The Real Deal on Systems Design Engineering

The most asked question — What the heck is Systems Design Engineering anyways? What does it take to get into the program? How do you manage within it?

This blog post is accompanying our first episode:

Check it out to hear some of our insights and learnings from our first term at the University of Waterloo.

Around this time of year, some grade 12 students may have already heard back receiving their admission offer to Systems Design Engineering. We sent out a survey to some high schoolers to see what their most burning questions were — and here our answers!

Just a disclaimer, this blog is representing the opinions of 4/90 students in the Systems Design Engineering 2024 class, and everyone’s experience is different. We hope you’ll be able to get some insights whether you’re making a decision, looking to apply, or are just curious.

Some of these answers come from multiple people, so we used emojis to differentiate their perspective, and keep things anonymous — so you can focus more on the content, rather than the people who said it.

What do you think the biggest difference is between systems design engineering and other engineering programs?

1. Systems Design and Biomedical Engineering have their own department and are run completely separate from other programs. We have our own lounge and computer lab and completely different course codes. This can be a good or bad thing — your education is more specialized and catered towards you, however, it becomes harder to relate to the broader engineering community when you can’t study together for the same courses.
2. The community — SYDE is quite small, with around 90–100 students per year. As one upper-year mentioned before, you’ll know everyone’s name and their dog’s name. SYDE has a great mentorship program where you’re paired with someone from the class two years above yours.
3. Flexible and general. With Systems, there is no specific career you’re meant to do. People work in a wide range of co-ops and it’s a great opportunity to get a solid foundation for everything involving technology, but you won’t necessarily be an expert at it until you go the extra mile

What was the admission average last year for SYDE?

• If you want the actual admission average, check the Waterloo admisions website: https://uwaterloo.ca/engineering/future-undergraduate-students/application-process/admission-averages or look at the Road to Engineering written by the director of Engineering Admissions: https://theroadtoengineering.com
• Our take on it — marks can vary. There are probably people in our class ranging from 80s to the 98–100s. Systems Design Engineering specifically relies heavily on the AIF — with the faculty themselves reading it. Majority of students from Systems played leadership roles in high school, whether being president of a club, being involved in sports, the arts, or business competitions. Make sure to highlight your experience as best as you can and do research on the program. We also recommend talking to current students (like us — you can DM us on Instagram @forcontext) to get their insights.

What are the different extracurriculars you can be a part of at Waterloo?

• There are tons of clubs to get involved in! For engineering, there are student design teams which are the perfect way to gain technical skills and meet a lot of other students as well. There are engineering ambassadors as well who do Shadow Days. Some big tech-oriented clubs include UW PM (product management), UW Blueprint(pairs student design teams with nonprofit organizations to build projects), Women in Computer Science, UW Data Science, and the Hack the North organizing team.
• On the topic of hackathons — Waterloo’s the perfect place to kick-start entrepreneurial ideas from various hackathons taking place here including Hack the North and Starterhacks.
• Outside of engineering, there’s a wide variety from the Fashion for Change show, Acapella, Intramurals (you can make your own team), and more!

How much programming experience is required to do well at SYDE?

• 😎: In your first term of SYDE, you have one programming course — SYDE 121: Digital Computation. This is meant for beginners and there several people who came to Systems never having programmed before. The content does go faster as the term progresses, so it’s good to seek help when you can!
• 🤩: Systems Design Engineering students take SYDE 121, Digital Computation, in their first term here at Waterloo. It is meant to be an introductory programming course taught using the C++ language, to provide students with the fundamental skills necessary to solve simple software problems. Students who have experience with programming prior to university may find this course fairly slow as it is mostly a review of concepts covered in high school. However, I think students who have little or no experience in programming will face a learning curve, which definitely shouldn’t feel like a discouragement! There are so many resources and people to reach out to for support on campus.

How difficult is the course work? Is there a competitive ranking system? Is it difficult to attend grad school after completing SYDE?

• 🥳: The transition between high school and university is a tough one; no matter the program or school. From completing 4 courses per term in highschool to 7–8 courses per term in university, students often have difficulty adjusting. However, I want you all to know that facing academic challenges early on in your university career is a good thing! By developing strong study skills and an academic foundation in 1A, you will be able to succeed in the following terms with ease. There is a ranking system within all programs at Waterloo Engineering, but it is up to you if you’d like to see your class rank within the cohort — It can be beneficial in terms of job opportunities, but as you’ll soon discover, employers typically prioritize experience and projects over the numbers on your transcript. There are a number of students that have attended grad school after completing SYDE, with some students continuing to pursue Systems through a MSc, others landing at top schools for their MBA, and even some pursuing an MD or JD! It is important to note that students may have to overload to take any courses required for a graduate program, and complete additional preparation for exams such as the MCAT/LSAT outside of class time.
• 🤩: I came from a standard Ontario public high school and was not enrolled in any specialized programs or courses like AP or IB, but I generally felt confident in my understanding of the classes that I did take, such as physics and calculus. A lot of my study habits and note-taking strategies definitely carried over from high school, and I think that the smaller classrooms and cohort within SYDE made this transition a lot smoother. However, this did not mean that I didn’t experience hardships during my study term, and in fact a lot of my classes were wakeup calls for me. I often found it hard to juggle my responsibilities, school commitments and social life. I had to come to the realization that the only person really holding me accountable at the end of the day was myself, and from there took steps to change up my habits and find a good balance.
• 😊: In some courses like SYDE 111, Fundamental Engineering Math 1, you will be expected to come in already having a solid foundation of concepts covered in the high school curriculum. If you feel that this is not you, I would highly recommend reviewing these topics as early as you can or you will find yourself falling behind (there are a number of online resources such as CEMC that you can use to review this!).

What are the co-op opportunities like at SYDE? What type of companies traditionally hire SYDE students? Is it more difficult to get a co-op position at SYDE because it’s more general?

• What attracts many students to the University of Waterloo is the co-experience that they can gain during their undergraduate career. As a disclaimer, I’d like to point out that the program you’re in doesn’t determine the opportunities and access you have to co-op jobs, and students can explore positions in a wide variety of fields and spaces. For our first co-op term in SYDE, we had classmates take on roles in project management, UX/UI design, software development, engineering design, consulting and much more. The interdisciplinarity of SYDE definitely does mean that students might not be able to take as many specialized courses in a particular field they might be interested in. I think that is something important to keep note of if you’re comparing SYDE with other programs. Take a look at the Waterloo website to see what kind of companies hire from SYDE, or search through Linkedin to see what internships Systems students are finding — Note that each cohort is different and though a program’s establishment or alumni may support a student landing an interview, the offer is based completely off of the student’s individual merit. We’ll delve more into our experiences applying for co-op and our first internships in a future podcast episode and blog post!

What are you guys thinking of specializing in?

• 🌸: not sure yet! It’s only been four months of school. I definitely like to separate school and the things I do in work/self-learn, since school is the best way to challenge yourself and learn something you wouldn’t traditionally do — exactly why I’m pursuing engineering in the first place. I’m considering the machine intelligence or cognitive science option, so I can get a deeper understanding of either how machines make smart decisions or how people think. Beyond undergrad, I am considering an MBA but it really depends on my career — debatable whether if I’ll want to do more school after 5 years of Waterloo.
• 🥳: In Systems, we have two options to ‘specialize.’ There are minors and options! Options in SYDE range from Management Sciences to ones that focus on Biomedical Engineering, and they require that you use your electives to fulfill the requirements of these courses (more specifications can be found on the Systems Design Engineering website). Speaking for myself as one of the 4 members of For Context, I will be completing a minor in Economics (as of now, things may change in the future as I learn more about what I’d like to do in the future). This requires that I overload my courses, meaning I complete more than the allotted credits in one term or complete courses over my co-op terms (I’m likely to choose the latter). However, there are a number of students that choose not to specialize in anything, and this is by no means necessary to succeed or find awesome co-op jobs, it just allows you to explore something else that you’re interested in and receive an additional stamp on your degree!

We hope these were able to answer some of your questions! If you want to learn more, feel free to DM us on Instagram. Please say hi! 👋

We know these questions were clear-cut and straight to the point. If you want to hear our candid reflections, rambles, and in-between, check out our podcast where we chat about our SYDE 1A Experience was with no filter. We give you the good, bad, and not so pretty — the real deal.