Re: universities in Canada
This would take some research to figure out if it is worthwhile. It's been 15 years since I graduated from McGill. When I started they were still under a tuition freeze -- I paid 900 bucks a semester for my degree. The year after I graduated they introduced tiered tuition -- Canadian residents pay one fee, Quebec residents another, US residents another, and foreigners from elsewhere another. Graduate programmes have been semi-privatised, ie they don't receive as many subsidies from government so they charge higher tuition fees.
UofT (Toronto) has historically been the most expensive tuition-wise. UBC as one of the posters mentioned is gorgeous but cost of living is high -- although if you live as a student either in rez or shared basement site it's doable. What offsets the cost of tuition/living is work opportunities in the summer. Even if it's not lab work, you could do the traditional student jobs like tree-planting -- if you're good you can earn us$10k or more in a summer. Back breaking work, but I know a lot of people who put themselves through university doing it.
I did my undergrad at McGill (3 years) then graduate at Tufts (art history, nothing too impressive
-- I chose Tufts based on a balance of lower tuition fees than some of the other schools I had applied to, reputation of professors, opportunities to take classes at Harvard, MIT, Boston U and Boston College, and location.
"theargie"'s post brought back a few memories from my grad programme -- I had done a 3 year degree at one of the top schools in Canada and in my programme were students from some good US schools (not Ivies, but next tier down). Yet when it came to comprehensive exams, despite my year less of study, I had no problems with the exams -- compared to the others I barely had to study because all of my fundamentals were there, whereas some of the other students had to fill in gaps in their studies in order to be able to complete the exams.
What I guess I'm saying is that although we all look to the USA as being a great bastion of education, it really comes down to what you make of it. Sometimes the mid-level schools are no more worthwhile than a school in your own country. MIT, Harvard etc might be a different story, but as mentioned somewhere above, those degrees might open the door to the interview, but it's you that has to impress.
A lot of people I know, including myself obviously, have the belief that if money is an issue, you're better off to do your undergrad at home and invest your money in a foreign graduate degree (USA / UK / EU etc)
I know 7 years is a long haul -- but I only did 3 years undergrad, and sometimes I think had I done longer I wouldn't have thrown my money into the graduate degree, I probably would have figured out what I actually wanted to do with my life first -- might have ended up down an entirely different path.
My mention of the EU brings another thought to mind -- I've never researched it, but if you have Spanish citizenship, would studying in Spain not be an option? I know job-wise it's terrible there right now, but perhaps there you'd be able to get a good combo of shorter study, decent tuition fees, foreign experience, and possibly entry into a fantastic European or American graduate programme afterwards.
This would take some research to figure out if it is worthwhile. It's been 15 years since I graduated from McGill. When I started they were still under a tuition freeze -- I paid 900 bucks a semester for my degree. The year after I graduated they introduced tiered tuition -- Canadian residents pay one fee, Quebec residents another, US residents another, and foreigners from elsewhere another. Graduate programmes have been semi-privatised, ie they don't receive as many subsidies from government so they charge higher tuition fees.
UofT (Toronto) has historically been the most expensive tuition-wise. UBC as one of the posters mentioned is gorgeous but cost of living is high -- although if you live as a student either in rez or shared basement site it's doable. What offsets the cost of tuition/living is work opportunities in the summer. Even if it's not lab work, you could do the traditional student jobs like tree-planting -- if you're good you can earn us$10k or more in a summer. Back breaking work, but I know a lot of people who put themselves through university doing it.
I did my undergrad at McGill (3 years) then graduate at Tufts (art history, nothing too impressive
-- I chose Tufts based on a balance of lower tuition fees than some of the other schools I had applied to, reputation of professors, opportunities to take classes at Harvard, MIT, Boston U and Boston College, and location."theargie"'s post brought back a few memories from my grad programme -- I had done a 3 year degree at one of the top schools in Canada and in my programme were students from some good US schools (not Ivies, but next tier down). Yet when it came to comprehensive exams, despite my year less of study, I had no problems with the exams -- compared to the others I barely had to study because all of my fundamentals were there, whereas some of the other students had to fill in gaps in their studies in order to be able to complete the exams.
What I guess I'm saying is that although we all look to the USA as being a great bastion of education, it really comes down to what you make of it. Sometimes the mid-level schools are no more worthwhile than a school in your own country. MIT, Harvard etc might be a different story, but as mentioned somewhere above, those degrees might open the door to the interview, but it's you that has to impress.
A lot of people I know, including myself obviously, have the belief that if money is an issue, you're better off to do your undergrad at home and invest your money in a foreign graduate degree (USA / UK / EU etc)
I know 7 years is a long haul -- but I only did 3 years undergrad, and sometimes I think had I done longer I wouldn't have thrown my money into the graduate degree, I probably would have figured out what I actually wanted to do with my life first -- might have ended up down an entirely different path.
My mention of the EU brings another thought to mind -- I've never researched it, but if you have Spanish citizenship, would studying in Spain not be an option? I know job-wise it's terrible there right now, but perhaps there you'd be able to get a good combo of shorter study, decent tuition fees, foreign experience, and possibly entry into a fantastic European or American graduate programme afterwards.
