I love the civil engineering department at UVic. It’s a relatively small program so once you get to second year everyone takes pretty much the same classes which is great for finding people to study with and making friends. We have a great CSCE student chapter that advocate for the students and it seems the faculty listen. They just changed up the curriculum order in fall 2024 which allows us to take classes that are really relevant to co-ops sooner. The biggest drawback in my mind is the inflexibility of program planning, if you take anything less than 5-6 courses a term, don’t get a co-op, or if you fail a class, your graduation will get delayed by a year. The co-op program is great, I personally like the mandatory part because it means the university really helps you get co-ops. I don’t think civil is too hard to find a co-op, but other engineering disciplines struggle. Civil actually has the highest paying co-ops on average than any of the other engineering disciplines. Some of the lab facilities and research facilities are sub-par, but that should change in the next few years thanks to the high bay research lab project. I suspect it may also attract more faculty and students, allowing for more course options and flexibility.

There are three different streams for teacher education at UVic (condensed post degree secondary, condensed post degree elementary, and 4 year elementary), so my experience may differ from those in another stream. I did the post degree program. I’d say my experience wasn’t really “amazing” nor was it “terrible”. The majority of my courses didn’t really help me in my practicums - there were great theories taught, but very little which applies well or actually works in a practical way to today’s diverse classrooms, especially considering having limited time and resources as teachers. The majority of our course work was group work, which was also quite taxing for many of us. This group environment did mean we built friendships and connections quickly though and were able to support each other. I found it was 50/50 on profs. Some were amazing, others middle of the road, and some were not good. However, I had a fantastic practicum experience, and learned SO much through it. I was fortunate to be paired with kind and supportive mentor teachers and field advisors. I’d say the majority of my colleagues also had mostly favourable experiences on practicum. I was able to get a TTOC job straight out of my final placement! Many others have short term contracts now.
So, if you can handle mostly less than stellar courses with some “box checking” in them and be willing to work really hard during your practica, use the group environment to build friendships and connections, and take full advantage of resources through mentor teachers and advisors, I’d say most people have been successful finding work and said the program was worth doing, especially for its relatively short length.

Hai