OT: University/College Questions Part IV

[HabsRockBruinsChoke]

This is true, LL. It really depends on your perspective. Waterloo is a great school for undergrad program. No argument there. Two of my good friends went there and they are happy with their education. I would say that at the undergrad level, Waterloo trumps McGill to a certain extent , especially if they still have a coop program (McGill has an Honours program though, which sets the table beautifully for grad school). However, McGill has great graduate school, and from my standpoint as a BME, McGill, like U of T and UBC, as well as Western, benefit from their proximity to a top medical school. Make no mistake, biomedical engineering is the fastest-rising area of engineering, due to age demographics as well as the appeal of BME to female students, which doubles the talent pool compared to traditional engineering departments.

When I go to international conferences related to BME, I see a lot of papers from McGill, UBC, Western and to some extent U of T (and nearby hospitals); I hardly ever see papers from Waterloo. This take may reflect my BME bias, but fast-forward 10-15 years, and I believe that this explosive growth will continue, BME will rival Mech Eng and Elec Eng in size and scope, at the least. The result will be that Waterloo sees itself handicapped as an engineering school from their relatively small footprint in this area, partly the result of Kitchener-Waterloo (McMaster) not being in the same league in terms of their medical program as McGill, U of T, UBC and Western and not being so close physically as one integrated campus. There would be a way around that, but Waterloo and McMaster would have to be much more proactive about working together. However, for the most part the grunts there don't speak clinicalese very well, and the docs there don't relate to engineers well enough to make the most of that technical brainpower, in the manner that Western is doing just down the pike.

Edit: on a related note, those of you who are doing engineering, I enthusiastically recommend grad school (Master's or PhD, no matter), if you want to really enjoy your career as well as set yourselves apart (provided that you choose well, based on your real interests). As a bonus, those of you doing BME (which is often a graduate program) will actually have a fairly large number of women in your class.

Too bad they don't take that into consideration when ranking schools... Laurier would be #1 in Canada, and Waterloo would be like #8571873 in the world xD

 

[VirginiaMtlExpat]

Too bad they don't take that into consideration when ranking schools... Laurier would be #1 in Canada, and Waterloo would be like #8571873 in the world xD

Actually, Ecole Polytechnique is not bad either: they have both Industrial Eng and a new undergrad BME program (the latter is hearsay: I had dinner with a prof from Poly at a conf in Stockholm last week, who was telling me about the latter program). Industrial Eng is half-way between traditional engineering disciplines and management, so it traditionally has a strong female contingent, as I remember from doing my Master's there in the early 90s.

I think that I'm close to infringing the babe thread guidelines at this point.

 

[ZARTONK]

Anyone have a class tonight at UQAM?

 

[LyricalLyricist]

This is true, LL. It really depends on your perspective. Waterloo is a great school for undergrad program. No argument there. Two of my good friends went there and they are happy with their education. I would say that at the undergrad level, Waterloo trumps McGill to a certain extent , especially if they still have a coop program (McGill has an Honours program though, which sets the table beautifully for grad school). However, McGill has great graduate school, and from my standpoint as a BME, McGill, like U of T and UBC, as well as Western, benefit from their proximity to a top medical school. Make no mistake, biomedical engineering is the fastest-rising area of engineering, due to age demographics as well as the appeal of BME to female students, which doubles the talent pool compared to traditional engineering departments.

When I go to international conferences related to BME, I see a lot of papers from McGill, UBC, Western and to some extent U of T (and nearby hospitals); I hardly ever see papers from Waterloo. This take may reflect my BME bias, but fast-forward 10-15 years, and I believe that this explosive growth will continue, BME will rival Mech Eng and Elec Eng in size and scope, at the least. The result will be that Waterloo sees itself handicapped as an engineering school from their relatively small footprint in this area, partly the result of Kitchener-Waterloo (McMaster) not being in the same league in terms of their medical program as McGill, U of T, UBC and Western and not being so close physically as one integrated campus. There would be a way around that, but Waterloo and McMaster would have to be much more proactive about working together. However, for the most part the grunts there don't speak clinicalese very well, and the docs there don't relate to engineers well enough to make the most of that technical brainpower, in the manner that Western is doing just down the pike.

Edit: on a related note, those of you who are doing engineering, I enthusiastically recommend grad school (Master's or PhD, no matter), if you want to really enjoy your career as well as set yourselves apart (provided that you choose well, based on your real interests). As a bonus, those of you doing BME (which is often a graduate program) will actually have a fairly large number of women in your class.

McGill's engineering undergrad isn't impressive. In fact I'd argue within Quebec that they aren't really seen differently than the other 3 in terms of mechanical/industrial engineering. In fact I believe Bombardier and Pratt & Whitney, two major aerospace players who hire a lot of mech and indu type of engineers favor any of the other 3.

In fact not only does McGill not have a co-op program for mechanical engineering they also fall as one of the last players in many student-employer opportunities.

Example, CIADI, a major student contractor program had Concordia establish it in 2001, ETS joined in 2004, Poly in 2006 and McGill...in 2010.

Now, maybe their other programs are amazing. I honestly have no idea but from my field they aren't killing it and many managers(in my field) I've had don't really see them any differently than the rest, maybe even worse.

Outside of Quebec the name probably has benefits though.

One good thing about McGill Engineering is essentially what you said, their grad school. They have a fantastic grad school. FWIW, McGill Masters students pay 36k per year as opposed to 4k any UdeM, Concordia, etc... I think it isn't worth the price but if you're being funded from work, scholarship or government bursary then by all means it's an excellent investment.

You're right about BME but McGill also has some other programs that the competition does not such as bioresource(masters only), mining, materials, etc...

One thing that rankings often don't specify is a breakdown at each level. For example, I think doing a undergrad in say mechanical engineering is interchangeable at any of the 4 schools to an extent. Doing a masters is different though, McGill overcharges but if you can afford it you likely get a lot of resources to shine.

Actually, Ecole Polytechnique is not bad either: they have both Industrial Eng and a new undergrad BME program (the latter is hearsay: I had dinner with a prof from Poly at a conf in Stockholm last week, who was telling me about the latter program). Industrial Eng is half-way between traditional engineering disciplines and management, so it traditionally has a strong female contingent, as I remember from doing my Master's there in the early 90s.

I think that I'm close to infringing the babe thread guidelines at this point.

Speaking of which, I'm an Indu Eng. Started in mechanical and I'm super happy I changed it. Really like what I do and I basically have the option of staying in engineering or seamlessly moving into business at will.

On the point of masters, i'll prob ask questions about it soon on this board. Wondering about dual masters, international masters and eng, mba, msc, all that stuff so we'll see.

As for INDU having a large female representation...it depends. My year didn't really show that, but the year before and the year following seem to have a higher portion but still the numbers are below 50%. One that that's interesting to note is many international students do engineering here but many indu females are locals. So in industry you're bound to meet quite a few.

 

[Brainiac]

It's funny that people talk about university rankings AND undergrad programs at the same time.

I've got news for you guys, undergrad doesn't matter. Research does.

I'm not talking about the real world, I'm talking about how the rankings are established.

So yeah, in Canada it's TO, McGill, UBC etc.

You think Stanford or MIT are great because of the undergrad programs?

 

[LyricalLyricist]

It's funny that people talk about university rankings AND undergrad programs at the same time.

I've got news for you guys, undergrad doesn't matter. Research does.

I'm not talking about the real world, I'm talking about how the rankings are established.

So yeah, in Canada it's TO, McGill, UBC etc.

You think Stanford or MIT are great because of the undergrad programs?

Well that was my original statement, that it's based on research although the rankings do say "teaching" is considered. That being said, someone replied saying McGill undergrad was superior than the other montreal schools for...undergrad.

I consider it all the same. McGill must have a sick facility for grad research because they charge a fortune by quebec standards.

FWIW undergrad can be better in some places if the facilities, admissions, staff and funding allow it.

 

[Brainiac]

Well that was my original statement, that it's based on research although the rankings do say "teaching" is considered. That being said, someone replied saying McGill undergrad was superior than the other montreal schools for...undergrad.

And I've got some news for you... it's not.

It's a little sad, but over the last few decades universities just became big corporations whose goal is to pursue government funded research.

I did work at almost all levels : grad student/post-doc, R&D in the private sector, government etc. And universities are the "worst" in terms of corporate thinking.

As an undergrad, they're not there to help you achieve anything in your life, even if you are paying. That's the front. The real objective is to gather as much funding as possible. And yes, any minute you take from a professor is a nuisance towards that goal. I remember when I was a grad student, I sometimes had to fight with my supervisors to justify the time spent doing teaching assignments (instead of research) and, you know, spending some time with the students.

Kids, don't be too hard on your TAs, they don't have it easy.

 

[Kairi Zaide]

Kids, don't be too hard on your TAs, they don't have it easy.

After spending the last year at ULaval in Physics Engineering, all I can say is that TAs were considered heroes.

 

[VirginiaMtlExpat]

And I've got some news for you... it's not.

It's a little sad, but over the last few decades universities just became big corporations whose goal is to pursue government funded research.

I did work at almost all levels : grad student/post-doc, R&D in the private sector, government etc. And universities are the "worst" in terms of corporate thinking.

As an undergrad, they're not there to help you achieve anything in your life, even if you are paying. That's the front. The real objective is to gather as much funding as possible. And yes, any minute you take from a professor is a nuisance towards that goal. I remember when I was a grad student, I sometimes had to fight with my supervisors to justify the time spent doing teaching assignments (instead of research) and, you know, spending some time with the students.

Kids, don't be too hard on your TAs, they don't have it easy.

That's a little harsh. Some profs prefer research, while others enjoy lecturing more. I can honestly say that I am much more research-oriented than my colleagues in my department. Some of them, who are tenured, almost never write a proposal, and they have very few grad students working with them. For the most part, they would rather teach. I enjoy teaching, but I get energized by the research much more. Writing proposals (envisioning future research) is the part of the job I like the most: it is a bihemispheric, whole-brain exercise, requiring creativity to envision new solutions, persuasive writing, and rigorous understanding of the underlying science.

I view teaching partly as a means to an end: making tenure as well as recruiting students to do research with me, but I'm also proud of my role in building a unique workforce and mentoring students (I teach computer simulation, with an emphasis on medical simulation: every kid coming out of my program is garanteed a job, in fact several offers...). You might counter though that I'm still new at this, and there is time for me to become jaded...

 

[Brainiac]

I view teaching partly as a means to an end: making tenure as well as recruiting students to do research with me, but I'm also proud of my role in building a unique workforce (I teach computer simulation, with an emphasis on medical simulation: every kid coming out of my program is garanteed a job, in fact several offers...).

And you know what? You sound just like a used car dealer. Not saying you're one, just saying you sound like one. Fits very well with the guy in your avatar, actually.

 

[VirginiaMtlExpat]

And you know what? You sound just like a used car dealer. Not saying you're one, just saying you sound like one.

Being cynical is the easiest thing in the world to do. Cynics, or so-called "realists", who really have a negative bias that masquerades as neutrality, are a dime a dozen.

My closest friends, academics and clinicians for the most part, as well as my wife, have the tremendous characteristic that they have cultivated their enthusiasm and ability to marvel... at virtually anything. They are the opposite of jaded and cynical, by and large. It's one of the reasons I chose my wife (apart from her looks... and I've dated many women before marrying at 41!), and it's a quality of my friends that I value the most, and which I like to think I have in common with them. It's also the reason why I plan to keep working into my 70s and if possible, 80s and 90s (I plan to live a long time); I will keep doing both, lecturing and research (and managing a start-up...), irrespective of how it looks to cynics. Life is too short to do otherwise.

Edit: I chose the avatar because I am a contrarian on many levels, including virtually any discussion on hockey.
Edit2: My department is unique in the US (perhaps global) academic system, the only one of its kind to offer a Bachelor's degree dedicated to computer simulation, in addition to graduate degrees; we are pursuing ABET accreditation currently. Currently graduating classes are small, but in fact every kid fields multiple offers, partly because my geographical area has a strong footprint in simulation due to DoD, and many companies are clamoring for this type of expertise. The cars are flying off the lot .

 

[Brainiac]

Being cynical is the easiest thing in the world to do. Cynics, or so-called "realists", who really have a negative bias that masquerades as neutrality, are a dime a dozen.

Hey man, I'm with you there. I do think exactly like you do.

But it's easy to talk from the ivory tower that is tenure. When you do research for 10+ years with no safety net, you do get a little more realistic about the whole thing.

 

[VirginiaMtlExpat]

Hey man, I'm with you there. I do think exactly like you do.

But it's easy to talk from the ivory tower that is tenure. When you do research for 10+ years with no safety net, you do get a little more realistic about the whole thing.

That's why I jumped when I had the chance! I have massive industrial experience prior to becoming a prof: flight simulation, welding automation, neurosurgical navigation (it was said that I could weld someone's brain while landing a 747), years of post-doc research, and 3 years working for a company that produces open-source software. That's also why I take nothing for granted and enjoy myself every day, even though I also am not sure of making tenure. I'm not worried: my best will be good enough, but by the same token, doing less than my best won't cut it: I've no choice but to work my *ss off, while still enjoying myself. I bike to work, year-round, with a big smile on my face.

Edit: I also find that Canada treats its researchers badly. There are relatively few universities, many of them are fairly poor from a financial standpoint, and for the most part that translates into conservative hiring practices. I would keep looking and widen the scope of my search, if I were you. I have some friends back home in a similar situation.

 

[Brainiac]

That's why I jumped when I had the chance! I have massive industrial experience prior to becoming a prof: flight simulation, welding automation, neurosurgical navigation (it was said that I could weld someone's brain while landing a 747),

So... you're a car dealer with tenure...

 

[VirginiaMtlExpat]

So... you're a car dealer with tenure...

Not yet. My tenure review is up in 3 years. I'm tenure-track, so I have to fidget until then, or rather, make things happen from a publications and funding standpoint. And I do, I am a BME with a broad scientific outlook and my identity as a professor is... the homeless guy pushing his shopping cart, rummaging through garbage cans for... open-source and contributed software (vtk.org, itk.org, cgal.org, thevirtualbrain.org, simtk.org, sofa-framework.org, nipy.org/dipy, slicer.org) to empower his students. I'm the tenure-track robineux.

 

[Brainiac]

Edit: I also find that Canada treats its researchers badly. There are relatively few universities, many of them are fairly poor from a financial standpoint, and for the most part that translates into conservative hiring practices.

And you have no idea how bad it is.... really

I'm sort of over it at this point, but it is bad. It's really crippling.

 

[Brainiac]

Not yet. My tenure review is up in 3 years. I'm tenure-track, so I have to fidget until then, or rather, make things happen from a publications and funding standpoint. And I do, I am a BME with a broad scientific outlook and my identity as a professor is... the homeless guy pushing his shopping cart, rummaging through garbage cans for... open-source and contributed software (vtk.org, itk.org, cgal.org, thevirtualbrain.org, simtk.org, sofa-framework.org, nipy.org/dipy, slicer.org) to empower his students. I'm the tenure-track robineux.

And see what I mean there? You are part of a corporation that does government funded research and nothing else. They even convinced you that your situation is OK because it's better than being homeless. Way to go, buddy.

Teaching the young guys/gals has absolutely nothing to do with what you're being told to do.

 

[VirginiaMtlExpat]

And you have no idea how bad it is.... really .

Umm. I had interviews at Western, Ottawa, Université de Montreal and Polytechnique, all to no avail (all for a variety of reasons), and I did not get any interest from UBC and McGill, probably more... I've lost count (and not mentioning the US schools that were non-starters...). This is why I am a still the Expat, albeit of a different flavor after Japan and Germany, but thriving in the US. You may still have one or two lottery tickets that you don't know about, but you probably need to claim them outside Canada. The hallmark of successful people, in any walk of life, is overcoming obstacles that they view as minor and temporary.

 

[DAChampion]

It's funny that people talk about university rankings AND undergrad programs at the same time.

I've got news for you guys, undergrad doesn't matter. Research does.

I'm not talking about the real world, I'm talking about how the rankings are established.

So yeah, in Canada it's TO, McGill, UBC etc.

You think Stanford or MIT are great because of the undergrad programs?

Stanford and MIT are great places for undergrad.

 

[Brainiac]

Stanford and MIT are great places for undergrad.

And even better for research.

Undergrad is treated like collateral damage, if I may say.

 

[Brainiac]

Umm. I had interviews at Western, Ottawa, Université de Montreal and Polytechnique, all to no avail (all for a variety of reasons), and I did not get any interest from UBC and McGill, probably more... I've lost count (and not mentioning the US schools that were non-starters...). This is why I am a still the Expat, albeit of a different flavor after Japan and Germany, but thriving in the US. You may still have one or two lottery tickets that you don't know about, but you probably need to claim them outside Canada. The hallmark of successful people, in any walk of life, is overcoming obstacles that they view as minor and temporary.

As I said, I'm totally with you there. But I'm sort of over it so I don't really care that much.

I just think the whole system is ridiculous. Not in the way it works. I'm all for government funded research. Let's do more of that if we can afford it.

I just find it hypocritical when it's presented as "education".

 

[DAChampion]

Research is of greater fundamental importance than undergraduate education, but regardless of that, it betters undergraduate education. If you're serious about learning you'll benefit from having world leaders around. If you're one of those people who hates classes and whines about too many readings, then it's wasted on you regardless and the whole discussion is moot.

 

[Brainiac]

Research is of greater fundamental importance than undergraduate education, but regardless of that, it betters undergraduate education. If you're serious about learning you'll benefit from having world leaders around. If you're one of those people who hates classes and whines about too many readings, then it's wasted on you regardless and the whole discussion is moot.

OK now, I'm going to bed soon, it's 1AM, FFS.

The naivety in your post makes me want to cry... and then laugh... and then cry again... and I'm not joking here.

 

[DAChampion]

OK now, I'm going to bed soon, it's 1AM, FFS.

The naivety in your post makes me want to cry... and then laugh... and then cry again... and I'm not joking here.

Not naivete, wisdom. Let me know if you need something clarified.

I've been through the school system, one cegep, then one university where I had three majors at various points, then another university for graduate schools. When l finished my PhD I was ranked one of the top ~8 among the hundreds who finished that year. Now I'm in a different university in a third country for a prestigious postdoc.

I have a very strong understanding of the system. The biggest problem, no doubt, is the low maturity and low aptitude of the continent's 18 year olds.

If you come out of McGill or UdeM with nothing to show for it, then you *probably* need to look in the mirror.

Exceptions include if you got r'aped, had a medical problem, or were financially very poor during school.

 

[LyricalLyricist]

Not naivete, wisdom. Let me know if you need something clarified.

I've been through the school system, one cegep, then one university where I had three majors at various points, then another university for graduate schools. When l finished my PhD I was ranked one of the top ~8 among the hundreds who finished that year. Now I'm in a different university in a third country for a prestigious postdoc.

I have a very strong understanding of the system. The biggest problem, no doubt, is the low maturity and low aptitude of the continent's 18 year olds.

If you come out of McGill or UdeM with nothing to show for it, then you *probably* need to look in the mirror.

Exceptions include if you got r'aped, had a medical problem, or were financially very poor during school.

FWIW, if you come out of an accredited engineering major in canada and have nothing to show for it there's a problem. Doesn't need to be highly ranked.

Edit: I'd say the same for most business programs. You can easily get a career with either even if it's not your favorite job ever.

FWIW you have a very top down approach, not really my thing but I can respect it. As you said you went through the system and have developed a perspective based on what you've seen. I feel slightly different, I feel if you want better grad students you gotta make better undergrads. That comes with teachers not researchers.

At end of the day research is the basis in which they are evaluated as individuals and as an organization. I'm not convinced it's fundamentally more important to research than it is to teach. For every student who doesn't go to grad school they end up working in industry and collectively their impact is greater.

I'm not dissing grad research btw. I've stated several times I'm looking to do it.