[marios_mar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davie Berkeley, spent a summer there myself (sigh). Actually if there were one place I would want to go to school it would be Berkeley. The University itself is top notch. The town is beautiful and cosmpolitan. It never snows. You're just a hop away from San Francisco on the BART, close by to the Pacific, Marin County, Napa and the wine country. The place is filled with great restaurants, cafes, bookstores. Fabulous music scene, tons of smart and interesting people around. I'm changing my advice to mario_mar: go to Berkeley!! Edit. Or maybe Stanford. A Spanish friend of mine went there as a post-doc, and his words to me about it were "It's paradise! No, I'm not kidding: it's literally paradise."

You guys! I am planning to go study. Sure its nice to live in a nice environtment but basically you go there to work. The place will not affect my decision more than the academics. But I sure dont want to go to IOWA...



To answer your question I am interested in CANADA more as it seems that the unis there are not as strict with deadline dates as in the US.

In the US its too late to apply for earlier than JAN 2006. I could not have planned 12 months earlier or so. I just finished. In contrast to CANADA in the US they require those GRE tests that are not difficult at all but I have not taken them and I dont have time to. Also CANADA is cheaper as it seems, my father has done his PhD in CANADA as well.

Anyhow I am also VERY SERIOUSLY considering Germany as an option for my PhD.

It is only a 2.5 hours flight whereas CANADA is like 10-12 h and it is more attractive as a place to live in. It is also in the EU which makes it good for many reasons I will not expand at (academic and professional as well as social)


I want to keep all my options open!

 

[marios_mar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davie Universities in the US have traditionally been *full* of foreign students who have contributed a great deal to our educational system and have also benefited alot by transferring what they learn to their home countries.

For this particular point:

You think many of the top students ever go back to their countries? They have better oppurtunities in the US for jobs and a better life so they usually stay there...

 

[dffman2001]

Quote:

Originally Posted by marios_mar Toronto is beautiful!!! So is Montreal and Vancouver. I have carefully selected out of the 8-10 universities I had pre-selected the final 4 I am thinking of applying at. I made my choices based on the research carried out at those iniversities. University of Waterloo (Waterloo, Ontario) University of Alberta (Edmonton, Ontario) University of Concordia (Montreal, Quebec) Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, BC) I have been told though that international students tend to cost too much to the university (since they have to be paid higher financial aids because their fees are higher than those for locals and the university will pay this difference to the international students). What do you say. You think international graduate students are not very likely to study in such universities?

All these schools are well known and excellent places of learning. Canadian univerisites usually have a large foreign population, especially in the larger ones. Note that Simon Fraser, UA, and Concordia are situated in a large cities while waterloo is in a town several hours out of Toronto.
Also, Edmonton is not in Ontario, it's about 4 hours flight west in Alberta.

Interesting that you have chosen these universities because I dont really see what research they have in common. Waterloo is particularly famous for high tech industries; it has the highest hiring rate to microsoft and other software tech companies. UA is big on biological research, and Concordia is more on the arts, iirc. What are you planning on studying?

 

[marios_mar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dffman2001 All these schools are well known and excellent places of learning. Canadian univerisites usually have a large foreign population, especially in the larger ones. Note that Simon Fraser, UA, and Concordia are situated in a large cities while waterloo is in a town several hours out of Toronto. Also, Edmonton is not in Ontario, it's about 4 hours flight west in Alberta. Interesting that you have chosen these universities because I dont really see what research they have in common. Waterloo is particularly famous for high tech industries; it has the highest hiring rate to microsoft and other software tech companies. UA is big on biological research, and Concordia is more on the arts, iirc. What are you planning on studying?

Yes I know Edmonton is in Alberta. I wrote it by mistake.

chemistry, analytical.

 

[Fizzmix]

Well maybe I'll see you at U of A next year! If you see a guy walking around with some Etymotics ER-4Ps, or *hopefully* some UE-10s, feel free to say hi, we can talk headphones over some Subway.

 

[marios_mar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fizzmix Well maybe I'll see you at U of A next year! If you see a guy walking around with some Etymotics ER-4Ps, or *hopefully* some UE-10s, feel free to say hi, we can talk headphones over some Subway.

well I hope whatever I finally do is good and I go to someplace good!

 

[swalker]

Just one word of caution... Waterloo is notorious for its, err, lack of female population and having spent 3 years there, I absolutely agree with that. If that matters at all anyway

Otherwise, the school's decent and Toronto is reasonably close (2 hours or less by bus) so at least you have somewhere to escape when you get bored. I was told by my students in grad programs that the Canadian schools are very under-funded compared to the USA uni's, but I don't really know too well about the issue to comment any further.