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Kinesiology Options

Options are a specified combination of courses which provide a secondary emphasis. They complement your major (KIN) in a "career-oriented area". All Honours students are eligible.

Successfully completed Options will appear directly on your degree.

Kinesiology has three Options:
Ergonomics (Ergo)
Neurobehavioural Assessment (NBA)
Pre-Health Professions (Pre-Hlth)

*Both the Ergonomics and the Neurobehavioural Assessment Options have application procedures listed below.

Ergonomics Option

The Ergonomics Option is the only undergraduate program in this field in Canada. The Department of Kinesiology is uniquely situated to offer the program with its faculty composed of individuals with backgrounds in engineering, psychology, kinesiology and a number of other disciplines and professions. Additionally, the extensive laboratory facilities permit the examination of most factors associated with human physical movement.

Focus on health and safety
Injuries occur in the workplace every day. While this is a sad commentary on the quality of worker safety it presents outstanding challenges to Ergonomists/Kinesiologists whose focus is the health and safety of the worker. The ergonomics option is a unique opportunity to prepare those individuals interested in making a contribution to the well-being of others. Kinesiologists are concerned with the assessment and prescription of solutions to problems in the workplace that involve issues such as:

To get a feel for what is involved in ergonomics visit Ergonomics at the University of Waterloo.

Students who enroll in this co-operative education program will be rewarded with insights into solving workplace problems. The courses required have been selected to provide students with a thorough background in the biophysical and behavioural sciences of human motion and related measurement and problem solving skills. This academic background, coupled with nearly two years of field experience through co-operative education placements, has made our department the leader in producing graduates who secure high paying jobs in the ergonomics/human factors field.

Program coordinator: Richard Wells

The following are admission and graduation requirements.

  1. Kinesiology students will apply at the end of first year for admission to the program for the Fall term of Year Two.
  2. Please submit this application to Janet Coulter BMH 3025 at the end of your first academic year. Approximately 10 students per year will be selected, dependent upon the number of Co-op jobs available.
    Note: You do not have to be in coop to apply. If you are accepted you will automatically be enrolled into the coop system of study.
  3. A decision letter will be mailed to you in June.
  4. Normally at least three of the last four work terms, including work term reports, must be ergonomics related.
  5. Twenty-two units must be completed. (See UW calendar Ergonomics Option for requirements and check the Ergonomics Option checklist.
  6. The cumulative averages required are the same as for Honours Kinesiology.
Neurobehavioural Assessment Option

The Neurobehavioural Assessment Option is intended to help prepare graduates who can evaluate the physiological, biomechanical, and neurobehavioural bases of perceptual motor function in persons from special populations such as the elderly and those with acquired or developmental disorders. The emphasis is on identifying functional impairments from a strong background in the neurosciences and the behavioural and biophysical sciences related to the learning and control of human movement.

Further information for those interested in the neurobehavioural assessment option.

Program coordinator: Eric Roy

  1. The option will be offered as part of the Co-op programme. Students will be admitted to the programme for the Fall term in Year Two. First year grades, previous experience in working with special populations and, in some cases, an interview will all be sources of information used in making admission decisions. Approximately ten students per year will be selected, depending on the number of Co-op jobs available.

  2. Please submit this application to Janet Coulter BMH 3025 at the end of your first academic year.
    Note: You do not have to be in coop to apply. If you are accepted you will automatically be enrolled into the coop system of study.

  3. A decision letter will be mailed to you in June.

  4. Normally at least three of the last four work terms, including work term reports, must be related to neurobehavioural assessment activities.

  5. Twenty units must be completed. (See UW Calendar for requirements listed under Neurobehavioural Assessment Option).

  6. Students will also be required to participate in a non-credit tutorial (KIN 001) each term for work term review, advising and discussion of Neurobehavioural Assessment issues.

  7. NBA Option degree checklist.

  8. The cumulative averages required are the same as for Honours Kinesiology.
Pre-Health Professions Option

This Option combines the Honours Kinesiology program and its emphasis on human applications and is intended to develop an academic profile which may prepare students for potential study in medicine, podiatry, chiropractic, speech pathology, and physical or occupational therapy. It is also intended for the student whose interests develop into graduate study in the health disciplines. Students are urged to consult the admission requirements of the professional schools of interest to aid in their choice of electives. Overall and major cumulative averages of 75% are considered minimal to be competitive for application to programs in the health professions.

Please follow the Option's requirements in the UW Calendar and complete a Plan Modification form.

Admission and graduation requirements are listed below: