Bachelor of Science in Physical Sciences - Life Physics

at University of Waterloo Canada

How will the stock market perform next February? How much will insurance companies pay out in claims next year? With an Actuarial Science degree from Waterloo, you’ll have the answers.

In this program, you'll take courses such as the mathematics of finance, risk theory, and pension mathematics taught by professional actuaries in one of North America’s top actuarial schools.

Meanwhile, adding computer science, arts, and various math electives will give you the combination of technical and communication skills that employers are looking for.

Whether you choose the regular stream or the co-op stream, you'll graduate ready to enter a great job market with great prospects and high starting salaries.

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!

Learn to tackle issues of economic inequality, social injustice, and environmental change. Build capacity to solve problems at the local level. We’ll give you lots of tools to put in your toolkit, including business skills, problem solving, cultural understanding, economic development, social accounting, and more.

Meanwhile, adding some environmental studies, social sciences, and language courses will strengthen your adaptability and thinking skills. You’ll graduate knowing how to design development projects that are ethical, environmentally sustainable, culturally responsible, and scientifically accountable.

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

Study the power, elegance, “how,” and “why” of math. In this rigorous program, you'll cover the spectrum of mathematics — from classical to modern — including geometry, number theory, and logic.

Because Pure Mathematics classes are among the smallest and most cohesive in the Faculty of Mathematics, you’ll get to know both your classmates and your profs. (Profs who are doing ground-breaking research when they’re not in the classroom.) You'll also get the opportunity to get paid work experience through co-op.

Pure Mathematics will provide you with problem-solving skills that can be applied in industry, business, government, or graduate school.

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.

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

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.

Life Sciences is the study of living organisms, ranging from the very tiny world of microbiology and genetics to the physiology and zoology of the world’s great mammals – with plants, botany, and more in between!

At Waterloo, Life Sciences is a group of related majors. The four Life Sciences majors (Biochemistry, Biology, Biomedical Sciences, and Psychology) bring together disciplines such as biology, chemistry, physics, and math to help you learn how living systems work and interact. When you apply to Waterloo, you'll select one of the majors and get to do labs and experiments starting right in first year. You can choose the co-op program or the regular system of study 

Biology
Explore all aspects of life and living creatures – from cells and genes to species and diversity.

Some of the greatest scientific discoveries have occurred within the field of biology, including the mapping of the human genome, identifying the structure of DNA, and how photosynthesis works. All of these revelations happened because dedicated scientists looked at the world a little differently.

At Waterloo, you’ll dive into your Biology major right from day one. And with more than 80 biology courses available, you’ve got plenty of options. From microbes and genes to plants and zoology, we've got something for anyone who's passionate about living systems.

You’ll graduate ready for a career in laboratory or field research, environmental assessment, education, health professions, or industry. If you enrol in co-op, you'll also have up to two years of paid work experience to add to your resume.

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!

From the ATM down the street to the drone that will one day deliver your pizza, computer-controlled electromechanical systems drive all kinds of technology. Learn to design those systems in Waterloo’s Mechatronics Engineering program — the first of its kind in Canada and one of the top 100 in the world (Shanghai World University Rankings 2020).

You’ll develop expertise in mechanical engineering, electronics, control engineering, and computer science, pulling together know-how from these different fields to develop sophisticated machines.

During your co-op terms, you’ll have the chance to try out different career paths, earn money to pay for your education, and build a résumé guaranteed to impress potential employers.

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!

Canada’s largest Environmental Engineering program gives you the technical rigour of an engineering degree combined with scientific know-how and environmental insights. As it's also one of the top 100 environmental engineering programs in the world (Shanghai World University Rankings 2020), you’ll take courses in engineering, chemistry, biology, geology, and more, drawing on that broad base of knowledge to tackle water, soil, and air pollution.

Meanwhile, you’ll gain two years of paid experience through your co-op work terms, allowing you to earn money to help pay for your education and discover the career areas that fit you best.

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!

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.