Bachelor of Arts in Honours Arts - Communication Studies (Co-op)

at University of Waterloo Canada

Today we’re inundated with information from sensors, digital images, streaming video, satellite and medical imagery, and more. In Data Science at Waterloo, you’ll learn to extract meaningful information from that tsunami of data and use it to predict future trends.

You’ll complement your core courses in statistics, mathematics, and computer science with a range of electives from many of Waterloo’s 100 subject areas. When you graduate, you’ll have the skills and knowledge to help governments and businesses make better decisions and smarter strategies. And if you take the co-op stream, you'll have up to two years of work experience on top of that.

When you graduate, you’ll be ready for a huge range of career options. Our grads are putting their skills to work in areas as diverse as medicine, business, advertising, entertainment, and public health.

As a Waterloo Health Studies student you'll be working with world-class professors that are making a difference in health in Canada and worldwide.

Health Studies is shifting the focus of traditional health
At the University of Waterloo, you'll study human health in a non-traditional way. Rather than a focus on treatments after diagnosis, we have a larger vision: to find strategies for preventing disease, promoting health, and improving health care services to make them more integrated and responsive.

Be prepared to tackle health challenges and look for the keys to transforming the health of individuals, communities, and health care systems in Canada and around the world.

Pre-Clinical Specialization
A specialization provides a secondary area of study in addition to your major. It is an academic plan that offers an area of concentration and provides depth to a student's primary area of study. Specializations are only available to students within their primary department.

If you are considering a future in medicine, occupational therapy, nursing, or another health-related profession, the Pre-Clinical Specialization can provide you with the preparation you need.

This specialization offers a unique blend of courses in the behavioural and health sciences. You’ll be able to take the courses you need for admission to professional schools, while leaving the door option to other interesting careers in health.

Experiential learning: co-op or regular
As a Health Studies student, you have two great ways to study - co-op or regular. Regardless of which path you choose, you’ll take the same academic courses, learn in state-of-the-art facilities, and have the support of friendly, helpful staff.

Explore earth processes as they relate to human activities to better understand the impacts of human (and natural) influences on environmental sustainability, biodiversity, and hydrology/hydrogeology.

Environmental science applies geologic knowledge to address and solve problems related to the more than seven billion humans occupying the Earth. Topics you'll learn include climate change, groundwater flow and contamination, environmental impacts of pollution, responsible extraction of earth resources, waste disposal, and human engineering of earth processes. Enjoy examining the interactions between and within the Earth's four spheres that include both living and non-living components.

Train with cutting-edge professors and the latest technologies, at Canada's most innovative university, to directly address challenges facing humanity today and future generations.   

Water Science
Investigate the unique properties of water, the distribution and movement of fresh and salt water above, on, and within the Earth, and the quality and quantity of water that humans depend upon to survive and thrive on this planet.

What is co-op?
Co-op lets you explore careers and gain paid work experience while earning your university degree. What could be better than that?! As a co-op student at Waterloo, you’ll normally alternate between four months in school and four months as a full-time employee of the organization you're working for. It's an amazing way to learn to successfully interview for jobs, see how your degree relates to real-life problems, graduate with up to two years of valuable experience – and make money!

Use your analytical know-how to solve problems in a rapidly changing technology environment. If you want more advanced quantitative and technical skills than are available through traditional business programs, this program is designed for you.

You’ll earn a Bachelor of Mathematics by taking courses from two prestigious institutions: math courses from Waterloo's Faculty of Mathematics and business courses from the School of Business and Economics at nearby Wilfrid Laurier University.

When you graduate, you’ll have all the skills you need for a career as an analyst, information specialist, trader, or many other options, along with paid work experience if you choose to enrol in the co-op stream.

Want to design a brain stimulator to combat symptoms of Parkinson's disease? Develop software to protect companies from cyber attacks? Create the next groundbreaking gaming platform? Learn at one of the top 50 universities in the world for Computer Engineering? (Shanghai World University Rankings 2020)

Between labs and lectures, you'll gain experience with all aspects of computers, from chips and wiring to software, networks, and communications. Meanwhile, your co-op terms will give you 2 years of paid work experience.

You’ll graduate ready for a career as a software developer, hardware engineer, IT specialist, systems designer, and more.

What is co-op?
Co-op lets you explore careers and gain paid work experience while earning your university degree. What could be better than that?! As a co-op student at Waterloo, you’ll normally alternate between four months in school and four months as a full-time employee of the organization you're working for. It's an amazing way to learn to successfully interview for jobs, see how your degree relates to real-life problems, graduate with up to two years of valuable experience – and make money!

How does society handle inequality, poverty, and crime? How do social groups interact? How can we improve health care, criminal justice, religion, the economy, and our relationships to one another?

This is a program where you’ll wrestle with pressing questions — and develop the tools to create solutions to local and global challenges.

You’ll explore topics such as age, class, ethnicity, religion, gender, criminality, education, work, social change, and politics. And when you study Sociology at Waterloo, you’ll learn from leading experts committed to creating an outstanding classroom experience, ranked in the top 100 in the world. (Shanghai World University Rankings 2020)

As a sociologist, you’ll find career opportunities in a wide range of fields, including government, the financial sector, health, policy and research, law, academia, policing, and non-profit organizations. Want to explore them early? You can start by enrolling in the co-op stream and gaining up to two years of work experience prior to graduating.

Get ready to tackle the climate crisis. In this program, you’ll study the science behind the challenges facing our planet’s environment. Combine biology, chemistry, physics, and earth science with human geography to address challenges such as flooding, permafrost thawing, drought and forest fires, peatland degradation, rising sea levels and coastal change, and changing economic opportunities in climate sensitive sectors.

Discover how to manipulate individual atoms and molecules in Materials and Nanosciences at Waterloo. As one of the top two nanoscience programs in Canada (Academic World Ranking of Universities 2020), this program has lots to offer, including co-op opportunities. You’ll learn the ins and outs of designing composite materials, ceramics, semiconductor materials, fuel cells, energy storage devices, solar cells, and more. And thanks to small classes, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to connect with other students and professors.

Materials and Nanoscience is a mix of chemistry, physics, and math. You’ll also take materials science courses where you learn about what makes a substance unique. For example, if you arrange atoms in a certain way, why does the material have stability and strength rather than flexibility? In upper years, you can choose to take more chemistry or physics. It all depends on what aspects of materials science you enjoy.

You’ll graduate ready for a career at the forefront of innovation, helping create environmentally friendly, efficient, and cost-effective solutions in fields ranging from aerospace to biomedicine.

If your passions don’t fit neatly into a traditional university program, consider Knowledge Integration (KI).

The Bachelor of Knowledge Integration is a flexible and challenging transdisciplinary program for creative and diversely talented students. KI offers students the opportunity to explore interests on both sides of the traditional arts and science divide, building their program around a core of skills that will equip them to understand and solve complex problems, communicate effectively, and be able to make a difference in and adapt to a changing and complex world.

Good health care decisions depend on good data. But there’s a crucial shortage of people with the right skills to make sense of statistical information. Step into that gap with a Biostatistics degree from Waterloo — the only one of its kind in Canada.

In this program, you’ll take the same core courses as Statistics students, but with the addition of specialized upper-year courses designed specifically for Biostatistics students. In addition to math courses, you'll take courses in health studies, including health policy, health informatics, and management. You'll also get the chance to get paid work experience through co-op.

Learn how to design clinical experiments, analyze health data, and interpret results. You’ll graduate ready to help create advances in diagnostics, medical technology, and treatments.