Bachelor of Community Design

Make an Impact

The Bachelor of Commuity Design (BCD) is a three-year program that explores ways in which people can work towards creating and maintaining healthy and sustainable communities. Our BCD Brochure gives you an overview of the degree.

If you are eager to make changes in the world, the BCD will help you develop the knowledge and skills to allow you to analyse issues facing communities, such as food security, just cities, sustainable transportation, and affordable housing. You will learn how to develop solutions to these pressing concerns in communities of different sizes. Our students care about the future of communities, are committed to sustainable urban sysems, and want to learn how to develop better designed environments. They are interested in protecting environmentally-sensitive landscapes and heritage neighbourhoods, and want to give commmunities the tools to make their own choices. Our students become part of our community, a close-knit network of faculty, alumni, employers, and community-based organizations.

Dalhousie has a course page on the BCD here.

Program Options

It might surprise you to discover that you can combine completely different fields of study into one degree. Combining Community Design with other academic programs broadens your scope of study and provides you with two skill sets to take into the job market. Our BCD course selection guide for 2022/23 can be found here.

Double Major

Minor

Honours

  • Bachelor of Community Design (Honours): Students who do well in the three-year BCD program may continue into the fourth-year Honours option and earn a Major in either Environmental Planning or Urban Design and Planning. BCD (Honours) is a first professional degree that is recognized by the Canadian Institute of Planners.
  • Bachelor of Community Design (Honours with a Double Major)
  • Bachelor of Community Design (Combined Honours): Students in the fourth-year BCD (Honours) option may combine studies in Community Design with studies in Environment, Sustainability, and Society to earn a Double Major or a Combined Honours in either Environmental Planning and Sustainability or Urban Design and Planning and Sustainability.

The honours year allows students who excelled in the first three years of the BCD program to deepen their knowledge, refine their skills, and gain a degree that will lead them to a career in planning.