Electrical Engineering in Waterloo: What Future Engineers Need to Know

Alice Lu, an undergraduate student currently in the University of Waterloo’s Electrical Engineering program, has recently shared her journey through one of the most prestigious engineering programs in Canada. 

Why did she choose engineering?

Alice didn’t choose engineering right away. As someone who excelled in problem-solving and math throughout her high school career, she had to make a choice. Although she initially considered entering law, Alice felt that she would struggle to defend cases she disagreed with, which would lead to a conflict with her personal values. After weighing her options, she finally decided on engineering during her 12th-grade year, partly because it was very heavily involved in math, arguably more than most other engineering majors. She emphasizes that it’s completely normal if you’re unsure of what to major in until your final year in high school, and even after specializing, university students often have trouble picking their field of employment.

How’s Admission?

Alice describes Waterloo’s admission as holistic, meaning they factor in not just an individual’s grades, but their background, essay, and more. This increases focus on extracurricular involvement and standing out when applicants all have mid-to-high nineties. Diversifying, but also actually having interest in your chosen extracurriculars will keep you well rounded and provide depth to your application. Alice advises to write authentically, to not “write like a robot.” Waterloo is looking for the real you, not perfection. Demonstrating a level of maturity and learning from experiences in the past is exactly what will improve your chances of getting in. In fact, Waterloo adjusts applicants’ averages annually, and this changes per school board, province, etc. This is in order to combat grade inflation and provide a more realistic prediction on how successful an applicant would do in the program. 

Waterloo’s Student Life

Alice has a highly rigorous schedule, having classes from 8-5 many days. This is a much higher workload than high school, but she describes it as manageable if you can plan out your time well and adapt. Another large shock compared to high school is that now classes aren’t mandatory in university, so students strategically decide what classes to attend or skip because of the insane workload. Although students are required to go to class for quizzes and such, lectures can be skipped in general. Since Alice has had mostly the same people across her classes, she finds making friends to be quite easy. However, it can’t be ignored that many students at Waterloo find its social scene to be somewhat underwhelming compared to “party” schools such as Western. Waterloo students often walk to Laurier University (which is down the street) to party.

Co-op Program Misconceptions

Students in the engineering program are automatically placed in the co-op system (WaterlooWorks), and will have their education and work split up into certain months, usually 4 months of school, and 4 months of work.  However, a common misconception is that these co-op jobs are automatically handed out to students. In fact, they are highly competitive, and need hours of time investment applying to stand out to companies. First years have it the hardest because of their lack of experience, and priority given to higher years. 

Electrical Engineering’s Reality

Electrical Engineering is known to be flexible, being able to take a wide variety of positions such as being a software developer or a project manager. Though, this can be a double-edged sword due to more specialized fields having an advantage for specific jobs. For example, Electrical Engineers will often compete with Software Engineers and Computer Science majors for tech jobs that have an advantage in the tech industry. Instead, Electrical Engineering’s hands-on nature along with having coding experience allow it to thrive in fields that other tech majors would not be able to, such as Power Systems, and Hardware.

Life Management + Conclusion

Alice is open about the reality: Electrical Engineering isn’t for everyone. Students move homes often, which can be too much of a fast-paced lifestyle for some. The Waterloo “Grind” is real, and self-care is just as important as academic performance. Procrastination (work piles up very fast), lack of sleep, and junk food are the quickest ways to burn out. Alice combats these risk factors by working consistently, sleeping eight hours a day, and taking care of her physical health by being active. While Waterloo isn’t a party school, weekends can still be fun with friends. For high schoolers, it’s totally okay to be uncertain, and students aren’t expected to know where they’ll be in the next decade. Doing extracurriculars for the sake of it isn’t going to make life enjoyable: you don’t need to do everything to impress admissions. University is a marathon, so it’s important to pace yourself, and enjoy the ride.