Your help please in choosing a uni

[aiex]

Well currently I am at the University of East Anglia, but next year if all goes to plan I will be coming to study in the states for a year. I now have to choose my preferred uni out of the list below:

Carleton University Ottawa Canada (CMP)
Simon Fraser University Vancouver Canada (CMP)
University of California- Davis (ESE)
University of Colorado Boulder (CMP/ESE)
University of Victoria British Columbia Canada (CMP)

Well what are your thoughts??? I don?t know very much about the area's so any input you could give that would help me decide would be really really great.

Thanks

Alex


PS i forgot to say i am doing computer science.

 

[Mardeth]

A strange place to ask

 

[aiex]

Originally posted by: Mardeth
A strange place to ask

Yeah, well i am not around here quite as much as i used to be but i feel i know a lot of the people here and trust them in giving me good advice. It would also be nice to meet up with a few of you all when i am over the pond.

Alex

 

[Smoke]

I'd pick "University of Colorado Boulder (CMP/ESE)" because they are famous for their good looking "babes".

/oh wait, you want a serious educational experience/

 

[aiex]

I was thinking about putting boulder down as my first choice actually but when i looked at their website it looked quite expensive and i am not sure what i will be liable to pay for yet

Alex

 

[JHutch]

Well, if you don't want the strange spelling we US people have come up with (i.e., color vs colour), stick with a Canadian school!

Seriously, I don't have enough experience with the schools you mention to be able to tell which one is better from a technical point of view. From a weather point of view, Colorado and UC-Davis probably have the best...

JHutch

 

[MoFunk]

UC-Davis has a nice campus and it's pretty close to a lot of stuff to do like going to the mountains (Tahoe or Reno) and also the Bay Area. I have had a few friends go their and they enjoyed it.

 

[Confused]

Make it a good one, and maybe when i come over to see you we'll hire a car and go meet a load of TA people

<---- Has driving licence, Alex doesn't


Confused

 

[aiex]

hey sorry i havn't replied for a while, went home for the weekend and got caught in storms with no power/phone/internet!!!

One thing i was wondering if you guys would know about was when i went on the boulder homepage they said that it would cost me about $10,000 a year for room and food. Do you guys know if this is fairly accurate?? Seams a bit steep to me but i am unsure.

Thanks again for your help

ALex

 

[networkman]

Isn't Boulder, CO where Mork from Ork stayed for a while?

 

[GeoffS]

What exactly are you studying? If it's Computer Science, then you may want to consider University of Waterloo in Ontario. McGill University in downtown Montreal (Quebec) is one of the top-rated Canadian universities, and very well-known abroad also. You will find Canadian universities to be significantly less expensive that US universities I believe

Geoff

 

[GeoffS]

...but if you can't choose from either of those, Ottawa and Vancouver/Victoria are also lovely places to live, although Ottawa is somewhat smaller than Vancouver or Montreal and may not offer you as much cultural diversity ( ) as other Canadian cities.... Actually, I think the only place that comes close to Montreal in North America for ... uhhh.. diversity... is New Orleans.

Geoff

 

[aiex]

I will be studying computer science as my second year at university. The first and third years will are here at UEA in england. I have the choice of any of the 5 uni's that i listed above as they are the ones that co-opporate with my current uni as part of the exchange scheme.

Thanks again

Alex

 

[JonB]

UC- Davis for sure. The climate and location are great. San Francisco to the west, Nevada and mountains to the east. While I never attended classes there, I have spent much time in Davis and Dixon, California. Sacramento (the state capitol) is very close.

 

[muttley]

even off campus at boulder is expensive.

I don't know what the tuition rates are for canada but considering the US Dollar is higher than Canadian, Canada might be cheaper.

muttley

 

[GeoffS]

Couldn't quickly find the tuition rates at McGill, but here they are for Concordia University, the other English Montreal university. Of note for you is the 3rd section for International students. Aside from the relative values of the dollar, education in Canada is much less expensive as the federal govt foots a good part of it... less now than in the past.

Geoff

 

[GeoffS]

Here's McGill

Geoff

 

[ColinP]

Nanoo Nanoo,


shazbatz...

Mork signing out..

 

[Ken g6]

Hey, enough with the Boulder jokes! The Wildnet and I are at Boulder! :Q But I may not be (here) next year, so you may get to run it. How's a theoretical 16 more machines for an incentive?

Babes, yes. Babes in CS, only one or two. At least in undergrad work; I don't know about grad students.

The cost for room&board is going to be somewhere between $6000-$9000, I'd say. Dorm food is good but expensive. Room/housing costs around here are extremely high. Everyone who can shares a house with 4 or more other people.

And your tuition will be about $10,000 too from out-of-state. I'm in state, so I only pay $2000.

Classes ... erm, nothing has really stood out for me. Compiler design, algorithms, and CPU architecture are being actively researched. What classes would you be looking to take?

P.S. How'd I miss this? I must be getting senile in my young age.

Edit: I forgot one of the best features (besides the mountains; I grew up among 'em so I tend to forget 'em). Every dorm except one has 100MBps Ethernet, and that one will be getting wireless ethernet within a few days.

 

[wirelessenabled]

Go for UC-Davis

I graduated from there uh, quite a few years ago. Shall we say computers still used Hollerith cards then. Video was a ways in the future:Q

Nice campus, bicycle everywhere. The student bus system used to be all red London doubledecker buses, don't know if that is still true. Weather is mild 50s or so in winter although the wind can blow. Hot in summer 100s (all temps in F). Lots of outdoor stuff as mentioned elsewhere. San Francisco is a little over an hour drive. Was very cheap when I was there, of course I mostly bummed off friends and slept in garages and on couches.

I was on a (very) tight budget. One house I was in got a new roommate and the gas bill went up from $8 to $12 a month. The solution was to shut off the gas to save money!

Has a huge (4000 acre) university farm. In the spring and summer you can practically live off all the free produce if you get to know the right people and don't mind being a vegie.

I enjoyed my years there and as a added bonus, Davis' reputation has grown enormously over the years and looks to continue. So you can get a degree now and it will be worth more later

 

[denali]

Boulder will be very expensive, beacuse of the no growth laws. Not sure about the costs today but 20 years ago it was enough to make me decide not to go to CU. However Boulder is a unique city, err republic. If you like lots of sun, mild winters with good skiing withing a couple of hours go to CU.
If you smoke don't go to CU, Boulder has some of the toughest smoking laws in the country.

 

[aiex]

thanks guys it's looking like i will have to take some serious though into going to a canadian uni. One point i really should have noted though is that i doubt veyr much if i would have to pay tuition fee's. I think there is a deal going whereby i just pay the same fee's as i would in england and then the extra is payed for me (i think it actually works out like me swapping fee's with an american person who comes to the UK, i will definatly have to look into that though!!)

Thanks again for your help, all personal views of people that have actually been to the uni's are great. I am not going to be able to visit them before i pick so i am very greatfull for any opinion i get!

Alex

 

[kmmatney]

Another vote for CU (I'm from Denver - just down the road!), although you want to make sure that you are here for part of the summer. Boulder is awesome in summer. Simon Fraser is also in a great location and would be a nice place to go.