About the program
Software Engineering (SE) at the University of Waterloo is an interdisciplinary program supported by both the Faculty of Mathematics and the Faculty of Engineering. SE follows the UW engineering cohort system, meaning students spend 8 semesters in school with similar academic schedules and (generally) have the same co-op sequence, consisting of 6 co-op terms where they can gain experience.
At the of their 4 ⅔-year journey, SE undergraduates are awarded a Bachelor of Software Engineering degree 🎉
This project is not affiliated with the SE program or the University of Waterloo in any way.
About this profile
The purpose of this class profile is to provide an insight into the SE program. It showcases who SE graduating class of 2025 (SE25 for short) students are and what their journey through university was like. Whether you're a prospective student, a current student, or just curious about this program, we hope you find what you're looking for here!
The data in this profile was collected across five surveys. All surveys were conducted during the Winter 2025 term beginning February 1st, and closing on March 16th 2025. Four of these surveys were sent to SE25 students, and a fifth was spread to those who switched out of SE25.
The graduating class of SE25 is 117 students. In total, 79 out of the 117 (68%) graduating students responded. All data presented in this profile has been self-reported by survey respondents.
All survey questions were optional. The response N for each question is labelled in the profile. Currency-related questions were asked to specify in CAD unless otherwise stated.
Now with that all out of the way...
Table of Contents
Post-graduation plans; graduate school, full-time employment (this is where the TC stats are)
Getting paid more is always great, so here's all you'll need to know about what affects co-op and full-time compensation
Timeline
WINTER 2020 (Pre-SE25)
- COVID-19 declared a pandemic by WHO
- Lockdown begins in Ontario
- Early acceptances to SE25 are released
FALL 2020 - 1A
- Waterloo's first remote orientation week
- SE25's first (1A) school term begins; fully remote
- 59th US Presidential Election
WINTER 2021 - 1B
- January 20, 2021: Joe Biden becomes 46th President of the United States
- Waterloo drops 'Beyond Ideas' slogan
SPRING 2021 - Co-op 1
- Vivek Goel succeeds Feridun Hamdullahpur as president and vice-chancellor of the University of Waterloo
FALL 2021 - 2A
- First hybrid school term; first in-person tutorials for select classes (2A)
WINTER 2022 - Co-op 2
- Waterloo rolls out operation of new bus station at University of Waterloo (E7)
- Russia invades Ukraine
SPRING 2022 - 2B
- First in-person school term (2B)
FALL 2022 - Co-op 3
- Queen Elizabeth passes away
- Elon Musk acquires Twitter (X)
- ChatGPT released for public use
WINTER 2023 - 3A
SPRING 2023 - Co-op 4
- Victoria Sakhnini succeeds Derek Rayside as SE Program Director, Paul Ward becomes SE Associate Director
FALL 2023 - 3B
- SE first offered the choice to switch between streams 8 and 8x
WINTER 2024 - Co-op 5
SPRING 2024 - 4A/Co-op 6
- Stream 8 is in school, Stream 8x is on co-op
FALL 2024 - Co-op 6/4A
- Stream 8 is on co-op, Stream 8 is in school
- DC-MC bridge closes
- 60th US Presidential Election
WINTER 2025 - 4B
- Justin Trudeau resigns
- UWP Boilergate Incident (boilers in residences break down)
- Donald Trump becomes 47th President of the United States
- 100th year of the Iron Ring Ceremony
- SE25 graduates!
SPRING 2025 (Post-SE25)
- SE25 convocation
Farewell Messages From Faculty
We asked our favourite profs, lecturers, and admin to give some closing remarks as we left for the road ahead. Here were some of the things they said:
(Click on an image to view. Hold C to toggle speed.)
Victoria Sakhnini
Jeff Zarnett
Peter Buhr
Surya Banerjee
If you have siblings...
Advanced Technical Electives (ATEs)
Taking advanced technical electives is a degree requirement for SE! SE25 only needed three to graduate (one from List 1, List 2 and optionally another from List 1, List 2 or from List 3). Future SE may need more - the current listed requirements is four. All current degree requirements can be found here.About FYDP
Capstone Design1 provides Waterloo Engineering students with the unique opportunity to conceptualize and design a project related to their chosen discipline. As part of Waterloo's Engineering Faculty, this project is a degree requirement for Software Engineering students - we begin working on this project in third-year.The complete list of Software Engineering Capstone Designs2 (FYDP - Fourth-Year Design Projects) can be found here!
Computer Science students can also optionally partake in a FYDP by taking CS 493 and CS 4943.
- https://uwaterloo.ca/capstone-design/
- Students (including those in non-engineering programs) may instead participate in the Interdisciplinary Capstone Design Symposium for their FYDP - their projects can be found here!
- About the courses mentioned above:
CS 493: Team Project 1
CS 494: Team Project 2
How many times do you cook or go out to eat per week...
If you have gotten COVID...
How often did you have imposter syndrome...
Have you ever...
In comparison to an average UW term...
About SE Cost
The average yearly tuition for Canadian undergraduates studying in Ontario during 2024/2025 was $12491 for engineering, and $8661 for mathematics, computer and information sciences (source). It was about $16792 for SE25 in 2024/2025.
Note this cost is higher for SE students who are Canadian citizens but not Ontario residents, and generally much higher for international students.
UW Software Engineering has a dedicated scholarships and awards page here.
| SE Cost for Ontario Resident | ||
|---|---|---|
| Term | Tuition | Co-op Fee |
| 1A | 6985 | 734 |
| 1B | 6985 | 734 |
| 2A | 6985 | 739 |
| 2B | 6985 | 745 |
| 3A | 6985 | 745 |
| 3B | 6985 | 756 |
| 4A | 6985 | 786 |
| 4B | 6985 | 786 |
SE25 Switch Out Survey
The following results are from surveying 8 students who started university in SE25 before switching out.Fun fact, SE25 started with 147 students, and ended with 117. It's also worth noting for this stat that not only did students switch out of SE25, but some students also transferred into the cohort.
Future: Grad School
Only respondents who selected that they were planning on grad school were shown this part of the survey.If you have accepted or are planning to accept a grad school offer...
Future: Employment
Only respondents who selected they had received or accepted employment were shown the rest of the survey questions under this section.A Note on Full-Time Compensation
For full-time compensation, respondents gave the currency they would be paid in, and we used the same conversion factor for all values (unlike co-op compensation, where respondents converted to CAD by themselves). At the time of converting, the average USD to CAD rate was 1.43, and the average GBP to CAD rate was 1.85These numbers should be taken with a grain of salt - firstly, respondents who had more well-compensated jobs were more likely to respond, and secondly this sample size is quite small with only around 40 responses per question.
Data displayed on the box plot hover has been rounded to the nearest thousand for better readability. The Include/Exclude Outliers toggle is relative to the original data.
There is a lot of crowdsourced public data on full-time salaries available, such as on levels.fyi and we invite you to look at those, and to contribute when the time comes (this class profile is not affiliated with levels.fyi specifically).
