Area-of-Interest

AFM students graduating in the year 2015 or before have the opportunity to customize their degree and explore another area of interest besides accounting. Some students take the opportunity to branch out into areas they normally wouldn't associate with an accounting or business degree. Other students choose to focus on business-related courses, such as economics or human resource management.

Requirements:

• 6 courses
• must be in a single subject
• must consist of 2 courses at the 200 level and 2 courses at the 300 level
• courses can be selected from
  • any faculty (except Engineering), department, or interdisciplinary study program on campus
  • a departmental discipline in the Arts Faculty (e.g. history, political science, etc.) 
  • part of a *recognized* interdisciplinary study option at uWaterloo (e.g. legal studies, legal studies & criminology, etc.)

Note: Selecting six courses you believe have a common theme, but are not part of a recognized faculty, departmental, or interdisciplinary option program is prohibitied (e.g legal studies, legal studies and criminology, etc.).

Examples of areas-of-interest:

1. Drama

• Drama 101A or 101B, 102, 251, 301
• Two other drama courses (ideally literatures type courses with at least one at the 200 level or above and the other at the 300 or above level)

2. Economics

• Econ 101, 201, 202
• Three other economics courses, of which two must be at the 300 level or higher and which a student meets the prerequisites to take.

Note: In this example, Econ 102 and 344 may not be counted towards the completion of the area of interest requirement since Econ 101 has been ‘double-counted’. By only double-counting one of the three Econ courses, it allows students increased eligibility for a wider variety of courses to select from for the three remaining credits needed to satisfy the requirement.

3. French

• FR 192A, 192B, 35,1352
• two of FR 251, 252, 255

Selection Process:

• Begin by selecting upper-year courses that interest you and work backwards
• See what prerequisite courses are required
• Be as flexible as possible. There's a chance your desired course may not be offered the semester you want, or alternatively, might conflict with a cores course you need to take.
• You are not required to declare your area-of-interest with the Registrar’s Office or the School of Accounting and Finance
• Obtain some feedback on your proposed area-of-interest by making an appointment with the School’s Undergraduate Officer, Darren Charters (519-888-4567 x32570)

Current areas-of-interest

Double Counting:

• Your area-of-interest could be in a subject area you take as part of your AFM degree requirements. If this is the case, you may count one of them towards your area-of -interest.
• For example, let’s assume you decide to take an Economics area-of-interest. You're required to take 3 ECON courses as part of your degree (i.e. ECON 101, 102, and 344). You would only be able to count one of the three towards your area-of-interest. This means you would have to take five more economics courses to satisfy your area-of- interest requirement and a total of eight economics during your undergraduate studies.