Graduate Studies

Graduate study at UWaterloo English offers a broad range of options. Our MAs in Literary Studies, Rhetoric and Communication Design, and Experimental Digital Media allow you to focus on a specific area of intellectual, artistic, or professional interest while developing a broad base of knowledge in other critical fields. You can also take your MA as a co-op degree, mixing study and work experience.

Our PhD program will make you an agile scholar with expertise in multiple fields. If you want to work in the academy after your degree, our program has an enviable placement rate. If you want to continue on elsewhere, our graduates' unique combination of knowledge and skills makes them sought after in business, industry, and the non-profit sector.

The department's faculty are internationally known scholars and innovative teachers whose research areas range from Middle English literature to postcolonial studies and from classical rhetoric to video game design. No matter what your interests, our professors will foster your development as a researcher and teacher. Our graduate students are a vibrant, active community who organize their own academic events and present their research at national and international conferences.

For more information, see the links below. You can also contact Agata Jagielska, our Graduate Coordinator or Jennifer Clary-Lemon, our Associate Chair, Graduate Studies.


Introductory material, and what our students have to say.

Details on our MA and PhD programs.

Present and past graduate courses.

Connecting with other students in the department and on campus.

Funding and research information, calls for papers, job notices.

Teaching portal, preferences form, orientation

What you can do with an English degree, and what our grads have done.

Policies and forms for graduate students.

Answers to commonly asked questions about graduate English.

International students

Due to funding restrictions, the Faculty of Arts is currently limiting the number of international students we can admit. Please contact the department's Associate Chair, Graduate Studies prior to applying to discuss your interest in this program