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Other bad places to study:

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2 Total Votes

maple leaf vs. starz & stripez | 39 comments (39 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback

Name a Canadian university. by Arbeit Macht Pie (2.50 / 2) #1 Sat Jul 28, 2007 at 06:33:07 PM EST

I'll wait while you hit Google.

should have mentioned by nathan (2.00 / 0) #2 Sat Jul 28, 2007 at 06:52:52 PM EST

I'm from Canada and have attended two Canadian universities (although I hold all my degrees from American universities.)

[ Parent ]

The degrees are American. by Arbeit Macht Pie (2.00 / 0) #15 Sun Jul 29, 2007 at 07:59:48 AM EST

And why is that? Therein lies your answer.

[ Parent ]

: you seem to have misunderstood this diary by nathan (2.00 / 0) #16 Sun Jul 29, 2007 at 12:31:22 PM EST

I already know which schools (all American) I'll be applying to. I just wanted people to defend their favorite systems. (Not necessarily favorite universities...)

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University of Ice Truckers by cam (4.00 / 1) #6 Sat Jul 28, 2007 at 07:46:49 PM EST

cam
Freedom, liberty, equity and an Australian Republic
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I say America by MillMan (4.00 / 2) #3 Sat Jul 28, 2007 at 06:53:46 PM EST

Best university system in the world and has actual diversity, unlike the faux diversity of Canada.

When I'm imprisoned as an enemy combatant, will you blog about it?

Canadastan. by Driusan (4.00 / 1) #4 Sat Jul 28, 2007 at 06:59:05 PM EST

There aren't as many USians here.
--
I needed a new sig. And now I have one.

the beer's better in .ca by clover kicker (4.00 / 1) #5 Sat Jul 28, 2007 at 07:23:08 PM EST

The price is better too, although the strong $CDN should come in handy if you go south.

: I'm earning us$ these days by nathan (2.00 / 0) #7 Sat Jul 28, 2007 at 08:16:58 PM EST

You don't like American beer? I mean yeah, Bud, I'm with you, but what about Ommegang? I used to be able to pick up Saranac on the cheap and it was great inexpensive beer.
I have some Hacker-Pschorr weiss right now that I'm not particularly enjoying. I might get some Saranac if I can find it locally.

[ Parent ]

I went to Trent University by me0w (2.00 / 0) #8 Sat Jul 28, 2007 at 09:12:42 PM EST

It's also called "Queer U".

I drank a lot and slept with a lot of hot women.

Oh .. and I did make it to some classes - enough to get me a degree anyway.

"There's really only one sexually related thing I'm good at: Producing incredibly volumous amounts of spooge on a regular basis." - ni

I don't know quite what to say by nathan (2.00 / 0) #13 Sun Jul 29, 2007 at 02:08:55 AM EST

Good for you, I guess.

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: I don't know about other Canukistani Universities by me0w (2.00 / 0) #14 Sun Jul 29, 2007 at 02:30:18 AM EST

But I had a good time at the one I went to.

"There's really only one sexually related thing I'm good at: Producing incredibly volumous amounts of spooge on a regular basis." - ni
[ Parent ]

i hear canadian uni is cheaper by misslake (4.00 / 2) #9 Sat Jul 28, 2007 at 10:00:13 PM EST

by a huge amount. i've never heard anything against the quality of canadian schools as compared to american schools.
but at the university of guelph there were a lot of american kids who came north to go to school because they could not afford to go to school closer to home.
after seeing me0w's post, i sort of wish i'd gone to trent.

I think a lot of American kids would be wise to do by nathan (2.00 / 0) #11 Sun Jul 29, 2007 at 02:06:24 AM EST

What your friends at Guelph did.

I agree that the average level of Canadian universities stacks up well against the average level of American ones. But a) the US is a lot bigger, b) American schools vary more widely, and thus c) the top American schools are better.

And I'm just the other way: after seeing me0w's post, I'm glad that I've never been anywhere near Trent; at U of Toronto, as a graduate student, I got involved in the local Orthodox mission. It was pretty interesting. We were supervised by a monk who was also a professor of theology and a Métis. I don't think that the mission had two members of the same ethnicity, except for one mother-daughter pair who were WASPs.

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University of Toronto by lm (4.00 / 1) #22 Sun Jul 29, 2007 at 10:41:19 PM EST

For the studies I'm interested in, the University of Toronto is on par with Cambridge and Oxford. All three have far better programs for what I want to do than any school in the US.

On the other hand, the climate in Toronto is considered unduly hostile by my wife. This not only eliminates Toronto from consideration but also a good number of the top ranked US schools. Fortunately, there are large number of decent schools left to choose from.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

that's absolutely true by nathan (2.00 / 0) #23 Sun Jul 29, 2007 at 11:36:17 PM EST

Whereas for what I used to do, the University of Rochester was better than Harvard or any Canadian school (in fact, my program only even existed at a very few Canadian universities.)

The U of T has certain really fantastic academic units, like for instance HAPSAT. Toronto's climate is bad, but if it's any consolation, it makes my hometown look like Club Med.

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I think I would like Toronto's climate by lm (4.00 / 1) #27 Mon Jul 30, 2007 at 09:03:05 AM EST

But I don't think my wife and kids would like it so much and I'm at a stage in life where I need to consider the rest of the family when making those sorts of decisions.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

: I don't mind cold by nathan (2.00 / 0) #38 Mon Jul 30, 2007 at 02:28:12 PM EST

But I do mind slushy, and absurdly humid in the summers. I hate slush, especially the salty kind that eats shoes and leaves white fringes on all your pants.

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by the way by nathan (2.00 / 0) #25 Sun Jul 29, 2007 at 11:44:23 PM EST

Good luck.

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WIPO: by ObviousTroll (4.00 / 1) #10 Sat Jul 28, 2007 at 11:51:22 PM EST

Whatever school is closest and has the program you want.

--
Has anybody seen my clue? I know I had it when I came in here.

: oh, I'm definitely planning to move by nathan (2.00 / 0) #12 Sun Jul 29, 2007 at 02:07:23 AM EST

There's only one school that I'd consider locally. Most likely, I'll either move farther NE, or else to NC.

[ Parent ]

From the syllabuses I've seen by BelatuCadros (4.00 / 1) #17 Sun Jul 29, 2007 at 01:27:28 PM EST

...In the US, I'd be learning the same stuff getting my masters as I did in my undergrad degree in Canada (UVIC)....

interesting by nathan (2.00 / 0) #18 Sun Jul 29, 2007 at 02:15:45 PM EST

What did you study?

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Computer Science.... by BelatuCadros (4.00 / 1) #19 Sun Jul 29, 2007 at 04:39:58 PM EST

...but I also did 5 Grad level courses as an undergrad when I got my act together.

[ Parent ]

that's neat. by nathan (2.00 / 0) #20 Sun Jul 29, 2007 at 04:52:32 PM EST

So which areas are US curriculums weak in, in comparison to the UVic curriculum? And which American schools did you look at?

Not to give you the third degree - I'm just trying to get a handle on the real and perceived differences between Canadian and American universities.

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DePaul, UIC, other Chicagoland Uni's by BelatuCadros (4.00 / 1) #21 Sun Jul 29, 2007 at 08:45:54 PM EST

Since I never took any of the classes, I'm hesitant to say the curriculum was weak... It did look like I would be repeating a lot things in my 3rd year (Software Engineering, Math Algorithms, State Machines) as the first year of my Masters. I just couldn't justify $20K - $40K a year to "relearn" things.

This was 3 years ago, so things may have changed.

[ Parent ]

I don't think that you would have been paying $20k by nathan (2.00 / 0) #24 Sun Jul 29, 2007 at 11:43:27 PM EST

At least, no one in my MA/PhD (U. of Rochester) program was paying tuition. I'm pretty sure that if things had got to the acceptance stage, any US school that wanted you would have made an offer - especially since you have experience in industry, so you'd be known to be motivated to finish on time.

This is more and more the case in Canada too. For instance, when I was at U. of Toronto, the school announced a policy that any new graduate students it accepted to PhD-track programs would be guaranteed a minimum of tuition plus $12k, and $17k in many fields. Medical biophysics advertised in the campus paper that all of its grad students were guaranteed $25k plus tuition, before TA money (which was pretty good, about $3k/term/class.) I believe that U of T is leading the curve in this respect.

[ Parent ]

US graduate degrees by lm (2.00 / 0) #28 Mon Jul 30, 2007 at 09:07:23 AM EST

There is a growing trend in the US where certain fields (the hard sciences, business, nursing, law, medicine) expect graduate students to pay everything on their own. There are still some fellowships and TA slots available, especially at the schools that can afford to be über selective. But the present thinking seems to be that people with graduate degrees in these fields will be able to pay back student loans so schools are milking them for cash.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

Now you're just trolling by sasquatchan (2.00 / 0) #31 Mon Jul 30, 2007 at 09:56:16 AM EST

None of the four Tier 1 schools I'm aware of make folks in the 'hard' sciences (CS, Chemistry, Physics and Applied Science are the ones I was in, or closely knew folks in) make you pay for grad school. Sure you can get a TA job, or work on some prof's grant, but for real science, I don't think anyone pays to go to grad school.

For some of the others (MBA, nursing), my direct knowledge there is the employers pay for it 95 out of 100 times. Hospitals for the nursing (masters, or BS if you have an associates). Businesses if you're 'of the right caliber' or on the right track, will pay for an MBA.

Law and medicine, yeah, expect to pay for that.

[ Parent ]

: I agree with you at the tier 1 level by lm (2.00 / 0) #32 Mon Jul 30, 2007 at 09:59:36 AM EST

Most of which are in the group of ``the schools that can afford to be über selective'' where, as I wrote above, suggested, ``there are still some fellowships and TA slots available.''
But tier 1 is a minority of US universities.
There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
[ Parent ]

My problem is... by BelatuCadros (2.00 / 0) #30 Mon Jul 30, 2007 at 09:54:00 AM EST

my grades... let's just say the first two years, fun was more important, and I ended up getting kicked out for a year. Because of this I know I will at least have to pay for first year of Grad school, if a school accepts me.

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I got my MSEE from IIT by garlic (2.00 / 0) #33 Mon Jul 30, 2007 at 01:27:42 PM EST

Illinois Institute of Technology (no it's different from ITT). I wouldn't recommend it. The classes were all 400 and 500 level. So the 400 level ones did tend to be on the same level as my senior year at the US Valparaiso University. But my main anti-recommendation is that there was no real flow of classes like there was in undergrad, and most of what I got out of it was a piece of paper that says MSEE.

[ Parent ]

MSEE by MillMan (2.00 / 0) #35 Mon Jul 30, 2007 at 02:22:36 PM EST

From what I've seen at the U of MN and WPI (the schools I am familiar with) it's more of a continuation of your senior year but allows for specialization. The phd seems to be where you get into scientist mode.

I took a grad level optics class as an undergrad...man was that a mistake. Interesting topic but required advanced calculus knowledge (beyond the two years I took) to really understand it.

When I'm imprisoned as an enemy combatant, will you blog about it?
[ Parent ]

: interesting by nathan (2.00 / 0) #39 Mon Jul 30, 2007 at 10:02:23 PM EST

Not being an engineer, I had no idea that's how you guys did things. Thanks for the discussion.

[ Parent ]

Tough to say, there are many . . . by slozo (2.00 / 0) #26 Mon Jul 30, 2007 at 07:09:45 AM EST

. . . variables to consider. What school has the program you want, closest to you, etc etc. But if all those are equal . . . and if I'm not going in for a sports scholarship (US hands down), then I'd choose Canada, I guess.

They're both too expensive, but Canada is less expensive (by half, in many cases). In terms of hard education, I understand the best Canadian unis can compete with the best of the US, it just may be they have a better reputation.

I may or may not have gone to a small Ontario university at one point.

: who's "they?" by nathan (2.00 / 0) #37 Mon Jul 30, 2007 at 02:25:59 PM EST

Do the Canadian or the US universities have better reputations?

[ Parent ]

Due to global warming, the United States by georgeha (2.00 / 0) #29 Mon Jul 30, 2007 at 09:42:31 AM EST

a Masters in Polar Bear hunting or harp seal pup harvesting, or a PhD in igloo building just isn't worth so much.

university... by spacejack (4.00 / 1) #34 Mon Jul 30, 2007 at 01:38:19 PM EST

Isn't that the place people go for 4 years to rack up debt while putting off joining the workforce?

: often, yes by nathan (2.00 / 0) #36 Mon Jul 30, 2007 at 02:24:11 PM EST

But it's also the only way to a JD or an MD.

[ Parent ]

maple leaf vs. starz & stripez | 39 comments (39 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback


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