If you are applying for a visa or are applying for immigration, you may be required to provide a letter verifying specific aspects of your academic experience. Such letters will usually be required to contain the following information:
- A signature from one of the current Associate Chair of Undergraduate Studies, Academic Advisor for Electrical Engineering, or Academic Advisor for Computer Engineering,
- A list a number of areas of study (networks, digital hardware, etc.) or other skills (C++ programming, etc.).
If so, please download the Experience Letter Template and incorporate your name into the file name; for example, Jane.Smith.docx. This template has been formatted for our departmental letterhead and contains a default identification block together with a free-form draft section. This free-form section should be filled with the required text describing your usually provided by your lawyer and should be related to areas of study and skills you covered throughout your undergraduate career. We will, however, modify the contents of the draft if we feel it goes beyond a reasonable description of what was covered in your undergraduate studies. If you have also completed a graduate degree at Waterloo, you should contact your supervisor separately.
For each area of study or skill listed in the letter, please include a table indicating the area or skill together with the relevant course and, if possible, the name of the instructor. For example,
| algorithms | ECE 250 Algorithms and Data Structures by Douglas Harder and ECE 406 Algorithm Design and Analysis by Dr. Tripunitara |
| digital controllers | ECE 481 Digital Control Systems by Dr. Boumaiza |
| parallel processing and multiprocessor algorithms | ECE 429 Computer Architecture by Dr. Patel |
| C++ programming | ECE 250 Algorithm Design and Analysis by Douglas Harder |
| C# programming | ECE 150 Fundamentals of Programming by Dr. Bishop |
We cannot comment on any confidential information such as grades or cumulative averages. We cannot comment on work-term experience beyond acknowledging that you took a specified number of Co-op Work Terms as part of your undergraduate studies.
While this really should not have to be said: please proof read the draft before it is sent it to us. We have received drafts with numerous spelling and serious grammatical mistakes; in one case, the student's name was misspelled!
Please include in your request a mailing address to which the letter is to be delivered through the postal service (the address block at the top of the template must be the same as the mailing address). Unfortunately, we cannot consider generic letters that are not addressed a specific organization.
This filled-in template, together with the supporting documentation, should be e-mailed to ECE Advising with the subject Experience Letter Request: Last Name, First Name (UW Student ID Number).