For those of you in Canada, opinions & suggestions on universities?

featherie

Moving to Ireland!
Aug 17, 2009
378
1
Hello!

This is a little broad and requires more research, but I'm considering graduate programs in Canada. I plan to visit there in the upcoming months for a small vacation and to check out some universities, but I was curious to see if any of you native to Canada may have some suggestions.

My undergrad is in anthropology and I'm looking to head into the physical side. I've attempted some searches via Google, but I come up with the University of Toronto and that's about it.

If any of you have even just heard some good things about a certain school, any comments are welcome :smile:
 
Check out Universities in British Columbia. I live here and am a native "Vancouverite". Absolutely, BEAUTIFUL city... even though I will be moving away for about a year or two to complete my degree, this will always be HOME to me.

I have a lot of friends who are from the states who attend UBC. It is a great school and you can have a social life, meet new people, and explore the city.

I'm not familiar with your faculty so you'd have to research the right program though! There is University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University or you can go to the island and look at University of Victoria.
 
Check out Universities in British Columbia. I live here and am a native "Vancouverite". Absolutely, BEAUTIFUL city... even though I will be moving away for about a year or two to complete my degree, this will always be HOME to me.

I have a lot of friends who are from the states who attend UBC. It is a great school and you can have a social life, meet new people, and explore the city.

I'm not familiar with your faculty so you'd have to research the right program though! There is University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University or you can go to the island and look at University of Victoria.
:goodpost:
 
Queen's! I went there and loved every minute of it...good school, cute small city, low cost of living..it was great. But since you are thinking of graduate school I think the best schools would probably be University of Toronto (I almost went there for grad school too--great school, great city) and McGill. Both are large research universities that are world famous.
 
Take a look at the list on this website:

http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~chan/capa/resources/University_programs.html

It seems to have a comprehensive list of what's available.
Unless you speak French, U of Montreal is out :smile:

You could easily check out the universities in Ontario as they're within driving distance of one another.

The ones in BC or Alberta would be the same.

I don't know where you live now, but depending on where you are in Canada, winter can be a huge issue. Victoria, Vancouver have pretty mild winters, but Memorial in Newfoundland can get 2 METERS of snow. Alberta, Manitoba can get extremely cold.
 
Take a look at the list on this website:

http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~chan/capa/resources/University_programs.html

It seems to have a comprehensive list of what's available.
Unless you speak French, U of Montreal is out :smile:

You could easily check out the universities in Ontario as they're within driving distance of one another.

The ones in BC or Alberta would be the same.

I don't know where you live now, but depending on where you are in Canada, winter can be a huge issue. Victoria, Vancouver have pretty mild winters, but Memorial in Newfoundland can get 2 METERS of snow. Alberta, Manitoba can get extremely cold.

I actually really love the French language, but I'm sure I could only get directions to the nearest bathroom lol.

I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania right now, but spent a couple of years of school right off of Lake Erie. The lake effect snow was always abundant, but I loved it. Well, I didn't love driving in it, but I could make due if I had to!
 
I actually really love the French language, but I'm sure I could only get directions to the nearest bathroom lol.

I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania right now, but spent a couple of years of school right off of Lake Erie. The lake effect snow was always abundant, but I loved it. Well, I didn't love driving in it, but I could make due if I had to!


I wasn't sure if you were from California and had never seen snow ;)
 
There's always McGill University in Montreal and you don't need to primarily know french to attend. I attended the University of Waterloo for grad work and it does have a wonderful social science and physical sciences program there - it's kind of geeky and nerdy academic place but it's great. It has an excellent reputation too and it can get really tough to get in to grad work at this school. I don't know if they have a great physical anthropology grad program but if they do and you are interested in this school, I would recommend to contact particular researchers there and submit in a lot of your work - I found that in order to get into the grad programs at Waterloo is usually through connections (but not always). Oh, the nice thing is it's only an hour drive from Toronto. There are some good pubs there as well. Waterloo also has a pretty sizable German-Canadian population. In general the people are really friendly. Weather can get kind of cruddy in the winter time and it doesn't have the most amazing scenery.

This university has a lot of funding so it is relatively easy to attain additional bursuries, scholarships and financial assistance without resorting to student loans as much.
 
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I would stay away from McGill unless there's a prof you really want to work with, because their funding is pretty much nonexistant. UBC and U of T both have good anthropology programs, but of course are very competitive- well, I guess every graduate school is, lol!!

The one really nice thing in Canada compared to the States is that we don't really have that crazy ranking system- I have no clue what an 'R1' school is, nor do I particularly want to know! While certain schools may have more resources (U of T, UBC, U of A, Queen's), your pretty much guaranteed a good education wherever you go. In terms of getting a job afterwards, publications, conference presentations and winning awards/fellowships are key.

I would definitely scope out websites and professors to see which program and prof best match your research interests. This isn't as important for an MA, but it is absolutely critical for a PhD (on that note, it is extremely rare in Canada for people to go from BA to PhD... most schools here require you complete an MA first).

If you're planning on applying for the 2010-2011 academic year, I'd recommend to start contacting profs this October- my supervisor only accepts 1 student a year, so thank goodness I contacted him early! Also be sure to start looking into funding ASAP- many grant applications are due between Sept- November.

You might want to look into planning two trips- one out west (looking at programs in BC and possibly Alberta) and one in central Canada, looking at schools in Southern Ontario and possibly Quebec.