Bachelor of Public Health - Health Research Specialization (Co-op Optional)

at University of Waterloo Canada

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.

In one of the most advanced undergraduate finance programs in the world, you’ll focus on the math behind financial markets.

Offered jointly by the Department of Pure Mathematics and the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, Mathematical Finance is designed for students with elite mathematical abilities who wish to pursue finance combined with pure mathematics.

Our challenging curriculum includes courses on corporate finance, mathematical finance, asset-liability management, statistics, and forecasting. It also provides a co-op stream where students can gain up to two years of paid work experience.

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!

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

The Rhetoric, Media, and Professional Communication program
Rhetoric, Media, and Professional Communication is one of three majors offered by the English Department. RMPC offers both intellectual challenge and practical insight into rhetoric, professional writing and information design, and digital media.

This degree will give you a solid grounding in classical and contemporary rhetoric and allow you to pursue interests in advertising, technical writing, document design, and digital media.

Courses
In the English-RMPC program you will be taking courses that span a number of different fields:

• Rhetoric and professional communication courses will give you experience not only in writing in a variety of modes and for a variety of purposes and audiences, but also in exploring a variety of research methods.
• Digital media courses will give you opportunities to both analyze and create a broad variety of digital media texts.
• Linguistics courses will show you the nature and structure of the language through which we express and define ourselves. 
• Literature and criticism courses will allow you to select from a broad range of traditions, including British, Canadian, American, and Postcolonial literatures.
• RMPC electives will give you the opportunity to extend your interests in many directions.
• On graduation, you'll be prepared for graduate studies in several areas including literature, language, communications, and composition studies, or for a career in business, industry, government, teaching, or communications—in any field, in other words, that values a well-educated person capable of analytical, critical, and creative thinking, writing, and speaking.

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!

Philosophy has long been a central component of a liberal arts education — and with good reason. It teaches you critical reasoning like no other discipline. It’s also an excellent addition to studies in mathematics and the sciences. 

In the Philosophy program at Waterloo, you’ll explore enduring dilemmas of human existence, learn the fundamentals of formal logic, and apply philosophical reasoning to highly topical issues and current events. And have the opportunity to apply it all in your co-op work terms, too.

Once you graduate, you’ll have a wide range of options. A philosophy degree is ideal for a career in law and valuable preparation for just about any field that demands breadth of thinking, careful reading, thorough analysis, and clear argumentation.

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. 

Mathematics is the foundation of commerce, computing, engineering, and science. This program is the most flexible of all programs in the Faculty of Mathematics.

It provides you with a broad mathematics education, including courses in algebra, calculus, combinatorics, computer science, geometry, number theory, and statistics, in addition to the opportunity to gain up to two years of paid work experience through co-op. If you enjoy mathematics and want the opportunity to hone your analytical, technical, and problem-solving skills, but don’t want to narrow your focus on one major only, then this program is for you.

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.

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!

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.

Are you passionate about recreation and sport, and interested in business? At Waterloo there’s no need to compromise. Our one-of-a-kind Recreation and Sport Business program enables you to combine recreation courses with transferable business skills – giving you the best of both worlds!

What will I get out of the program?

• Gain a solid understanding of recreation combined with business skills in areas such as accounting, finance, human resources and marketing. With your solid understanding of recreation and leisure, and the skills to develop and deliver products and services, you’ll be uniquely qualified to pursue a career in the recreation and sport industry and beyond.
• Prepare to work in the public, private, or not-for-profit sectors, start your own business or pursue graduate studies (e.g. an MBA).

Our small classes create lots of opportunity for animated discussions, while the co-op option offers relevant work experience before you graduate.
In your upper years, an impressively wide range of courses let you focus on the events, themes, or historical time periods that intrigue you most. Delve deep with four possible specializations, or broaden your education with courses from other disciplines.

Whichever way you shape your degree, you’ll develop an invaluable set of skills — technical, creative, critical, and analytical — that will serve you well in almost any career.

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 understanding of mathematical concepts to solve complex problems in engineering, medicine, business, and science, from the behaviour of ocean waves to the structure of space-time.

In Applied Mathematics, you’ll deepen your knowledge of calculus and differential equations: the foundation for most mathematical models. You’ll have lots of opportunity to put those tools to work on real-life problems — in the classroom and, if you choose co-op, during your work terms.

Many of our Applied Mathematics graduates work in research, development, and consulting. Others pursue graduate studies in applied mathematics, computer science, engineering, or physics.

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!