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Final Examinations

This document is divided into seven parts:

and remember, there is always the Engineering Society's exam bank to take a look at.

In addition, there are links for supplemental and deferred examinations.

Registrar's Office

The following three pages from the Registrar's Office may be of some assistance.

Introduction

A course in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering will typically have lectures, tutorials, and laboratories associated with it. Most courses will have a Mid-term Examination, usually 90 minutes in length. Normally, a period of one to two weeks is designated during the term and all Mid-term Examinations in departmental courses are held during this period, usually in the late afternoon/evening so as not to interfere with lectures, laboratories, and interviews. The Mid-term Examination grades are normally counted toward the final grade, but the manner in which this is done is left to the discretion of the individual instructor. It is also a policy of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering that any assignments completed during the course cannot have a total weight greater than 10%. This is mainly to encourage students to view the assignments as an aid to learning rather than as a form of weekly testing.

Departmental policies of interest to students with respect to final examinations are:

  1. The final examination must be a written 2.5 hours with a weight of at least 50%.
  2. When calculators are permitted, only nonprogrammable calculators, with numeric display and no memo memory are allowed.
  3. If a student misses a normally scheduled examination, the student should contact both the course instructor and their Academic Advisor to justify missing the examination. Failure to do so could result in an academic decision of required to withdraw from Engineering (FL3).

For a full set of University regulations with respect to final examinations, see the University of Waterloo Examination Regulations page.

The Scheduling of Final Examinations

Many of the courses offered in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering are of interest to other students in the University, such as those in Physics or Computer Science. This means that arriving at a conflict-free exam schedule is extremely difficult and can only be achieved by allowing all exams to be scheduled by the Registrar. This often leads to less than optimum schedules for Computer Engineering or Electrical Engineering students.

There is, unfortunately, absolutely nothing we can do about this process. Contacting the department will only take time away from your study time.

Conflicts

There are certain circumstances which the Registrar's Office consider to be a conflict including:

  • Writing two examinations in a row,
  • Writing in the last period on one day and the first period on the next day, and
  • Writing more than two examinations on the same day.

The details of this are discussed thoroughly on the Registrar's Office Final Examinations page, and if a conflict occurs, you can submit the on-line Examination Relief Form. The due date for such Forms tends to be close to the middle of the Term. It is critical, therefore, that you check for conflicts as soon as possible.