Professional development

Professional skills are a crucial component of workplace success. You may need coding and calculus skills to be considered for positions, but your ability to communicate, work in teams, and reflect on your performance is what will set you apart from your peers for the rest of your career. When Engineering co-op employers were asked about the importance of professional skills, a large majority said that such skills are “more important” or “just as important” as technical skills.

Your program will determine the PD courses you are required to complete, please visit the Undergraduate Academic Calendar for information specific to your program.

You can view the full list of the offered PD courses on the Centre for Work-Integrated Learning site.

If you are following your program’s sequencing, you will be automatically enrolled in your first two PD courses. You will be enrolled in PD19 during your first work term and in PD20 during your second work term.

For additional PD courses, you will have to enroll yourself using Quest, and the process is like the one used for enrolling in other academic courses. You will also need to enrol yourself using Quest if you need to repeat PD19 or PD20.  

If you have any questions about enrolling in PD courses, contact your academic advisor.

There may be several reasons why you are receiving an error when trying to enrol in a PD course. These are the two most common:

• You might be attempting to enrol in the incorrect section of a course. Each PD course section is associated with particular reserves, and you will receive an error if you try to enrol in a section that doesn’t apply to you or has closed. You can see the reserves and check the open/closed status of each section by searching the Schedule of Classes.
• You will not be able to enrol in any classes if you have a fee hold and/or academic hold on your account. You can view your hold status by logging into your Quest account. If you’re inquiring about a fee hold, contact the Student Financial Services office; if you’re inquiring about an academic hold, contact your academic advisor.

If you’re receiving an error that isn’t related to the issues above and you’re enrolling during a valid enrolment period, please contact your academic advisor.

You will access PD courses through LEARN, Waterloo’s online learning management system. Log into LEARN using your WatIAM user ID and password.  

If you have any questions about your system’s compatibility with LEARN or issues accessing your PD course, contact your course team or visit the LEARN help resources.