Accounting and Financial Management

As an AFM student, you’ll be connected to a vibrant network of peers, faculty, advisors, alumni, and employers. Through your SAF community, you’ll have the tools and opportunities to set you up for academic and career success.

Make sure you read our student experience blogs that focus on SAF's peer network. 

Year 3 and 4
Get ready to lead change and shape the future by customizing your AFM pathway. Choose your career specialization(s), test out co-op employment, and engage in co/extra-curricular activities in Years 3 and 4 to accumulate the knowledge and skills you’ll need.

Note: You will automatically be enrolled in your Year 1 courses. In addition, AFM 111, AFM 112, AFM 132, AFM 191, and ECON 101 must be completed in your 1A term.

*Both AFM 205/207 and AFM 206/208 are 0.25 credits each. These courses are taken together in order to fulfill the necessary 0.5 credit requirement: AFM 205+207 = 0.5 credits and AFM 206+208 = 0.5 credits. Each course will run for 1/2 a term, one for the first 6 weeks, and the second for the last 6 weeks.

Career specializations separate you from the crowd and are crucial to becoming future-ready. After building a solid foundation in accounting, finance, and business in Years 1 and 2, AFM students can customize their degree and follow their passions in Years 3 and 4 with up to two specializations.

Step 1: Choose a primary career specialization. The primary specializations will often be Professional Accountant or Financial Markets, and sometimes Entrepreneurial Mindset or Sustainability. 

Step 2: Consider using the remaining electives to combine your primary career specialization with a second one in order to develop breadth of expertise or to connect your accounting/finance/business analysis competencies with study in another field of study at UWaterloo.

Step 3: Consider exploring co-op and co/extra-curricular activities related to your academic choices to test out ideas, build your network and launch your career.

Note: If you choose to complete one career specialization, you can use the remainder of your electives to take special interest courses or pursue one of the minors available to all Waterloo students. Popular areas of focus for AFM students include Economics, Human Resource Management, and International Studies.

100% of AFM students are in co-op - for a good reason. While coursework builds your knowledge, nothing accelerates your professional development like real-world experience. Shape your competitive advantage, discover your passions, and build top-notch skills that get your resume to the top of the stack.

Read student experience blogs as they share their personal experiences working in the industry as part of the co-op program. 

Default Co-op Academic/Work Sequence 

The following chart identifies the default sequence of study and co-op terms employed by our AFM program.

Fall term (F) = September to December
Winter term (W) = January to April
Spring term (S) = May to August

WT = Work Term

Success as an accounting and financial management professional requires much more than technical skills. The School of Accounting and Finance offers professional development activities that will help you focus on improving skills employers demand.

Skill up to stand out. Let your professionalism shine by building strong analytical and people skills – teamwork, relationship-building, communication, and more – through co and extra-curricular activities and competitions.

Read student experience blogs as they focus on the importance and value of competing in competitions.

In an ever-expanding internationalized business world, having an international perspective can enhance your business acumen.

As an upper-year AFM student within the SAF International Study Course, you’ll meet global business professionals (in-person and/or virtually) to learn about business practices and challenges that affect an internationalized business environment.

Read International Study Trip blogs written by current SAF students.

Join Velocity’s experiential innovation hub at the University of Waterloo. They provide information, guidance, and programs for the entrepreneurially-minded and tailored pre-incubator programs for aspiring startup founders. Their mission is to provide experiences that inspire and inform entrepreneurial students from all backgrounds and life experiences. Whether you have an idea, are working on a project, or have an early prototype, Concept wants to help you.

As an AFM student, you can leverage Velocity by booking a coaching session, where you can meet 1-on-1 with founders or past startup employees who can give advice based on their past experience. These sessions can help you prepare a pitch or provide general guidance about the startup landscape. You can also get involved by checking out one of their intro sessions and events to learn more about the organization and what services will help you turn your idea into reality.

You may be interested in Working Sessions, which are small invite-only sessions that allow you to work with a Velocity Coach and dive deeper into a wide variety of topics. These are only available to students who have previously met with a coach or attended an intro session, so make sure to get involved and jump in.

Velocity $5K Grant

Every year, $20,000 in grants are awarded to students with creative and innovative tech ideas.

To earn the grant, students must apply and be selected for the semifinals to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges from the local startup community. Each applicant has 3 minutes to present and show the judges why they deserve a place in the finals. Ten teams compete in the finals for a chance to win, and four of those teams will walk away with a $5K Grant!

AFM student, Blake, recently won the Velocity $5K Finals with his startup Landscape Direct. Watch his interview now. 

CPA

Have you heard about Chartered Professional Accountants (CPAs)? Are you familiar with what they do? CPAs play a key role within the economy. They offer a strong set of accounting and managerial skills required for today’s complex and evolving business world. They also possess a unique mindset and perspective that makes them “broad-minded” and “forward thinking”.

Interested in becoming a CPA? SAF offers four programs that hold the highest level of national accreditation through CPA Canada.

CFA

What's the difference between a Chartered Professional Accountant and a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA)? A CFA demonstrates a strong foundation in advanced investment analysis and portfolio management, accompanied by a strict emphasis on ethical practice.

Does earning a CFA designation spark your interest? SAF is recognized under the CFA Institute University Affiliation Program.

CBV

The third professional designation you can work towards in AFM is a Chartered Business Valuator (CBV). As a CBV, you help determine the economic value of a business or company including finding the fair value. You'll also be able to determine the sale value, establishing partner ownership, and taxation. Find out how our Master of Accounting (MAcc) students receive advanced standing in the Canadian Institute of Chartered Business Valuators (CICBV) program of studies.

We know you have questions about student life, living on campus, co-op experience, and more. That's why we created the following links, so you have easy access to read student blogs, graduate success stories, and watch student experience videos.

Videos:

• AFM students respond to Reddit questions and opinions
• Day in the life of an AFM student

Blogs:

Don't forget to follow along as one high school student blogs about her journey through the university application process.

Most AFM students secure full-time roles during their final term of study, either by accepting an offer to return to a previous co-op employer, or by applying to job postings advertised on the WaterlooWorks system. Careers include positions within:

• Public accounting firms
• Financial services organizations
• Consulting firms
• Major corporations
• Startups
• Governments
• Not-for-profit organization

Your education at the School of Accounting and Finance will prepare you for the career that you've always wanted. See what some of our students have accomplished since graduating. Plus, review a variety of careers that you can strive for as a successful AFM graduate.