you know what building your course will be on your timetable (instead of having the full name of the building).

Campus Map. For a better map click here. 

At the bottom of the campus map is where all the buildings are listed along with their "codes". You can also check out the building acronyms page for a full list. 

Course

Your course has multiple codes, and abbreviations associated with it, so it can be a little confusing when adding courses and trying to find out more about our courses so i'll try to make it as easy as possible, using the Intro to Politics course as an example:

Intro to Politics course times

At the top we see AP/POLS 1000 6.0:

- AP indicates what faculty that course is from

- POLS indicates what subject that course is from

- 1000 indicates what year level that course is from 

- 6.0 indicates how many credits that course is worth

Using this information we can gather that AP/POLS 1000 6.0 is a First Year Level course in Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, within Political Science worth 6 credits! 

When adding a course, you would look for the combination of letters and numbers under "Cat #" for your desired time, and input that.

Location

When you have a timetable, it can be hard to see where exactly your class will be. No worries, let's have a look:

An average timetable at York University 

Lets look at the first course being taken on Monday: SB FINE 2000 3.0 (since we just learned what this means, you should be able to "de-code" this :) ).
We also see that course is in Section T (don't worry much about this, as it's more of a department coding that separates the same course that is offered multiple times), and we see it is in Term W (which means it is a course being taken in the winter term).
Next we have, well, well, well LOCATION: [SSB W136] so using the building acronyms we can see that this class will be at the Seymour Schulich Building (number 42 on the map) and the room number is W136 (W standing for west).
TIP: The first number of a room number notes what floor that room is on! 
Therefore we know this class will be on the first floor at the Schulich Building. 


So there you have it, you are an official de-coder of York University! Remember to stop by the RED Zone if your ever stumped though (we all need help sometimes!). :)