BA/BS in Systems Design Engineering at University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Canada is a bachelor's degree in Industrial & Systems Engineering programme. The programme runs for 5 years, delivered on campus. Tuition for international students is CAD 34,942 per semester (CAD 7,124 per semester for local students).
Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo awards a Bachelor of Applied Science and is offered only as a co-op program at the undergraduate level, with work terms beginning in the spring of first year. The curriculum applies systems thinking and design methodology across electrical, mechanical, and software engineering fundamentals, systems modelling and simulation, human factors engineering, and statistics, optimization, and machine learning, building on first-year physics, calculus, and linear algebra. Students can specialize in Human Factors and Design, Neurobiological Systems, Vision AI Systems, Societal and Environmental Systems, Biomedical Systems, or Sports Engineering Systems, and can add Computing, Management Science, or Artificial Intelligence options. Co-op terms alternate with study throughout the degree, delivered on the Waterloo campus. It suits students who want a broad, interdisciplinary engineering foundation with a strong design focus, oriented toward roles in business analysis, technology consulting, applications engineering, hardware or product management, user experience design, or graduate study.
Requirements
Admission Requirements: Direct entry from Ontario high school for Systems Design Engineering. Required: six Grade 12 U/M courses including Advanced Functions, Calculus and Vectors, Chemistry, Physics and English (ENG4U), each with a minimum final grade of 70%. Admission is competitive: the Faculty of Engineering selects individually, with an admission average trend of the high 80s to low 90s. All Engineering applicants, admitted individually against these prerequisites, must also complete the Admission Information Form (AIF) and an online interview, per the University of Waterloo's own admission requirements. International and non-Ontario applicants follow the equivalent OUAC route with the program's prerequisite subjects. Applicants whose secondary education was not in Canada or in English follow the same OUAC route and must meet Waterloo's institution-wide English proficiency requirement: IELTS Academic 6.5 overall (6.0 minimum band, 6.5 in writing and speaking), TOEFL iBT 4.5 overall with 5 in writing and speaking for tests from 21 January 2026 onward (90 overall with 25 in writing and speaking for earlier tests), PTE Academic 63 (65 in writing and speaking), or Duolingo 120 (125 in Literacy and Production).
Application Details
Start Date:September
Application Deadline:Waterloo admits first-year students for September entry only, through the OUAC, with identical deadlines for domestic and international applicants. For Fall 2027, most programmes must be applied to by 1 February 2027 with documents due 15 February 2027; Engineering programmes (excluding Architecture) close earlier, on 15 January 2027, with documents due 1 February 2027, and require an online interview. Waterloo states a deadline may be extended if a programme is not yet full, but publishes no separate rolling-admission date and no explicit application-opening date. Pharmacy is a named exception with its own earlier deadline; Social Work and the Conditional Admission to Pharmacy stream are directed to programme-specific timelines outside this page. These are institution-wide dates; this programme publishes no deadline of its own.
