The Faculty of Engineering offers an Accelerated Bachelor's-Master's program to high achieving University of Waterloo undergraduate students who are interested in pursuing graduate studies. Students must apply for admission to the Accelerated program in their 3B term. If admitted to the Master of Applied Science (MASc) program, students will undertake graduate work during their 4A and 4B terms. The Bachelor's degree is awarded at the normal completion of the undergraduate program; graduate course (maximum of 2) credits are applied to the Master's program resulting in a reduction in the number of terms required to complete the MASc program.
Individual Faculty of Engineering Departments may set requirements higher than the minimum requirements for the Accelerated Program.
Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Accelerated BASc-MASc Program Requirements
The ECE Department will only consider applicants to this program if they meet the 80% overall average requirement. The MASc program requires completion of 5 graduate level courses (0.50 unit weight per course) plus a thesis and a graduate seminar. There is no project option in ECE. At least 2 of the courses must be from the list of approved core courses (updated by the Department annually) in one of the 13 approved areas of specialization as specified in the student's letter of admission. The choice of courses must meet with the approval of the supervisor.
ECE supervisors have to be found for students before they are admitted to this program even though they may satisfy the academic requirements. Interested students are encouraged to talk to individual ECE faculty members and explore possibilities of supervision. Both the academic program and financial details should be worked out between the student and the supervisor. These arrangements must then be approved by the ECE Associate Chair for Graduate Studies.
Coursework
Students accepted to the BASc-MASc accelerated program can take, during their 4A or 4B terms or during their undergraduate work term, as extra to degree, an approved ECE graduate course which could count towards their MASc degree. This course will not count towards their BASc degree requirements and can only take with approval of the graduate course instructor, their supervisor and the ECE Associate Chair for Graduate Studies.
With approval of the supervisor and ECE Associate Chair for Graduate Studies, work done by students during their fourth-year work term(s) under the direction of the supervisor can be included in their MASc thesis provided this work was not used for a ECE 499 project. Note: If the work is done in industry, permission from the company for the work to be published will be necessary.