The ABCs of acronyms at York

York is a pretty big university, with three main campuses and dozens of buildings where lectures, tutorials, workshops, screenings and more take place. In addition to this, there are also many organizations, societies, departments, tools and student affiliations thriving at York. With so much happening, things can get a little confusing when looking at all that York has to offer.

To better organize everything, York often uses acronyms to condense information. This can be helpful, but without a proper guide, it isn’t always easy to understand what these acronyms mean. That’s where YU Blog has got you covered!

Here’s a guide to understanding acronyms and abbreviations at York.

Acronyms are a way of condensing a phrase into a single “word” by combining the first letter of each word of the phrase into a new word. For example, the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design becomes “AMPD”, and Student Counselling, Health and Well-being becomes “SCHW."  Sometimes acronyms can spell out recognizable words, like how the acronym for the Accolade East Building is “ACE," but this is not to be confused with the word “ace” as in the ace playing card.

Navigating around such a large campus can be difficult – especially when most maps use acronyms instead of full building names.

Luckily, York provides many resources to navigate the campuses, and one of the first steps is learning the acronyms!

For example, if you go onto the York University Courses website and log in to see your timetable, you can see exactly where all your courses for the Fall/Winter or Summer semesters are in one convenient spot. If you see an acronym you are unfamiliar with, you can simply click on it and a pop up will display the full name.

With the building name and room number listed beside it, you are on track to find your classes easily for the year. There is also a full list of building acronyms you may need to know on the same website.