Bachelor of Arts in Honours Arts - Fine Arts - Studio Practice

at University of Waterloo Canada

Learn to wow your audience as you explore theatre and performance in one of Canada’s most creative drama programs. Go beyond art history books and collaborate with professors, visiting artists, and other students to make high quality work that contributes to a just society. You'll learn by doing, covering performance to management, design to critical studies, and creation to technology. 

In the classroom, courses in performance, production, design, direction, and management will give you the technical tools to excel at your craft. Meanwhile, complementary courses in politics, race, gender, theory, technology, and aesthetics will help you decide what messages matter. You can apply your knowledge to co-op placements too.

By the time you graduate, you’ll have a rich portfolio to take into the world of theatre, plus a range of creative, analytical, and management skills that will serve you well in any number of roles, on stage or off.

Love the written word? An English degree at Waterloo gives you all kinds of opportunity to explore that passion, with more than 150 undergraduate courses available in both the regular and co-op streams.

Take rhetoric courses and learn the art of persuasion. Focus on digital media, where you’ll merge the latest technology with enduring principles of effective communication. Or explore the pleasures and insights of English literature, from Beowulf to Virginia Woolf.

At Waterloo, you’ll be learning from the best: the Department of English features internationally recognized scholars. In their classes, you’ll develop all-important skills in communication, critical thinking, analysis, and persuasion.

At the end of first year, you can choose one of three majors within the English program.

• Literature
• Literature and Rhetoric
• Rhetoric, Media, and Professional Communication

Literature
Your literature degree will give you a comprehensive foundation in English literature while allowing you to pursue your literary interests and passions. Literature is one of three majors we offer.

You will have the opportunity to explore literatures from all over the world--British, postcolonial, Canadian, and American. You'll study a broad variety of texts, from Renaissance drama to fantasy and science fiction, from poetry to graphic narratives.

When you graduate you'll be prepared for further study in fields like law or education, for graduate study, or for a variety of careers in areas such as government, business, industry, or art—any career, in other words, that values excellent communication and analytical skills.

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.

The Honours Visual Culture academic plan focuses on the important role visual culture plays within culture and society. The academic plan is intended to be truly interdisciplinary with a focus on the history and theory of visual culture while recognizing the rapidly growing international contexts and vastly diverse cultures of spectatorship. The plan consists of a spine of five courses in visual culture, beginning with introductory courses that situate art and film within the wider context of visuality (i.e. how we see the world), followed by courses that address visual culture from a variety of disciplines and within diverse theoretical models, and culminates in an independent tutorial-style course in which students prepare a final-year thesis under the supervision of a faculty member. These courses are supplemented by at least 11 other courses that concentrate on different aspects of visual culture, chosen from more than one hundred possibilities taught in over 20 different departments and units across the university.

Students enrolled in the Honours Fine Arts – Visual Culture academic plan may wish to enhance their plan by taking a second upper-level course (VCULT 401) in their final year that is a continuation of the final-year thesis.

In a bilingual country and an ever-more globalized world, knowledge of French as a second language gives you an edge in almost any field.

At Waterloo, you can choose language courses that range from basic to advanced, as well as a wide variety of courses in French linguistics, literature, culture, and civilization. You’ll learn from professors that include Governor General prize-winners and world experts in French.

In a rapidly changing and increasingly globalized world, the insights of anthropology are more valuable than ever.

In Anthropology at Waterloo, you’ll explore cultures past and present. Delve into the origins of human and primate evolution, use archaeology to learn more about earlier societies, or tackle contemporary issues such as violence and media.

Our first-year introductory anthropology course exposes you to the breadth of this discipline. In your upper years, you can focus your degree on the area of anthropology that interests you most: socio-cultural, archaeological, or biological (physical) anthropology.

You’ll graduate to a wide range of career options, including market research, cultural resource management, forensic anthropology, and international development, with the added bonus of work experience if you take the co-op stream.

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.

Health Informatics Option
An option is an academic plan that provides depth to a student's baccalaureate degree and typically requires fewer courses than a minor. Options are only available to students within their home faculty.

Health Informatics (HI) is a multidisciplinary field that investigates how computer technologies can be used to better generate, manage, store, and apply health information. In the Health Informatics Option, you will take courses from the health sciences, computer science, statistics, behavioural and social sciences, and epidemiology.

Career opportunities often involve the design and implementation of health information systems (e.g., establishing electronic patient records, or establishing ‘best practices’ databases) in various health care settings.

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.

Use your knowledge of soil and rock behaviour to solve complex problems. Ensure the safety of dams and pipelines, assess risks for landslides and earthquakes, remove hazardous waste from groundwater, and more.

Waterloo’s program is one of only two in Ontario. You’ll take Civil Engineering classes, where you’ll learn design and problem-solving skills. You’ll also take Earth Sciences classes, where you’ll acquire a solid background in geosciences. Meanwhile, through co-op, you'll gain two full years of related work experience.

When you graduate, your degree can take you around the world — working in oil and gas, mineral exploration, hazard waste removal, groundwater management, 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!

Discover how to enhance quality of life by improving physical, social, and mental health. In Recreation and Leisure Studies, you’ll learn how well-designed recreation programs can foster inclusivity and strengthen the cultural fabric of a community.

Recreation and Leisure Studies represents one of the world's largest and fastest growing industries. If you think about it, anything that you are doing outside of work, school and sleeping, is some form of recreation and leisure.

Here at the University of Waterloo you'll learn from world-class professors how you can influence, encourage, and provide programs and services that help people maximize their quality of life. Whether you're into sports marketing, ecotourism, therapeutic recreation, or event management, the opportunities are endless.

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!

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.   

Geoscience
Focus on the interactions among the geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere, as well as the human activities and encompass the complex and dynamic earth system. Study topics such as surface and subsurface contamination, urbanization, impacts of agriculture, and mining.

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!