Quadrature modulation Digital to Analog
the symbol rate will be the same as the frequency of the IQ waveforms, so 1 symbol per hz? so 1 amplitude change per oscillation of IQ.


No, usually you count the transition between any two symbols as a half-cycle, so it ends up being 2 symbols per complete cycle.

Regarding turning the data into actual waveforms, you would normally oversample the I and Q signals, so that the DAC sample rate is many times higher than the actual data rate. This allows you to do much of the pulse shaping (filtering) in the digital domain. Then, the analog-domain filter is only required to remove high-frequency images created by the DAC itself, a much simpler problem.