Course Offerings
Course information found in this section is provided for your convenience. Schedules are subject to change and should be checked on LORIS or LORIS Browse Classes where location information can also be found. Full, official academic information including prerequisites and exclusions can be found on the academic calendars. It is your responsibility to check the appropriate calendar. Note that not all courses listed in the calendar are offered in a particular year or term. LORIS lists currently available courses. Unless otherwise specified, courses are 0.5 credit and take place on Laurier's Waterloo campus.
If you would like to take more than 2.5 credits in one term, you will have to fill out the Faculty of Science Course Overload Request Form.
Registering for Courses
Refer to the Course Registration Guide for more information about program requirements, electives, building your timetable and registering for courses.
Note:
- Computer Science and Data Science majors may not register for CP Online (OC) courses. See Restrictions tab in OC courses on LORIS.
- For a cross-listed CP/PCxxx course, if taken as CPxxx, it credits as Computer Science, but not Physics. If taken as PCxxx, it credits as Physics, but not Computer Science.
- CP majors cannot take CP102 and CP202. Even if they did (for example, before switching to CP major), CP102 and CP202 will not count towards the Computer Science degree.
- For students taking the Management Option, ST230 meets the statistics requirement for both your Computer Science program requirements as well as your option requirements.
- As of 2020/21, the requirements for MA121 and MA238 were replaced with CP214 and a 0.5-credit general elective for the BSc Computer Science program. Most Computer Science majors (excluding BSc Computer Science and Mathematics or double-degree BBA/CS students), who have been following these previous requirements could replace MA121 and MA238 with CP214 and a general elective when applying to graduate.
To register for courses with labs (and tutorials if applicable), you need to select all the course's components: one lecture section (i.e. CP104A), one lab section (i.e. 'L3'), and one tutorial section (if applicable).
If you get an error message stating that the course is full, verify whether it’s one of the course components (lecture, lab or tutorial) that you’ve selected is full. You may be able to select a different section for that component. Use the “View Linked” button in the rightmost column to review all labs and tutorials linked to each lecture.
It's your responsibility to find available lecture, lab and tutorial sections. An academic advisor will not place you into a specific lab or tutorial section.
If the course is full and required for your major and year level, we will attempt to accommodate you and provide an override. Depending on available resources, the department may increase the course capacity or add another section. You can monitor the course capacity and availability to see if/when seats or new sections become available.
When selecting courses, you should first consider your program requirements. Afterward, you can begin choosing your electives, based on disciplines you are interested in or align with future aspirations. Your academic advisor can help but will not select electives for you.
Most Faculty of Science programs include "breadth requirements" for electives. For Computer Science (CP) or Physics (PC) majors, this means that your electives must include 1.0 credit (i.e. two 0.5-courses) from a discipline outside of those offered by the Faculty of Science. For reference, Faculty of Science course codes include AS, BI, CH, CP, DATA, ENVX, HE, HN, KP, MA, PC, PS, SC, ST, WASC.
Note that this requirement does not need to be completed in your first year of studies or with 100-level courses. However, it is recommended that you consider working on this program requirement in making first-year elective choices.
Remember there is a limit on the number of 100-level courses (both required and electives) that can count towards your major. As of 2020/21, the limit Computer Science majors is 6.0 credits (twelve 0.5 credit courses), and for Physics majors, the limit is 7.0 credits (fourteen 0.5 credit courses). For the Comp.Sci/BBA double degree, please contact a Lazaridis School advisor.
Recommended second-year electives are PP201, PP204, other PP online courses and SC200.
If you are interested in working towards an option/minor, you should also consider those requirements when selecting electives.
Overrides of course prerequisites can happen in a very limited number of circumstances:
- Student has successfully completed their first-year but has not completed five 0.5-credits. If your Computer Science/Physics marks are good and if you are only short by one or two elective courses, a year level override may be possible for your required second-year Computer Science/Physics courses.
- Student has a transfer credit from another institution for a course equivalent to the prerequisite. These transfer credits are not visible to the registration system and the student must request a prerequisite override.
- Student has transferred from another institution or is doing a sequential degree and the student's year level is out of step with the maturity level of the student. This only applies to year-level restricted courses.
If you feel these specific cases apply to you, contact your academic advisor with all relevant details. Please include your student ID number.
In general, departments do not provide overrides to circumvent class limits. You can add yourself to the course's waitlist, if available. If a class has labs or tutorials, your only option is to check LORIS for a space to become available. If the course is a required core course for your computer science or physics program, contact academic advisor with all relevant details. Please include your student ID number.
Note: The department offering the course is the only department that can provide an override. For example, a physics student would need to contact the undergraduate advisor for Mathematics to get an override for courses in the Mathematics department.
Reserved seating is a relatively new scheduling feature that we will be using to reserve seats for students who need the core course for their program.
Waitlists are only available for courses without labs and are, consequently, used for a limited number of computer science courses. Many of your electives will have wait lists though. Refer to the Course Registration Guide for more information on waitlists.
Once space in the wait-listed course is available for you, an email notification will be sent to your MyLaurier email address. You have 24-hours from the time the email is sent to register for the course in LORIS before your name is removed from the wait list, and you lose the option to register. If you are on a waitlist, check your Laurier email twice a day.
Remember, if there appears to be space in the course while you're waitlisted, the offer to take the available space goes out the next student on the waitlist.
As a student you should be familiar with Academic Integrity and the importance Laurier places on student integrity. Students are expected to follow the university’s Policy on Academic and Research Misconduct, as stated in University Policy 12.2.II.B. Penalties for misconduct are severe and may include: failure on the assignment, examination or course; suspension from the program or university; expulsion from the program or university.
The department's penalty for the first case of an academic integrity issue is 0 (zero) for the component in question and -10% (minus ten percent) on your final grade; penalty applies to all parties involved.
Regardless of the specific penalty levied, the names of all students engaged in academic misconduct will be reported to the department Chair, the Dean of Science Office, and the University’s central registry.